Trade Paperback Reviews: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Thursday, 09 August 2007

It’s a testosterone trifecta.  This week, I’m reviewing three trade paperbacks.  Two of them feature strong, muscular men who like to get into scraps: Conan the Barbarian and Wolverine the occasional berserker.  The third features a team known for getting into a few scrapes of their own, Wildcats, and a woman who’s willing to give these boys a run for their money.  So get some popcorn ‘cause the fists, claws and swords will be flying, slicing and dicing.    The Chronicles of Conan, Volume 12: The Beast King of Abombi: by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Ernie Chan I’m a big fan of these chronicles, collecting the original Marvel series from the ‘70s.  I was downright distraught a year or so ago when it looked like Dark Horse might end the project with volume 10 instead of continuing to the end of Roy Thomas’ run.  Fortunately for me, Dark Horse has come back with volumes 11 and 12, while a 13th is on the schedule for November. I knew going in that I was probably going to enjoy this book, yet I wasn’t sure how much.  In the last volume, I had started to tire of the relationship between Conan and the She-Pirate Belit.  Although I wouldn’t go so far as to call him “domesticated,” Conan was at least starting to feel a little tied down.  To my surprise, “The Beast King of Abombi” became one of my favorite volumes in the entire series. It actually didn’t start out that well.  For a long time, Belit had talked about her desire to return to Asgalun, to claim the throne that was rightfully hers and to seek vengeance on the man that killed her father.  Finally, the time had come.  Belit was ready to go home and Conan was ready to go with her.  This promised to be a big story but it started out badly.  Roy Thomas spent so much time explaining the various factions that the story became bogged down in the minutiae of intrigue.  In his after-word (almost worth the price of admission on its own), Thomas admits as much.  He was trying to reconcile his own earlier depictions of Asgalun with a version written by L. Sprague de Camp.  The result was a story heavy-handed on exposition and full of confusion with little action or pace.  The flaws were corrected in the second part of the story.  Thomas made up for the lack of action in the first part with plenty in the second: swordfights, shifting allegiances and betrayals.  This is the kind of stuff I want to see in a Conan comic.  Even better, Thomas gave us a surprising conclusion.  Having achieved her vengeance and won her crown, Belit realized that she really only wanted the former.  She handed the crown off to a cousin and returned to her life at sea.  It was a surprising moment and easily one of Belit’s best scenes.  I had thought I was getting tired of the character but Thomas showed me there was something yet to see. From there, Roy Thomas moved on to a four-part tale- a fairly lengthy epic for comics of the day.  The story set Conan and Belit up against the aforementioned Beast King of Abombi.  This was one of the best Conan stories I’d ever read.  We see villages devastated and deserted.  We learn the origin of Ajaga, a man who had conquered Abombi due to his ability to talk to all manner of beasts and get them to do his bidding.  We follow Conan into battle.  We see Belit become captured.  We read as Conan finds a former ally in the black lion he had met in an earlier tale.  We watch Belit plan her own escape while Conan recklessly fights his way to her.  The heroes are constantly put into peril and there’s a real sense that one or the other might actually get hurt in one of these imbroglios.  Yet as much as Roy Thomas deserves credit for this particular tale, the real star is artist John Buscema.  He manages to capture the likeness of a wide variety of beasts- not only baboons, lions and snakes but also a velociraptor years before Jurassic Park made that particular species famous. There’s even one great scene in The Long Night of Fang and Talon Part One (the third part of the story) in which Conan fights a leopard.  Buscema strips away the backgrounds, and even the panel borders, so that we can see the full fury of the fight.  After that, we’re given a bit of a break with a one-part tale: Sea-Woman.  The Sea-Woman in the title is pretty much a siren straight out of Homer, though in this case the siren comes onto the ship instead of trying to woo the sailors from afar.  And again, the real star of the series is John Buscema.  In the afterword, Thomas mentions that Buscema always preferred drawing sensual women to warrior women like Red Sonja or Belit.  In this story, he gets to draw both: the alluring sea-woman and the forceful Belit.  Though the two women share many features in common, Buscema shows that he can draw women who are either soft or strong. Next up is a pretty bad story: Devil-Crabs of the Dark Cliffs.  Thomas even admits that it’s not very good so we’ll just move along to the story from the 100th issue super-sized spectacular: Death on the Black Coast.  Roy Thomas had already written several winners for this volume- the second part of the Asgalun tale, the Beast King epic and the Sea Woman solo story- but this might just be the best of the bunch.  It’s like Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” but with sorcery and swords. Belit decides to sail up a dangerous river because she believes there’s a city hidden inland.  Conan, as always, agrees to go.  The crew, despite their fears, stay by Belit’s side.  They survive giant snakes and the general dangers of the jungle.  Yet as they approach the hidden city, Belit becomes almost fanatical- willing to sacrifice the lives of her sailors for the promise of treasure within.  As the pirates begin to carry the jewels through the jungle back to the boat, Conan succumbs to the sleep of the lotus flower (for a pair of Homer references in the space of three issues).  He has a horrible dream about a race of winged men who devolve into demons.  When he awakes, he realizes that the dream was real.  The entire crew is slain.  Belit herself has been hung by a jeweled necklace that she had found in the treasure.  Conan, morose and sullen, seeks vengeance for his beloved.  He confronts a pack of hyenas, an earthquake and finally, the last of the demons.  He is victorious, but he has still lost more than he cares to lose.  He has lost the love of his life.  Conan places Belit on her boat and turns it into a funeral bier for her.  He watches it burn, then sink. And Conan, the manliest of men, sheds a tear.  It’s a powerful story.  My summary doesn’t come close to doing it justice.  It gives Conan depth that is rarely attempted, and rarely achieved.  Yet it manages to do this without skimping on the sorcery or the swordsmanship.  With a finale like that, it’s easy to see why the Beast King of Abombi is one of my favorite volumes in this series.   Wildcats: Nemesis By Robbie Morrison, Horacio Domingues Talent Caldwell and Matt “Batt” Banning   I tend to be picky when it comes to the Wildcats.  I like them as an action team, as first depicted by Jim Lee and then Alan Moore.  I’m not as thrilled with the noir version as depicted by Joe Casey.  That’s why I was reluctant to pick up this series when it first came out in single issues.  I wasn’t quite sure which version of the team I’d be getting.  I wasn’t quite sure if it would be any good.  So I resisted buying this trade for a long time.  Eventually I saw a copy in a 50% off box.  I couldn’t pass it up at that price.  And I’m glad I didn’t.  But I don’t mean to get ahead of myself.  This story is about a woman named Nemesis and her conflicts with the Wildcats over the years and in the present.  The story is told through two alternating lenses.  One is set in the present as Nemesis seems to be intent on kidnapping a young girl.  The other is set in the past, showing us important moments in Nemesis’ life from the past millennia. But again, I don’t mean to get ahead of myself. Nemesis’ name is Charis.  As revealed through the back-story segments, Charis was a member of the lower caste of Khera (the world from which the Wildcats hail).  Due to a heroic rescue on her part and some liberal ideas of Majestic’s about breaking down caste borders, she was the first lower caste member to ever be given a place in the Coda Sisterhood.  Majestic may have been able to place her in the Coda but he couldn’t make the Sisters like her.  She was ostracized.  In spite of that, she proved to be an exceptional warrior.  Charis was included in the task force sent to fight a Daemonite cell on Earth.  However, a member of the Brotherhood of the Sword betrayed the other Kherans (including the Wildcats) to the Daemonties.  Even worse, he framed Charis for her crimes.  Believed to be a traitor by her own people, Charis was forced to go underground.  Yet her new position gave her knowledge of Daemonite plots and schemes, allowing her to become a one-woman avenger: hence the name Nemesis.  Of course, the Wildcats don’t know her side of the story.  They consider her a traitor and a mass murderer.  And they want her stopped, especially when she apparently tries to kidnap and kill a little girl.  After thousands of years, a simple explanation isn’t going to stop anything.  And so we follow Nemesis as she fights both the Wildcats and the Daemonites, while trying to protect the little girl that everyone thinks she’s trying to kill.  Wildcats: Nemesis is a great fast-paced story.  It’s also one full of intrigue.  We don’t know Charis’ full history when this story begins.  There are plenty of times during the tale when we think that Zealot and Majestic may just be right and Nemesis is a mass murderer.  Williams does a great job of pacing the back-story segments so that Nemesis’ true nature and real mission are slowly revealed.  Instead of being interruptions, they prove to be essential to the present day situation, giving background to the battle and depth to all of the characters involved including many of the Wildcats. The use of two artists, one for the present day (Caldwell) and another for the past (Domingues) was also a smart move.  Both sections end up being beautiful in their own way.  Caldwell does a great job with the big action scenes.  Domingues does a great job with some of the softer scenes from the back story.  Yet each is able to handle the other side just as well.  Domingues gets fewer big battle scenes but still makes them work.  And Caldwell draws a touching scene between Nemesis and the young girl in her custody.  Of course, this is a Wildstorm title so there’s a little bit of cheesecake, but I prefer that to the ugliness that passes for art in a lot of other titles.   And that’s Nemesis- a mini-series I nearly overlooked but one that turned out to be one of the best Wildcats stories I’ve ever read.   Wolverine: Blood Hungry By Peter David and Sam Kieth   I’ve been enjoying collecting the trades of the Wolverine stories from Marvel Comics Presents.  These are stories I missed the first time around so they’re new to me, yet they’re also from the time that I started reading comics so they have a welcome, familiar feel.  This isn’t actually a Marvel Comics Presents volume, but it does feature a Wolverine story from later in the series.  It had been reprinted on the strength of two names: Peter David and Sam Kieth. Sam Kieth was probably the bigger star at the time.  In this story, he’s allowed to cut loose.  The people have exaggerated proportions, the panels are drawn from obscure angles and the art feels like it wants to burst right off of the page.  This is the Sam Kieth that I know from “The Maxx.”  For the most part that’s a good thing, but Kieth’s eccentricities sometimes turn into amusing quirks.  This is the infamous story in which Wolverine’s costume becomes so torn and frayed that it looks like he has telephone cords dangling from his arms.   Peter David seems to just be along for the ride.  There’s not much of a story here.  Wolverine is in Madripoor.  Cyber comes to Madripoor.  They fight.  Cyber poisons Wolverine.  Wolverine has a weird dream sequence.  Wolverine recovers.  They fight again.  Wolverine wins.  I’d guess that Kieth had a big hand in the plotting of this story which means that David’s main contribution is the dialogue.  That’s sometimes a good thing.  And it’s sometimes a bad thing.  In this case, it’s more of the latter as Peter is at his pun-iest for this tale.  There are some real doozies in here that seem to be taken straight from an Airplane movie or an episode of Cheers. Blood Hungry is a fun time capsule with art that’s bursting from the scenes.  I had a good time, laughing with the jokes, groaning at a few others.  But it’s more psychedelic than action-packed.  That’s okay if you like that sort of thing, but it’s certainly not an essential Wolverine story and it’s not as good as the other books reviewed in this column.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 09 August 2007 )

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Captain Comics Message Board

Columns => Fluit Notes => Topic started by: Chris Fluit on August 10, 2007, 01:13:38 AM

Title: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Post by: Chris Fluit on August 10, 2007, 01:13:38 AM

My latest column is up: trade paperback reviews of Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine (http://www.captaincomics.us/Fluit-Notes/Trade-Paperback-Reviews-Conan-Wildcats-and-Wolverine.html)



Title: Re: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Post by: doc photo on August 10, 2007, 11:35:37 AM

Not too long ago I was on a Conan kick which caused me to re-read most of the issues reprinted in this volume of "Chronicles".  Buscema was certainly at the top his game, with outstanding inking by Ernie Chan (?). I also read Howard's original story that Roy adapted for the death of Belit and Mr. Thomas deserves credit for an excellent adaption.  The only real negative with these issues is the lousy print quality which was typical of the day. Fortunately, the TPB editions don't have that problem, which may be enough for me to purchase the material in this format.

Title: Re: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Post by: Jeff of Earth J on August 10, 2007, 01:44:01 PM

A “testosterone trifecta”… heh, heh, heh.

I’m in complete agree ment with you concerning Dark Horse’s Chronicles of Conan series of Marvel reprints, although I must admit I’ve fallen several volumes behind (reading, not buying). But I always read Roy Thomas’ afterwords the day I get them. One of these days the proper mood will strike and my reading will catch up to my buying.

Sam Kieth is one of those cover artists whose work I bought (back when comics were less expensive), even if he didn’t do the art inside and I didn’t care for the artist who did. Also among that number from roughly the same time period are Steve Lightle, Todd McFarlane and Marshal Rogers.



Title: Re: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Post by: Jeff of Earth J on August 12, 2007, 11:59:39 AM


I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere on the board (if it has, I either missed it or have forgotten), but Dark Horse will soon release The Savage Sword of Conan Vol. 1, a 542-page reprint of Marvel's black & white Conan material from Savage Sword and Savage Tales.

 :banana: , yes?

Title: Re: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Post by: Chris Fluit on August 12, 2007, 08:08:44 PM

Quote from: Jeff of Earth J on August 12, 2007, 11:59:39 AM
I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere on the board (if it has, I either missed it or have forgotten), but Dark Horse will soon release The Savage Sword of Conan Vol. 1, a 542-page reprint of Marvel's black & white Conan material from Savage Sword and Savage Tales.

 :banana: , yes?

Yes!  :banana:

I know I've written about it before, most likely in the "Dark Horse for October" thread as it was pre-solicited for December.  Though I could have also written about it in the "Giving Us What We Want" thread.