King Sized Conan #1 Review
Summary: 50 years after he first appeared in the pages of Marvel Comics, Conan is back and in a fitting overview of some of the different adventures Conan has had.
3.8
Marvel(ous) Conan
Conan stories are great to come back to after a long absence. It has certainly been a while since I last joined in one of his adventures so King Sized Conan presented a great chance to dip into the Hyborian Adventures of my favourite Cimmerian.
Writing
I was somewhat apprehensive after reading the first story in this collection as it ends by pointing readers towards “the remainder of this tale”, not being a big fan of reading stories in sections (I’m often reminded of the scene from Black Books in which Bernard deals with a customer by tearing out pages from a book and offering to sell the rest when the customer comes back with more money). But fortunately the rest of the stories are self contained. The collection is broken into sections that cover different aspects of Conan, The Barbarian, The Thief, The Mercenary, The Avenger and The Corsair. It’s a nice way to give a quick idea to new readers of the sorts of adventures that Conan has been on (and potentially steer them towards the sort of stories of his they might prefer).
Artwork
I don’t think I’d be totally out of place in saying the artwork is all over the place in this grouping. It’s obviously a subjective area and what I do or don’t like can vary wildly from what someone else does… but I had a few issues with some of the art. The first story suffers from an overly warm palette. It felt to me like everything somewhat blended together and prevented anything from really standing out… otherwise the art was perfectly reasonable but the colouring just really let it down. My biggest issue however is with Requiem art (and story) by Kevin Eastman and colours by Neeraj Menon. For me this story just looks like a mess. The characters look clunky and in some ways amateurish, there is an overuse of black/shading that ends up rendering the images somewhat indecipherable.
Final Thoughts?
It is nice to read Conan stories again, though the art is quite hit and miss, overall this is a decent primer for anyone new to Conan or getting back into his adventures from a long hiatus. Have a flick through to see if the are is to your liking, if it is then I’d say grab a copy… if it’s not I’d say maybe wait for the next collection.
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Steven Deknight, Roy Thomas, Kurt Busiek, Chris Claremont
Artist: Roberto De La Torre, Jesus Saiz, Steve McNiven, Kevin Eastman
Cover Artist: Andrew C. Robinson
Genre: Action/Adventure
Format: 57pgs, FC
Release Date: 23rd December, 2020
About the Author
Chris O'Connor Father of four, husband of one and all round oddity. Gaming at home since about 1982 with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Moving on to the more traditional PC genre in the years that followed with the classic Jump Joe and Alley Cat. CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond PC's have been central to my gaming but I've also enjoyed consoles and hand helds along the way (who remembers the Atari Lynx?). Would have been actor/film maker, jack of many trades master of none.
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