Savage Sword of Conan has a long and storied history among comics fans. It was the longest-running of Marvel's black-and-white magazine titles, featured thousands of pages of beautiful artwork, and is probably still the most faithful adaptation of Robert E. Howard's character into any medium.
So Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics had some big boots to fill when they announced the return of the title. Happily, they've avoided most of the pitfalls and created a first issue that augers well for future installments.
Here's what I liked, in no particular order:
1. The price point of $6.99 is low enough to encourage the casual reader to give the book a try.
2. Roy Thomas returns to write an introduction that discusses the aforementioned history of the book. Thomas also appears to be slated as the writer of some future issues, as well. Perfect! With the exception of REH himself, no other writer so gets Conan.
3. The paper evokes pleasant memories of the golden age of newsprint comics.
4. The stories themselves — a main Conan adventure, a Solomon Kane backup, and a Conan prose story — capture the essence of the characters quite well.
5. Nobody wants a PC barbarian, but writer John Arcudi gives us a Conan who respects women yet is still lusty. It's a middle ground that works well for the character.
Here's what could be better:
1. Max von Fafner's art, while in the main excellent, suffers from the decision (his or the editor's) to render the dinosaurs in some sort of ink/digital hybrid. Other commentators have noted that it took them right out of the story. While I won't go that far, the effect is jarring and probably would look much better in color.
2. The reproduction on some pages is dark and muddy. I struggled to tell what was going on in some of the panels. Maybe it was just my copy. Again, if the intent was to print this on better paper or in color, the art would pop more.
Other than these two concerns, it was a great first issue. I'll be back for more, by Crom!
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