Today: Conan vs. more Body Snatchers.

About a dozen years back, we checked out Conan the Barbarian #41/Conan Saga #78, wherein Conan met a disturbing pod-girl. Today's book takes the Invasion of the Body Snatchers riff up another notch! From 1987, Savage Sword of Conan #139, "The Garden of Blood" Written by Charles Dixon, pencils by Gary Kwapisz, inks by Ernie Chan. Cover by Joe Jusko!

Conan had hooked back up--figuratively and literally--with the pirate Valeria, at least for the short-term: there wasn't a lot of continuity between issues in Savage Sword, but the next issue mentions him jumping ship. Partly because Valeria could be a bit crazy even for Conan, but she (or maybe just the sea) also brought back painful memories of his late, lamented Belit. Valeria returns to her ship, the Sea Fox, but has Conan hold back, since she knows there will certainly be at least a couple mutinous dogs that have to be put down, which Conan does by bow. (Alternately, I think just showing up with Conan shuts down a lot of noise.) Their fun is rained on by a pursuing Aquilonian warship, but they set it on fire soon enough.

Still, the pirates do get a bit of a surprise, with a new island that wasn't there before. Going ashore for water and supplies, they instead find poisonous fruit, and weird milk-filled vines. The island doesn't seem to have birds or animals either, but first Conan and later Valeria seem to feel like they were being watched. Later, a guard is lured away, by a naked woman, but he is then grabbed by naked, silent men, who take him to a horrible plant-thing. His death is pretty awful, even for a Conan comic; and a pod then disgorges a copy of him. Back on the ship, the sailor that unwisely ate the local fruit looks old and shriveled, and Valeria decides they'll be leaving as soon as the last men return from the island. She need not have waited, though, as they get killed by the pod-guard, and his creepy weird feeder hands. The pod people silently walk into the water, to attack the Sea Fox.

Conan and Valeria are interrupted in bed again, as the crew is having a hard time with the pod people: simple stabbing wouldn't kill them, they had to be mostly dismembered. With more of them coming, Valeria orders to hoist anchor and try to drift away, but vines from the island grab them. Conan fights his way to the globes of oil they had used against the warship, then sets the vines on fire. Now frenzied and screaming, the pod people were fighting even harder, the Sea Fox was on fire, even Conan seems to be wondering if there was a way out of this one, and Valeria is like, enh, at least I'll die on the sea beside Conan, so...

They get a lucky break, from what would usually be misfortune: the Aquilonian warship catches up to them, ramming the ship, perhaps not noticing the vines or the fire or the raging battle. The remaining pirates jump ship, intending to take it, and as they pull away the Sea Fox and the monstrous vines explode! The pirates should be outnumbered, but they had managed to free the galley slaves, who also turn against the Aquilonians, who are forced to replace the slaves on the oars. A close one, but Conan and Valeria come out of it with a better ship, so...

Also this issue, King Kull and trade tariffs, in "The Caravan," written by Charles Dixon, art by Fraja Bator. A merchant tries to take his caravan off the usual trail, to avoid paying King Kull's taxes; and instead gets ambushed by bandits. Kull and his forces save him, which is largely incidental to wiping out the bandits: Kull himself had once been one himself, and knew all the tricks. The merchant protests, but Kull knows the score, and the merchant tells his grandson Kull was still a bandit, just one with a crown and an army now. Is it still a protection racket, if you legitimately supply protection?