I sadly didn't have time to go leafing through old ads from the early 80's, but I remember
Conan the Barbarian #1 being maybe tied for the highest-priced book regularly listed, at eighty bucks. It would've been maybe 11 or 12 years old then; slightly older than the also $80
Giant-Size X-Men #1: nowadays, people are selling GCC copies of the facsimile editions of both for more than that! Weirdly, I think I bought a facsimile and this one from the same show: from 1994,
Conan Classic #1, reprinting 1970's
Conan the Barbarian #1, "The Coming of Conan!" Written by Roy Thomas, art by Barry (Windsor-)Smith, inks by Dan Adkins.
Is there a song for boastful Gondur? In scenic Vanaheim, it's the Aesir vs. the Vanir, but the former have picked up a ringer: a young Cimmerian mercenary named Conan. The wily Vanir chief, Volff, and his number 2 Hothar, are going to split and leave what's left of their men to fend for themselves, when they are find a mysterious cave and "
Skarkosh--he who is called
the Shaman!" He says he needs a warrior mightier than those two losers, for reasons having to do with his "handmaiden," and will help them with his "Star-Stone."
When the Aesir begin to mop up the Vanir, they are attacked by winged demons and defeated, with Conan captured. He wakes up in a cage, with the pretty handmaiden Tara; who tells him he is not to be a sacrifice, but a trade. To show Vanir he's got the juice, Skarkosh uses the Star-Stone to view the past, starting with Atlantis before it sank and King Kull, then watching Conan himself take a crown--how he could do that, when he was about to be used in "the
ceremony of transferral"? He shouldn't have a future! But while everyone else is watching the Star-Stone continue to show into the distant future, Conan has been working on the bars of his cell, and breaks out. Intent on avenging the Aesir, Conan throws the Star-Stone to smash it, which causes an explosion that takes out everyone except Conan, who hightails it out of there with Tara.
But, Tara doesn't stay saved: she had been a winged demon as well: Skarkosh had taken her from the world within the Star-Stone, but she couldn't stay forever without the ceremony to send someone to take her place. (Apparently they had to send someone
good, and not like Hothar or whatever.) She disappears, leaving Conan to briefly consider recent events, before pressing on to further adventures. Also this issue: three text pages, "Conan the Marvelous," recapping some history from Roy Thomas. Need to get my glasses out for that. This is a perfectly fine little reprint, part of several Marvel had in the mid-90's; but I read this first in 1987's black-and-white
Conan Saga #1. Which I'd recommend, it looks great there and you get another issue!
3 comments:
With that primitive ass early art of Barry “Don’t call me Windsor yet” Smith, I can see why Dave Sim was so inspired to create Cerebus. Speaking off, Sim’s Cerebus never interested me enough to buy it, although I have watched videos explaining the history of Cerebus & those epic-length storyline sagas he loved to make. You ever own any?
I did not. The only Cerebus thing I sorta liked was just a cover or pin-up of him being graded like a comic: spine damage, water damage, scuffed corners...
Ha ha, nice. I think he & Spawn had a one-off time up back in the early 90's.
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