Daily Comic Book Mission #018: Conan the Barbarian #93

Welcome back to your Daily Comic Book Mission from ComicBook.beer. We’re taken way back to December of 1978. Today, back when you might have thought that Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia were boyfriend and girlfriend. Ha ha, weren’t you wrong. This issue is titled Of Rage and Revenge. And the previous Daily Comic Book Mission was issue number 92, which was like a one-off illustrated by Sal Buscema. This one is part of the ongoing series with Belit and illustrated by John Buscema and Ernie Chan, the dynamic duo of Conan illustration. And George Roussos does the colors. Tom Orzechowski does letters. And of course, Roy Thomas does the writing, but Belit's been with us for a while by now in the Conan the Barbarian series.

Now, if you don’t know, I think she was only in one of Robert E. Howard’s original Conan stories, Queen of the Black Coast. And she’s a terrific character in that story, at least. And it’s just like, it’s got a pretty memorable ending. But in the Conan the Barbarian series, she’s with Conan for like 50 issues or something, 45 issues, whatever it is. It’s a while, it’s several years. It’s like Batman and Robin except Conan and Belit. And though she’s a tough and hardened pirate, she’s frequently jealous and… I don’t think she’s as interesting a character as Red Sonja, personally. Red Sonja always steals every scene. When Conan and Belit are on an adventure together, Conan basically steals every scene and we, we kinda want him out there being wild crazy ass Conan, the barbarian, not Conan like the responsible guy who does the right things. Conan should be out there boozing, wenching, and generally making an ass out of himself while also killing monsters. Anyway, it doesn't matter, she doesn't live that much longer anyway. They can't keep her around forever. But she does live through this issue, and on the front of the cover it promises, behold, Belit!

"She who was once the queen of the Black Coast and now is Empress of Asgalun." And she's wearing the crown on the cover. Is she wearing the crown in the issue? Oh, you'll have to find that out for yourself. After all, this is the Daily Comic Book Mission. And this one is full of political intrigue and drama, a good bit of violence. John Buscema brings his A-game like usual for this period.

We've got some fun swashbuckling at the beginning as Conan, Zula, and Belit fight off enemies, I guess, so for several issues they've been making their way to, I think Asgalun is the city, um where she is the rightful heir to the throne after her father was murdered. And this is not the issue to just jump into if you haven't read any of the other ones, by the way, so your Daily Comic Book Mission does come with like a little caveat that you also need to buy some of earlier ones just to know what's going on. Because this one's a little tricky to follow.

There's lots of different names, lots of characters, lots of different factions in the city all trying to claim this throne that's, I guess, kind of up for grabs here. Of the part where Conan plays the executioner. They don't know he's Conan. He's supposed to chop the head off this one scumbag, but instead he turns around and literally throws a battle axe into one of the other douchebags who’s trying to take over the city. I love the dialogue here…

“The masked ex…” - It’s hard to say this one. “The masked executioner’s only answer… crushes bones and organs in the prince’s shattered rib cage while the Stygian is still looking on in stunned disbelief, too startled even to scream… before he dies.”

And Zula is another one of the characters like Belit that hangs around for a while. He’s like a magician, and he actually plays a pretty important part at the end of the book, when he makes a statue come alive and saves Belit's life. It’s a pretty interesting read, and the ending, I have to admit, the ending is gratifying. The ending makes me kinda like Belit a little bit more, because, well, you’ll see. I don’t wanna give it away, but I like her decision at the end.

And the artwork in this one is really... I’m flipping through it again and just browsing, scanning through the fight scenes, and on page 22 in particular, just this shot of Conan mowing down enemies and there’s a great shot of Bellit just swinging her sword, very dynamic action and a lot of dialogue. This is a very dense issue.

And like usual, there’s some pretty great ads in here. My favorite one is the ad for Saturday Morning Fever. It’s on the rise on NBC. So before we just got endless war and influencers and just daily garbage, you could watch the Fantastic Four and Janna of the Jungle in the Godzilla Power Hour. I want to watch the Godzilla Power Hour. Yogi Space Race? Aw man, and the NBC logo looks like the AMC logo kind of… Like the AMC Eagle.

Now flipping through some other ads in here and there’s one that’s a clip-out in the Fun Factory, the bottom right here on, I don’t know what page it is, but if you buy the book you’ll see it. You can get yourself a fake beer. Why would you want to do that when you could get yourself a real beer? Just throwing it out there.

Though Conan the Barbarian issue number 93 is not just like a, you just dive into it and have fun kind of read it. It’s dense, it’s complex.

I think this shows just the layers of detail that the writers and the artists put into this series. It’s just a terrific book. And though I think maybe we’ve gotten a little tired of this particular plot line by now, it does sort of wrap up here. And I was just reading 92 and 93 back to back. That’s why you’re getting them as Daily Comic Book Missions. Also, it’s good for you.

Escape the real reality and lose yourself in Conan’s reality. It’s much better. So many more to come. Thank you for listening to your Daily Comic Book Mission from ComicBook.Beer. Not the fake beer kind of beer, like the real beer kind of beer.