REVIEW: Conan the Barbarian #24
While Conan and Zula emerged unscathed from their audience with Thoth-Amon, master of the Black Circle of Sorcerers and an important figure in the insidious snake cult of Set, they learned of “Set’s brood gathering beneath Keshatta.” With the coming of dawn, Zula’s magic disguise has expired, however, and Athyr-Bast has escaped her bonds. An alarm is raised city-wide, but Conan and Zula remain committed to disrupting Thoth-Amon’s insidious plot to destabilize Stygia’s neighboring kingdoms. The pair venture into the tunnels below Keshatta, where curses and darker threats await.
Concluding the current Conan the Barbarian story arc, this issue is entitled “The Nest Beneath.” Jim Zub has managed to pack quite a bit of story into a single issue, and his narration work is appropriately breathless. Zub also incorporates a fun reference to Robert E. Howard’s original Conan tales by having the children of Set growing beneath the city take the same form as the monster from the story “The God in the Bowl.” A brief flashback in this issue reveals that the encounter in “The God in the Bowl” has already taken place in the Titan Comics Conan the Barbarian continuity, although not “on-screen.”
Fernando Dagnino delivers some more great expressions in this issue. Faces twisted in rage during combat, dumbstruck through mesmerism, panicking when confronted by supernatural horrors, etc. And while he had some opportunity to briefly show off some monster artwork in Conan the Barbarian #23, this issue’s Man-Serpents offer him an opportunity to really let loose.
In the final pages of the issue, Jeffrey Shanks delivers another informative essay on serpent-haunted Stygia, this time profiling the villains of Stygia. I was surprised to learn that scene-stealing sorceress villainess was not an original Zub-created character, but instead one who first appeared in Marvel’s Savage Sword in Conan in 1993, late in the original magazine’s run. Cheers to Zub’s archaeology work; his dedication to repurposing entertaining motifs and characters from the full body of Conan the Barbarian canon is laudable.
Conan the Barbarian #24 delivers a strong conclusion to one of the best storylines in Titan Comics’ two-year run. Newcomers to the title have been given a thorough grounding in Stygia, its snake cult, and power players like Thoth-Amon, meaning a firm foundation has been laid for the upcoming “Scourge of the Serpent” miniseries. While it’s unlikely that readers will be surprised to see Thoth-Amon and Athyr-Bast escape to plot another day, the fates of Livia and Zula are less predictable and should provide some exciting fuel for future stories.
Read Conan the Barbarian #24 by Jim Zub (W) and Fernando Dagnino (A)The post REVIEW: Conan the Barbarian #24 appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.
