I should've saved this for the second-to-last week of the year...

For about as long as I've been doing "The End" Week, where I check out the last issue of a comic; Conan the Barbarian #275 has been a grail for me. It's got "The End!" right on the cover, for Crom's sake. And per a quick Google search, it's probably upwards of $35 at the cheapest: before I'd spring for that, I'd probably opt for Dark Horse's reprint volume, Chronicles of Conan volume 34; which would also include today's issue: from 1993, Conan the Barbarian #274, "Demon-Wings over Zamora" Written by Roy Thomas, pencils by Mike Docherty, inks by Ricardo Villagran.

Conan's band of mercenaries is looking at an unusual downturn in the job market, with what could be a dry spell of peace coming up. Still, Conan doesn't even get the night off, as he is attacked by masked cultists who refer to him as the "god-slayer," and conk him on the noggin and make off with him. (This is a traditional way of changing scenes in Conan, Warlord, any number of comics like it!) Conan wakes up in Shadizar the wicked, chained to an altar, and surrounded by cultists. A not-unfamiliar situation for the barbarian, but this time it was on purpose, rather than by happenstance: the cultists recognized Conan as the one that killed their god, some ten years ago, in Conan the Barbarian #6! (From 1971, and older than even me!) Back in that issue, the 'god' had been a giant bat; this time around it's a relatively large bat-woman...

Although Conan kills several of the cultists and sets their new tower on fire, he can't stop the bat-woman from carrying him off to her cave. He's ready to fight it out, but the bat-woman is somewhat beguiling, and Conan finds himself drawn to her. Or hypnotized, either or. Only the noise of her monstrous, more bat-like children save Conan; and he sets another fire to take them out. (Conan the Arsonist this issue...) Fighting the bat-woman, Conan chokes her out in mid-air and jumps to safety, feeling a moment of pity for her as she crashes and dies.

This might be as close as I get to that last issue; but that regret is mitigated a bit since per the GCD, Conan #275 doesn't even have a proper ending, it's continued in Savage Sword of Conan #218! Which is probably slightly easier and cheaper to find, but still.