Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection: The Coming of Conan

Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection: The Original Marvel Years Vol. 1: The Coming of Conan by Roy Thomas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection: The Coming of Conan collects Conan The Barbarian #1-13 plus material from Chamber of Darkness #4.

I'm a pulp fantasy guy and avid comic reader from way back but I've read less than ten comics total in the last few decades. Amazon had a three for two sale and this was one of the books I picked.

The first story is unrelated to Conan but must have been Barry Smith's tryout for the book, the tale of a fantasy writer bent on killing off his creation, Starr the Slayer, a Conan knockoff. Things don't go well and it ends EC style. It was a decent story but seemed like filler. It was interesting that Starr had the same helmet Conan wears for the bulk of this volume.

Thomas and Smith hit the Hyborian highway running. Conan barely gets any breathing room, going from battle to battle, fighting swordsmen, dragons, gorillas, and even an octopus. Thomas' writing is evocative of Robert E. Howards but a little too purple for me at times.

Barry Smith's art was the reason I originally threw this on my wishlist. It's amazing to see his art in its embryonic state, maturing with each passing issue. Some of it is barely publishable at the beginning with flashes of greatness. By the end of the book, he's a heavy hitter. Some of the style is on par with what he'd do on Archer and Armstrong in the early 1990s.

It's a decent read but I wanted to like it more than I did. I've read all of Robert E. Howard's Conan tales and I feel like Roy Thomas' writing and the comics code held this back quite a bit. Thomas' Conan is a little too nice and Smith's Conan is a little scrawny compared to the Conan of REH's pulps. Still, I'll probably get the next volume, if for nothing else to see Barry Smith's art mature and maybe see some Gil Kane or John Buscema on art.

Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection: The Coming of Conan is a good collection that lacks a little of the fire of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. Three out of five stars.

View all my reviews