The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 8: Brothers of the Blade and Other Stories Review

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The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 8: Brothers of the Blade and Other Stories ReviewVolume 8 of the collected Marvel Conan comics finds our Cimmerian in top form, mixed up with mercenaries, a pair of young lovers, and finally a lover of his own in Bêlit, for my money the best of all Conan's women. The raven-haired pirate queen makes her debut in this volume.
This volume contains eight issues, #52 through #59, originally published in 1975-1976. It's a significant bounce-back in quality from Volume 7, especially that book's endless six-part saga about dueling wizards where Conan appeared out-of-place. While there are multi-part storylines in Volume 8, they feature Conan to much better effect. They also show how well the writer of the comics series, Roy Thomas, added depth and color in Conan's world while respectfully referencing the style of Conan's creator, Robert E. Howard.
The first four-issue story arc introduces a tale that originally employed another Howard fantasy character, King Kull. In it, a crystal scorpion springs to life when a band of mercenaries tries to get at the treasure it stands over. The mercenaries, including Conan, are led by Murillo, a character Conan first encountered in the Howard story "Rogues Of The House", and his callback here by Thomas is another deft nod in Howard's direction. As the story gains velocity over four parts, Murillo and the city employing him are threatened by a fearsome, growing shadow creature. It's up to Conan and two new friends, the acrobat Tara and her soldier-suitor Yusef, to stop it.
"I've had worse comrades," Conan says of Tara and Yusef. With Conan, it doesn't get mushier than that.
Conan faces a number of strange creatures, including three ugly customers, "the Brothers of the Blade", who wield axe and spike instead of hand or foot. He even punches out a noble scion who suspiciously resembles Prince Valiant.
The one serious dip in this volume is the one-issue "The Strange High Tower In The Mist", where Conan, Yusef, and Tara deal with a bat thing in a nameless city. It all turns out some figment of a mad hunchback's imagination. It's a little too out there, but over fast.
Thomas pulls things back with the last section of the book, a three-issue arc where Conan bids farewell to Yusef and Tara and hello to Bêlit, whose pirate ship Conan joins.
Wearing a bearskin girdle and loincloth, Bêlit was the hottest thing in Marvel's comics line for a long stretch of the 1970s, all the hotter for how she wielded a blade. There was no coyness with Bêlit: "Take me Conan! Take me and crush me with your fierce love!" We only get two issues in this volume with Bêlit, the first of which uses Chapter 1 of Howard's "Queen Of The Black Coast" story (the other four chapters would be adapted by Thomas much, much later.)
As before, Thomas is aided considerably by John Buscema's pencil layouts and the talents of several inkers. His struggle, as Thomas relates in an Afterword, was with the Comics Code. Bêlit was topless in the Howard story, and performed a "mating dance" for Conan that Thomas had to tone down. There's also the matter of a judge who Howard had Conan kill for passing sentence on him. In order for Thomas to get this story element in, he had to make the judge more sinister.
Compromises don't often work in art, but they do here. Conan is still a rough guy in comics form, but he's easier to like when his hard code is smoothed over some by sparks of decency and friends like Yusef and Tara. Volume 8 is a handsome blend of Howard's vision with less ruthless sensibilities that serves up full-blooded adventure.The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 8: Brothers of the Blade and Other Stories OverviewIn a fantastic world filled with malevolent magicians and dangerous doppelgangers, one man pits his flesh, blood, and steel against an endless tide of enemies - natural and supernatural - that would seek to destroy him. That man is Conan! Whether he's going toe-to-toe against a lumbering beast or taking on a shipload of cut-throats and pirates, Conan's strength, cunning and iron will know no equal.

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