Titans New Conan The Barbarian Series!

The build up has been huge and the hype has been indescribable for the new Conan series ever since it was stated that Titan Comics would take over the torch from Marvel. Many were excited regarding the change and fewer were a bit sceptical about it, me being among those who where somewhere in between. Despite its flaws and bending to stupidity and censorship, the last Marvel run had a lot of good stuff to it as well, and I think most of us Conanophiles love the early Marvel era that rolled out both Savage Sword and the original flag ship title. So for me it felt a bit uncertain about where everything were heading.

Well now it’s here and I’ve been sitting on it for a while, just trying to take in what I’ve been reading so far and have a clear view of it all. The hype was right and real and allthough we are only 3 issues in, this is looking to be some of the best Conan in comics that we’ve gotten since the glory days of old!
Jim Zub followed over from Marvel and is the mastermind behind Titans new barbarian, and Rob De La Torre is the artist and holy fucking cowshit what can I say about the art? It’s like big John Buscema was back from the grave to tell everyone how Conan is done right!
De La Torres art is not only a huge homage to big John, but he manages to still keep it original as his own and not as a plain copy cat. Well done man!
De La Torre also seems to like depicting Conan with a battle axe, which is something that’s actually a rare thing. Think about it, it should be obvious that Conan uses an axe from time to time and he does so on covers.. but rarely do we see him use them in the actual stories. A small but very cool detail, bravo!
Now let’s give him a ball chain flail and my soul will have an orgasm 😉

I won’t get into the story since so many people on Youtube has already done it, and in fact there is not much to say as of yet anyway, but it feels like Jim Zub got this right. Honestly I wasn’t a huge fan of his work on the second half of the last Marvel run, it was all right, but here it shows that he is the right man to write Conan. It is almost as if Roy Thomas was back doing what he does best.
I also want to highlight that where Marvel couldn’t show much violence or nudity (with exception of the old Savage Sword) Titan has already shown gore, boobs and butts so far 😀
Granted these aren’t things that makes a good story, the old Marvel flag ship is a true testament of that, but if you shy away from those things it can be really hard to present Conan and the Hyborian age as it was written by Robert E. Howard.

I have one complaint though and if Zub or De La Torre is reading this: Please keep Conan in his horned helmet longer than two pages!
I mean, look at this.. take a look at this panel below and tell me it’s not bad ass? One could argue that “oh yeah but he lost it in the heat of the battle”.. yeah that’s true, but a helmet is very important to a warrior so I think it would be a high priority for Conan to seek out his horned helmet if he loses it.
Zub and De La Torre, take note! 😉

I’m loving this so far and having a blast with it, and I can’t wait to see what happens in later issues. Can we perhaps see Zula do a comeback? I remember reading in Conan the Barbarian Original Marvel Years Omnibus vol 9 (I think) that they made a deliberate choice to never have Zula come back again. Why I have no idea but it felt like they just didn’t like the character. Zula was a great character and one of few allies who had great adventures with Conan over some time, and not dying in two or three issues.
I do understand that there might be rights issues as I think Zula might be a character owned by Marvel, but if there’s a chance to get the rights to use him here I would love to see it happen!
Wouldn’t it be really cool to see him get a real comeback with Jim Zub? Just imagine how freaking awesome De La Torres art would be!
Once again, Zub and De La Torre take note! 😉

Go out and support this new series and if you’ve missed out, don’t worry! There will be a release in february that’s gonna collect the first 4 issues I believe. By Crom and Set go and get it when it’s released!