Publisher: Titan Comics
Writer: Jim Zub
Artist: Danica Brine
Color Artist: Jao Canola
Release Date: 19th February 2025

For those fans of Jim Zub who have enjoyed his previous penmanship on various Dungeons & Dragons titles over the years, his quest-like storyline for issue eighteen of Conan The Barbarian will doubtless prove a rather fun reading experience as it contains a strong mix of thievery, magic hand-weapons, treachery and a fanatical priest who suddenly turns into a super-strong serpent man. However, for those die-hard followers of Robert E. Howard’s titular character, this comic’s twenty-two page plot is arguably packed full of inconsistent characteristics, utter stupidity and good fortune bordering on the incredulous; “After a few close calls, they return to the Tigress. In their absence the crew has restocked the shop and made minor repairs.”

For openers, the Canadian author appears to have turned both Belit and her heavily-muscled lover into a pair of far-too-trusting buffoons, who readily ally themselves to a young robber who was literally just moments earlier attempting to murder them in cold blood. This unbelievable bond is then made all the more unconvincing when Tarnasha starts telling the Pirate Queen of the Black Coast what ‘minor’ role the Shemite is to play in the attempted theft, and begins openly flirting with Conan right before the marauder’s eyes. Such insolent behaviour would surely never have been tolerated by “the only woman in a ship with an all-male pirate crew”, and disconcertingly suggests that the art professor at Toronto’s Seneca College was simply scrambling around for a reason to justify Belit’s subsequent lateness to the botched burglary.

Possibly even worse though, is Zub’s writing concerning the central Cimmerian, who unwisely decides to tackle a huge, scale-encrusted Stygian with just his bare hands, rather than slay the snake-like man-monster with a straightforward sword thrust from behind. This physical encounter unsurprisingly goes very badly for the Conan, and results in artist Danica Brine having to pencil the heavily outmatched barbarian being viciously stabbed in the belly by the very double-bladed dagger he was attempting to steal. So savage a deep wound would surely kill, or at very least render immobile, any other human being. Yet this book’s highly unlikely narrative desperately attempts to suggest that the adventurer is able to shrug off the life-threatening injury, as well as the resultant massive loss of blood which betrays his every footstep, to the point where he valiantly yomps back across the length of Kyros to his partner’s ship for this tale’s all-too sudden ending.

The writer of this piece was: Simon Moore
Simon Tweets from @Blaxkleric ‏
You can read more of his reviews at The Brown Bag