Whenever I see a dancing girl in Conan...

...I hear the Orion slave girl music, from the Star Trek pilot, "The Cage." You can decide for yourself if that's unfortunate or not.

The new Conan the Barbarian opens up today, but I probably won't get to see it for a bit. Still, I did restock some old and lost comics at the Comic Book Shop's 23rd anniversary sale! Today's book: Conan the Barbarian #158, "Night of the Wolf!" Plot and art by John Buscema, dialogue by Michael Fleisher, inks by Rudy Nebres.

More after the break!

Riding through the desert, Conan runs across two brigands dragging a woman in a crate. Conan wouldn't put up with that on the best of days, but the brigands give him some lip, which doesn't help matters. After rescuing the girl, she in turn saves him from her vengeful father, who has coming riding to her rescue with his tribe. A rival sheik had taken her, refusing to take no for an answer. Grateful, Conan is toasted that night, and the father doesn't seem to mind Conan eying his daughter.

But, the chieftain is disturbed to hear the howl of a desert wolf. He leaves to check it out, in time for a werewolf to attack Conan. The monster's strong enough to choke even Conan, who barely holds out until help arrives; but it escapes. Conan's about to go after it, but the chieftain holds him back, noting it may not be a good idea to try chasing that thing down in the dark.

The next morning, the chieftain's daughter is missing, kidnapped again. With Conan's help, they follow the trail, and find the daughter tied to a cliff face. The sheik that supposedly wanted to marry the girl, wanted to kill her, revenge for the death of his son, since of course she's the werewolf. She doesn't seem to be to broken up about it, either.


The sheik had an arrow prepared with the poison of the black lotus, but her father takes the responsibility and kills her himself. As Conan rides off, the narration notes that the survivors of this night will tell that story for years to come, but also admits this probably isn't the weirdest crap Conan will see this week.

Although I don't think he brought the A-game on this one, big John Buscema still delivers a solid issue, and I like Nebres' inks too. Buscema gets a plotting credit, but it's so standard I was pretty sure it was Fleisher, since I've seen this "hero rescues helpless damsel who turns out to be something else" before from his work in Warlord and Jonah Hex. Which may have been before or after this issue, but here we are. Have a good weekend!