Thomas Yeates

This excellent series continues with the young Conan’s first encounters with “civilization.” Enemies are made, alliances are forged, and monsters are defeated with the requisite amount of sword swinging. Busiek and Nord weave some excellent character development in and around the action highlighting the young barbarian’s confusion, disdain, and inquisitiveness about city life and the opportunities it might offer him.

This was a wonderful collection of early Conan's adventures. It starts with exquisite introduction given through small group of foreign conquerors (unfortunately Stygia - or some elements of it - seems to be in full force yet) roaming Cona's remote lands hundreds of years after his death. While investigating the newly conquered lands this group comes across what looks like to be Conan's final resting place and story starts.

And what a story. We follow Conan as he seeks adventure in the far show more north seeking the ancient world of Hyperborea. We follow him as he assists Aesir against Vanir warrior bands that ravaged Aesir's land during the ever lasting feud between two. In these stories Conan meets the true Northerners, their way of life, meets strange monstrous giants in the far north and gets enchanted [to border of madness] by beautiful yet bloodcurdling daughter of the ancient gods and finally reaches the mythical Hyperborea where he will learn that myths and stories are sometimes so different from the reality.

Stories are usual Conan action story, we follow him as he makes pacts with honorable men and fights the treason and cowardice, suffers from the betrayal and great loss and has one of his first encounters with the magic that ends especially bad for him (which explains his dislike for magic and wizards). I especially liked the story arc placed in Hyperborea, land of dark-magic immortals that have grown tired of .... life itself.

Entire story is full of links and references to ancient myths and people and these just add to the [already great] overall experience.

Art is excellent and what is more important consistent throughout the story arcs. Panorama's of the wild North and various creatures - be it ones encountered by Conan or those we learn about from the stories about creation of Hyperborea - are so wonderfully drawn, they are truly epic.

Recommended to all fans of heroic fantasy and Conan in particular. show less

I don't completely agree with the core premise of the work that there is a group of specific individuals orchestrating a grand plot that is responsible for every ill deed, killed JFK, and all the rest - that would mean that if you got rid of these people the US government and corporations would suddenly start being nice to everyone and do you really believe that?

The work sidetracks itself fixating on and exaggerating the reach and scope of the shady dealings of a few individuals, an show more informal 'friends network' of intelligence personnel and military officers (that even called themselves the 'Secret Team'), who were able to influence government policy for their own financial gain. Their biggest concern were things like setting up shell companies that could bid for government sweetheart contracts that they could milk for all it was worth, and maybe use it for some off the books intelligence or covert operations on the side to justify it, not world domination.

But it is an interesting read.

An unfortunate postscript to this comic is that allowing itself to get sidetracked and unable to back its claims of an all encompassing conspiracy is why the Christic Institutes case was thrown out. show less

This definitely catches the spirit of Robert E. Howard. If you are expecting the Conan of the films, this is not it (although it is said the films do catch a bit of the ambiance, but I digress). The compilation is divided in short chapters, which make it very easy to read, and the art just works well to bring Conan's world to life. The main story is Conan's search for the land of Hyperborea, which his grandfather told him about, describing it as a paradise on Earth. Of course, as often show more happens, when you get there, paradise is not quite what it seems. Overall, a pretty good fantasy story. I am glad Dark Horse is bringing these new compilations of their updated Conan series. Busiek is adapting and expanding on Howard's work, and it works well. I will definitely be looking for other volumes. show less