Daily Comic Book Mission #032: Conan the Barbarian #98

Alright, is everyone ready for your daily comic book mission? Conan the Barbarian Issue Number 98 titled… Sea-Woman! Spelled like it sounds. Sea Woman. Hey, what's Sea Woman's favorite video game?

Anyone? That's right. Sea Man on the Sega Dreamcast. If you know, you know. Hey, you know what time it is?

It's beer o'clock because this is your daily mandatory required reading suggestion. Well, it's a mandatory suggestion.

Tastes like adventure. Crom laughs at your stupid four wins. But he does not laugh at beer, because beer is very good. Even Crom appreciates beer.

All right. Where was I? It's an iron city in case you're wondering. I was going to do a bigger IPA because I think an IPA compliments Conan really well that pairs well with Conan the Barbarian, but I'm also going to record part of the next podcast after this. So I have to at least remember my own name. So an Iron City is a lot lighter. I'm just going to stick with an iron city.

So I can talk about Conan issue 98, which has this beautiful blue cover. It's a really striking issue. And on the front of the cover it says, see which is she maid or monster? That's kind of sexist, isn't it? I mean, why would we assume she's a maid? She could be a very successful accountant or a tax attorney. You don't know. I guess that wouldn't roll off the tongue as nicely on the cover. Is she tax attorney or a monster? I mean, she is blue.

She's kind of slimy and looks provocative and there's a shark circling her so all of the warning flags are going off here like just stay away from this one. But of course then it would be a boring comic book. The crew of the Tigress rescues this strange blue woman floating in the middle of the ocean. And Belit is in this issue, so issue 98, it's one of the last issues with Belit, who's Conan's longtime girlfriend.

And Belit is immediately jealous because Belit gets jealous of every woman. And this time she's right though. She's like, we should just pass this crazy woman by who's just standing on a lily pad in the middle of the ocean and let her drown. But Conan and the crew were like, no, let's save her. It's fine.

And then, you know, she's mute. She can't speak. But as the issue progresses one by one, we know she's weird because, well, she's blue.

One by one, the crew starts to vanish and she tries to seduce Conan and almost kisses him, but Conan's like, no, I'm in love with Belit and also Belit will kill me if I hook up with you. But Conan does witness her dive into the ocean and she lures one of the crew to save her and she kisses this guy in the middle of the ocean and then drowns him. And Conan's like, you're a witch, I knew it, but she starts to sing to him in this silent voice that only he can hear.

She lures Conan into the water, but Conan's fighting this. He's holding a knife in his mouth and this is a John Buscema issue, so the artwork is just fabulous. Conan leaps into the water, clutching this knife in his teeth. He goes to stab her, she's basically hammering him with magic and kisses him and then he's like tripping in the middle of the water. So Belit comes out on deck and starts shouting Conan's name and pulls him out of it.

There's this great fight scene in the water where Conan can't stab her. Oh look, and there's also an ad for Hostess fruit pies. Mm, that's my weakness. Not blue women, Hostess fruit pies. Especially cherry flavored. There's no peach in this one, just apple and cherry. On the back cover there's an ad for some sweet Battlestar Galactica t-shirts. I absolutely 100% wear every one of those, so I'm going to cut this coupon out. 4.99, that's a deal.

Get myself some t-shirts and you need to get yourself issue number 98 because the ending is really good. It's kind of a weird issue, it's a little different and that makes it a lot of fun. We've got the Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Ernie Chan team here, George Roussos doing colors. It's just a really good looking issue. It's a little different from the norm, doesn't cost all that much so you can easily pick this one up and that's why it's your mandatory suggested reading. Conan the Barbarian issue number 98.

Oh, and there's a maze in here. Hey kids, have as much fun in Fruit Stripe Land as you do chewing Fruit Stripe Gum, which I can only associate with Beastie Boys songs. Conan issue 98. Enjoy. Happy reading.