Daily Comic Book Mission #004: Conan the Barbarian #39

Alright, is everyone ready for your Daily Comic Book Mission?

[Beer cracking open sound on the microphone. Pours into glass.]

Checkpoint.

Going with a cold Iron City beer. It's what some of us might call Yinzer Fuel. I don't think anybody calls it that except me, maybe. I just made it up.

Iron City's really grown on me over the last couple years. The comic book we're talking about today, and by we I mean, you're not drinking alone when you're drinking with Conan the Barbarian. Let's just say that. Man of Steel, giant pussy compared to Conan. Okay. Conan the Barbarian, issue number 39 is your Daily Comic Book Mission, taking it way back to 1974 with The Dragon from the Inland Sea. I'm breaking my sequence here. This is the issue I was just reading, so it's fresh in my mind. And it's a great issue of Conan the Barbarian.

I would say this is really Conan in his prime. When I say that, I mean like the whole creative team. We've just got like the best of the best of the Conan team here. Roy Thomas, writer and editor. John Buscema, who's, I mean just, the more of his work that I read, like I just can't believe, like he was human. Like, incredible artist. And I didn't realize how long he drew Conan the Barbarian. It was like a decade he drew this series, more or less, on and off. Uh, Glynis Wein, colorist. The colors look great. And John Costanza, the letterer. All the letters. I think they all kind of look the same. I hate to say that. Is that demeaning, the letters? I don't mean it. My handwriting sucks. I can't even read my own handwriting, so. I do appreciate that these issues are nice and legible, but this one's a lot of fun. Because it opens with Conan just riding through the mountains on his way, I forget where he's going here, he's a region northwest of Agrafur, and he's on his way to Zamora. Okay, good, that's good to know. And there's a bunch of thieves that surround him in the mountains. I know you can't see this, because this uh is Radio Hans, not television, but...

If you know, know.

There's a great shot here where they're just like threatening him and he's just like, no seriously you don't don't want to fuck with me. He just looks like a hulk, and they're like, yeah, but we really do. We want to we want to rob you. So what does Conan the Barbarian do? He kills every single one of them. And the action scene is just this... like I said, this is just really that this peak era of Conan. It's just a great action scene where he murders all of them, and one tries to get away. The horse breaks its leg and the guy starts, he runs away on foot, and Conan just throws a knife at his back. And he has to kill the horse. You feel, basically, we feel worse for the horse than the bad guys that he just murdered. But then he gets bit by a snake, and he like passes out. And he wakes up and there's, he's been saved by, I'm not sure what, like a bunch of nomads.

And there's a little story here. The nomads need a sword for hire. And of course one of them is a beautiful woman, of course. It's a Conan book and Conan's like well... I guess you saved my life, so sure I'll check it out. But they're not far from this city on... the what's this called here? I get the geography confused at times... the Vilayet Sea. So if you've read any of the Conan books, like the Robert E Howard, stuff I think there's some maps in there to show you where this actually takes place in Howard's you know, vision of uh the world. But their beautiful town on the sea has been taken over, effectively, by this crazy magician.

It seems like this happens a lot, this weird wizard or whatever. And I guess this guy wants to summon monsters like Clash of the Titans style, so he chains... I wonder if Clash of the Titans ripped off this, huh? Maybe, maybe not, probably not. Anyways, they chain their daughters to this rock, and then this monster comes out of the sea and eats them, and that's like their payment.

Seems like a pretty stupid way to pay a monster, honestly, but that's what they do. He's should feed it a six pack of Iron City. It'd be a very grateful Monster and probably little happier too. Wouldn't be so pissed off. It wouldn't need to eat all of your daughters if you just got the damn thing drunk.

That's why this show is good. Anyway, Conan's, of course, not gonna put up with this. He sneaks into town, the bad guys capture him, they chain him to a post, he obviously breaks the post and rushes out to save the beautiful girl chained to the rock. This huge crocodile comes out of the ocean and it's like 10 pages of Conan fighting this crocodile and then just leading it into town so that the crocodile eats all of the bad guys in town and then, well it's you... you can take it from there, it's great. Conan the Barbarian issue number 39. Take it back to the 70s today, why not?

If you can get a refreshing Iron City beer, think it enhances the experience. Conan would approve. mean, he'd have like five or six flagons of ale before the third page. Check it out, Conan the Barbarian, issue number 39, your Daily Comic Book Mission. I hope you've been enjoying these. They're fun to record.

It gives me an excuse to throw back an Iron City while reading Conan. Not like I need much of an excuse for that, but really, you know. See you next time.