There’s no doubt about it in my mind that Savage Sword of Conan is some of the best ways to experience this Cimmerian and his adventures. They often stays extremeley true to their source material much due to Roy Thomas’s dedication and respect for the character, they are black and white and never shies away from violence or nudity. In short: Savage Sword is Conan as he’s suppose to be!
There are 235 issues of the first original run and I can’t even say I’ve read 1 % of them so far, as I’ve only finished 1 omnibus and a couple of issues here and there. We often talk about what’s good about this series but the other day when reading Marvel’s vol. 3 omnibus of Savage Sword I think I encountered what could very well be the worst issue I’ve read so far: The Curse of the Monolith
To be honest there’s nothing wrong with the art or the storytelling here, but what is a problem is that it feels like a try out or a back up story. It is based on the short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter and I haven’t read the original, but to be straight forward: This story is boring and too short.
Like I said before there is nothing wrong with the art, the pencilling by Gene Colan and inking by Pablo Marcus is fantastic and the lettering by Thomas is on spot. What’s wrong then?
Well spoiler alerts ahead..
The story is about Conan being a mercenary for the army of Turan bringing a letter of peace/friendship to the king of Kusan. The king accepts the peace offering and sends Conan back together with a servant called Duke Feng, but on the way he betrays Conan and sets him into a trap where he is held onto a monolith. This monolith later turns into a monster of some sorts who melts/feeds its victim and Conan desperately tries to get away from the monolith, despite the fact that he can barely move.
This isn’t a very interesting story and only feels like it should be a sub-story part of something bigger, either a longer story or like a part 2 out of a 3 part story. It’s about 27 pages long and about 11 of those pages are dedicated to Conan being stuck to this monolith, and trying to get lose. It’s.. I’m sorry all fans out there, but this was just boring to read and sit through. Even though the art is fine and Roy’s storytelling is great as usual, this was just a snorefest.
Savage Sword of Conan does have it’s ups and downs like any other series, but on the level of quality that it had from the beginning it feels weird that such a bleak story like this could ever slip through. Thomas did say however that he wanted to adapt all the Conan books and stories of course which I commend him for, but maybe The Curse of the Monolith should have been left out.
It’s Savage Sword so it’s still entertaining but this has to be, without a doubt, the worst isse of this series I’ve read so far. What do you think? Let me know!
Ps; I was wrong, the very next story was way worse. Trust me..
Hyborian Book Reviews 