In this week’s entry of The Marvel Rundown, King Conan #6 takes center stage! Plus, we’ve got Rapid Reviews of Sabretooth, Avengers Forever, and What If…? Miles Morales!
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Written by: Jason Aaron
Art by: Mahmud Asrar
Colouring by: Matthew Wilson
Lettering by: Travis Lanham
Cover by: Asrar and Wilson
While Conan the Barbarian is still appearing in Marvel Comics at the moment in the Savage Avengers title, this feels like the more appropriate farewell to the character. He was, without a doubt, in his best form when drawn by Mahmud Asrar and written by Jason Aaron — the creative team that I think has set a benchmark for the character and his portrayal in comics at the very least.
Asrar has just rocketed up my list of favourite working artists with his work on this character, both in this series as the previous ongoing series that he and Aaron launched. His pages have a dynamism and depth that make for a very satisfying and full reading experience, and it certainly helps that Matt Wilson’s been colouring his Conan work. He really captures the full Conan experience: the occasional raunchiness of the character, the huge variety of weird creatures and monsters that he brawls with, and the vast expanses he finds himself in. This issue really does cover all of those bases, offering a succinct yet broad take on the character that will leave a stamp on his legacy; it ends a story while excitingly inviting the possibility for more tales, at whichever publisher will be lucky enough to print his stories next.
Some of Aaron’s best Marvel work can be found here. Aaron exerts much of the same energy he used for Thor; grand storytelling with a brutalist punch to it, and in some respects Conan is a better fit for him than Thor ever was. For all the grime he covered Thor in throughout his run, Conan allows Aaron to really dig in and get dirty. He’s ultimately a more physical character and his stories reflect that.
Conan and Thoth make their last stand against the horde of weird zombie creatures led by the princess, and like I mentioned before, this just hits all the Conan buttons. There’s a lady who has it out for Conan in more ways than one, there are monsters, I swore I saw a gorilla in there somewhere; there’s blood and violence, and there’s some sentimentality towards the Conan character that I can always appreciate, of him being a man of the wilds and such. Which I frankly find a little funny in that this sentimentality of freedom and the wild is being attributed to such a violent and angry person; it’s ironic enough that it loops around to being a little sweet.
Final Verdict: BUY. If you haven’t been reading Asrar and Aaron’s Conan adventures over the past couple of years at Marvel, you’d best do yourself a favour and pick this up. I really do think that you can just read this and get enough the idea of what’s been happening; it’s clear and succinct enough to tide you over.
Next week, the next big event beings with A.X.E.: Eve of Judgement #1, plus Moon Knight reaches lucky issue number thirteen.
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