Random Happenstance

Sometimes, I wish I was more organized; since my comics are basically two piles: stuff I've bought, and stuff I maybe might want to blog sometime soon. So, I thought I could maybe use my spinner rack to help with some organization as well as display: maybe put those Slapstick and Death's Head issues together, until I can sort out if I have them all. And I just bought the first issue and last special for Arion, so I might be on my way to piecing a set of that together, if I find cheap copies. Then I bumped into this issue, which I wasn't sure I'd read before, and here we are...from 1992, Conan the Barbarian #263, "The Voice of Moloq" Written by Roy Thomas, pencils by Mike Docherty, inks by Ricardo Villagran. Adapted from "The Voice of El-Lil" by Robert E. Howard.

As is often the case, a practical joke goes awry: Conan lets his nattering companion Hobb ride on without him, just to see how long he would go before he realized he was by himself. Apparently, a ways; long enough to get ambushed and captured and used as bait to lure in Conan, who is monkey-piled by...monkey-men. Conan is captured, and notes the monkey-men are led by armored, regular men. He and Hobb are taken to a hidden valley, with a small village and a pretty massive horned skull on an island. Tourist attraction? Probably not.

Serving wench/dancer Naluna gives them the score: the city was Eridu, their god was Moloq, and her people seemed like dicks. They had been defeated and forced out of their land, so they had enslaved the monkey-men they had found here. Naluna spoke the common tongue since she had fled the city before; Conan asks if she would be interested in doing so again. She says she would do anything for the man she loves; but Conan and Hobbs are taken to the skull. Conan notices the mistreatment of the monkey-men, as well as that at least some of them have had their tongues cut out, and gets madder and madder. As Naluna dances, Conan is tied to the golden gong, which when barely tapped nearly shakes him to death. It might be so loud you can't even hear it? Whatever. He has to take another ringing before he manages to get free, then while he kills the main bad guys, the monkey-men rise up against the rest. Conan manages to blow up the giant skull with the golden gong, although I suspect everyone's ears rang for a couple days after that one.

The monkey-men also dig Naluna's dancing, and seem to see her as a queen. She will stay, if the man she loves stays with her. Conan hems and ha's at that, not ready to settle down, but she wanted the Harry Mudd-looking Hobb! Really no accounting for taste. The letters page notes this was an adaptation of a non-Conan REH story, a trick Roy Thomas used more than once, I think.