Daily Comic Book Mission #012: King Conan #5

Welcome back to ComicBook.beer for your Daily Comic Book Mission, and today we’re taking it way back to 1981, where your required reading is King Conan issue number five. We’re gonna jump into issue number five here, which is the first part of a three-part story arc where Conan’s wife, Queen Zenobia, is kidnapped by a horrible monster, and Conan goes off in search of her. So that’s what these three issues are about. And this is the first one.

It’s got a terrible cover, though. It’s Conan strangling a pink monster that looks like a Sasquatch but with like Gigan’s scissor hands or something. It’s weird. Not the best cover, but it’s a good issue.

And the King Conan series is fascinating because in 1980, Conan had three comic book series published by Marvel Comics, all at the same time. So even after Star Wars changed the game with science fiction, Conan’s still going strong with fantasy. And we had the Conan the Barbarian series, which was like the main series, lasted forever. Then there was the awesome Savage Sword of Conan series, which might be my favorite, with black-and-white artwork. John Buscema did a lot of it. Gil Kane was in there. A bunch of artists contributed to it, but it was not approved by the Comics Code, so The Savage Sword of Conan had nudity and, like extra violence. It was great. And then in 1980, Marvel comes along and releases the King Conan series, which is Conan, but he’s King of Aquilonia, and he’s like, older and has kids. And it kind of sounds like an afterthought. Like really, did you need a third one?

But the first like 15 or maybe the first two years of King Conan, the first year and a half of King Conan were really good. It’s kind of like we just got more of a good thing, really, especially when the A-team was doing it with Roy Thomas and John Buscema. And here on issue five, we’ve got Roy Thomas doing the writing and John Buscema, the incredible illustrator. Though Ernie Chan does not do the inking in this one. It’s Danny Bulanadi who’s also excellent. So it’s a really good-looking issue. King Conan number five.

 Conan’s on an adventure, he’s kind of sad, and his teenage son, Conn, is with him, not spelled like Wrath of Khan, but C-O-N-N. He’s talking with one of Conan’s advisors, Trocero, and Trocero’s like, “Let me tell you a tale of Conan and his youth, like 15 years ago when he was still king.” So it was like after Conan the Barbarian wenching his way through Aquilonia, he’s just king of Aquilonia, but younger, and his queen, and I guess Conn mom, is kidnapped by a flying monster. Conan screams and yells a Cimmerian war cry.

And he goes off in search of her by himself. Now, Conan’s many enemies discover this, considering he’s killed like half of the continent. He has lots of enemies. They ambush him. He kills all of them, which gives Buscema a chance to draw a sweet action scene where Conan just annihilates like seven bad guys in a bar. And then he eventually finds his wizard friend, who helps to guide him in the direction of the other wizard who kidnapped his wife, and then he gives him a ring, and the ring is like a test. It’s like the pain box from Dune, except instead of just burning his hand off, it sends him into another realm where he has to fight this ridiculous monster that looks like a cross between a Sasquatch and Gigan from the Godzilla series. It’s got pincer hands, and it’s pink, and it’s like… it’s almost comical. It’s on the cover, which is why the cover just looks ridiculous, but…

He defeats this monster, and of course, he wins the ring, but we don’t know what the ring does yet. Anyway, that’s the quick synopsis of King Conan issue number five. Your mandatory, you absolutely must read, the King Conan series. Go get issue five, it’s great. You can also need six and seven. In fact, I would recommend just buying one through fifteen. It’s not gonna cost you much. And there’s a lot of Conan reading, and they’re really dense. I think at first they tried to just pack these full of artwork and like just a lot of text blocks. And then later on, they got kind of sloppy with it all. But King Conan issue number five, quality read, 1981. Your Daily Comic Book Mission. And there’s even some ads in here for Hostess cupcakes and Monogram model kits with the Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am, the Firebird. So, King Conan issue number five. See you next time on Daily Comic Book Mission. By Crom, it’s awesome.