Daily Comic Book Mission #040: Conan the Barbarian #99

Welcome back to your daily comic book mission, your favorite time of the day. This is the highlight of your day, every day. This is the best moment of your day. It doesn’t get any better than this, especially when I’m bringing it back to 1979, Conan the Barbarian issue number 99. The cover of this issue promises Conan and Bêlit alone against the man‑crabs of the Dark Cliffs. You had me at man‑crabs, honestly. I mean, that sounds weird when I say it out loud like that, but the inside of the issue is titled Devil Crabs of the Dark Cliffs, though this could have been called Conan and Bêlit Visit the All‑You‑Can‑Eat Crab Buffet at Red Lobster.

This is the last issue, for those who are interested, this is the last issue featuring Bêlit in its entirety. She—well, I don’t want to give things away, although the cover of issue number 100 sort of does give it away. Death on the Black Coast, and Bêlit is dead on the cover because she eventually dies in issue number 100. I’ll talk about that later, but this is the last full issue with Bêlit. So whether you like her or not, Roy Thomas does the writing on this and I feel like he was really amping up her greed and selfish nature.

She was always jealous too. She was super jealous in issue 98 of the blue sea lady that kills everybody. And in this issue she’s just greedy, and we’re getting the sense that Conan has to work overtime to keep her on track. She’s a pirate, but it seems like she’s losing a little bit of common sense here in her old age of probably 23 or however old she is. I don’t know. They’re sailing on the Tigris once again, and they’re way south, which I guess is not a normal thing for them to do. They’re really far south and there are these big spooky cliffs, and she spots this Argosian vessel moored in the cliffs. That’s weird. It shouldn’t be there.

So they investigate it and the bodies are all ripped up and torn to shreds and there are jewels scattered about that come from the other side of the world. This is all very suspicious and Conan’s like, yeah, okay, this is weird, maybe we should go. And she’s like, no, there’s more treasure to be found. She can never get enough treasure, this girl. Maybe she should stop gambling or investing in crypto or something. Where does all the money go. She never buys any new clothes. She’s always wearing the same—what do we call that—a bearskin mini‑skirt with a belt and fancy boots. I mean, it’s not a bad getup.

But anyway, she spots some evidence on the ship that amid all the carnage there could have been more treasure, and she just wants more treasure. So they’re going to investigate these obviously dangerous cliffs. Conan and Bêlit climb up the cliffs and what they discover is this weird race of man‑crabs living in the cliffs. They have the treasure, but they’ve also got a bunch of sailors held captive in prison cells, the crew of this Argosian vessel. And Bêlit’s like, screw them, I want the treasure. And Conan’s like, no, even though these are my enemies, I’m not going to let these humans be tortured by these weird crab people.

So Conan has to talk Bêlit into doing the right thing and saving these people. And Bêlit’s like, fine, but only if I get my treasure. He should push her out the window. Anyway, to make things even better with this issue, the crabs are telepathic and they’re messing with the sailors’ minds. Conan and Bêlit spring these guys, but Bêlit’s like, we’re not leaving until we get all the treasure. They try to carry the treasure out but then the man‑crabs attack them. Conan’s having difficulty fighting them with a sword because their telepathic nature means they can sense what he’s doing and they’re always one step ahead of him.

So what does Conan do. He goes full barbarian rage and starts crushing them and ripping off their limbs and it’s awesome. In the end, they defeat these things by literally smashing them with rocks in this geothermal formation and then boiling them alive. And they don’t even eat them. Come on, all these crabs. And then Conan has to twist Bêlit’s arm to even share the treasure with these poor sailors who were being tormented for years by these telepathic crab monsters.

It’s a funny issue. I’m kind of indifferent to Bêlit’s character. I think it’s funnier when Conan is out boozing and wenching freely, but any fans of the original Conan stories know that Bêlit eventually dies, and that is issue 100. But I feel like the last couple issues wrapped up this story arc where she finally returns to her homeland and she’s offered the crown, but she turns it down because she just wants to continue being a pirate, doing stupid things trying to get all this treasure that she apparently just loses in the couch cushions. I don’t know what she does with it. Maybe she’s got some serious student debt and piracy—you know, how many years do you have to go to school to be a pirate. Is there postgraduate work. You could be looking at seven figures, so yeah, that could take a lot of her treasure. These are stories for another time.

What if Bêlit was strangled by student debt. Would she take unnecessary risks fighting telepathic man‑crabs. Of course she would. And she would also sail down obviously haunted, poisonous rivers filled with monsters, but that does prove to be her undoing. Until then, enjoy the last full issue, the last issue where Bêlit is alive at the beginning and the end. Conan the Barbarian number 99. I just love the whole telepathic crab thing.

And as much of a barbarian moron as Conan is, I like that when things really go down he tends to do the right thing, and maybe that’s why we like Conan. He didn’t have to save his enemies, but he did. He didn’t have to not eat the crab people, but he didn’t. What does that say about Conan—that he just doesn’t like crabs. I don’t really like crabs all that much either. Crab cakes are pretty good, but that seems like it would have taken more time and effort to make crab cakes out of them. They would have been giant crab cakes. Telepathic man‑crab cakes.

Crab cakes. They know what you’re thinking while you eat them with a delicious dipping sauce. I’ll see you tomorrow in your next daily comic book mission from ComicBook.beer. Don’t forget to subscribe. I’m going to telepathically use my telepathic crab powers to probe your mind and make you click the subscribe button. And unlike those other horrible platforms, I won’t unsubscribe you for no particular reason. You will be subscribed until the end of time. It’ll be the year one trillion and the universe will have stopped functioning, but you’ll still be getting email updates about your daily comic book mission.