The Chronicles of Conan Volume 10: When Giants Walk The Earth And Other Stories [Paperback]

"Chronicles of Conan, Volume 10: When Giants Walk the Earth and Other Stories," reprints issues #72-77 and 79-82 from "Conan the Barbarian." The gap in the continuity is issue #78, which reprinted "Curse of the Undead-Man" from "Savage Sword of Conan" #1, which teams up Conan and Red Sonja, albeit now in color. This is the point in the chronology of the character where Roy Thomas is milking the epic Conan story "Queen of the Black Coast" by Robert E. Howard for all it is worth. Conan first joined up with Belit in issue #58 and it would not be until #100 that we got to the death of the she-pirate and the end of the story. What made this work so well for the comic book was that Thomas was coming up with multi-part stories as key elements of the larger story. What we have here is one of the major stories within that epic, where Belit finds out that her father is still alive and wants to go rescue him. But in these ten issues Conan and Belit only get as far as starting to travel up the River Styx. Once they begin their travel there is an adventure in Harakht (#75-77) and a side trip that Conan has to take without Belit (#79-81). All of the stories are written by Thomas and inked by Ernie Chan, but the first set of reprints are penciled by John Buscema while guest illustrator Howard Chaykin shows up for the second storyline.

"Vengeance in Asgalun" (#72) begins with Conan, Belit and the Black Corsairs raiding a Shemite merchant vessel, but then heading to the royal palace at Asgalun to fetch a vial with a special herb to help old N'yaga's bones heal. There Conan and Belit pretend to be a bickering husband and wife to be able to get the vial. But along the way Belit learns that her father is alive and supposedly in Luxor. "He Who Waits--in the Well of Skelos!" (#73), freely adopted from a plot by Howard, starts off with the cowardly Kawaku, making his move against Conan and Belit to take over the pirate ship "Tigress." So Conan leads the traitor to the Temple of the Toad, knowing full well what is waiting in the Well of Skelos. "The Battle at the Black Walls" (#74) has Conan coming face-to-face with Thoth-Amon, albeit in a dream and is shown the "Tigress" burning at sea. Belit also has a dream that night, but it is of her father. When they raid a Stygian ship, its last defend walks forward onto Conan's words rather than tell what he knows of Luxor. They find a Zingarian girl named Neftha aboard, and she helps guide them on the long and dangerous road to Luxor.

"The Hawk-Riders of Harakht!" (#75) certainly strikes me as owing a dept to the tarnsman aspect of John Norman's novels about the counter-Earth named Gor, as our trio travel up the River Styx and encounter archers riding on giant hawks who attack the trade ship they are on from the skies. When one of the giant birds takes Belit, Conan tries to follow on another, only to edge up in a crocodile infested marshland fighting for his life. "Swordless in Stygia" (#76) finds Conan pursuing the captive Belit to the walled roofs of Harakht, city of the Stygian hawk-god. But when he finds Belit, he also finds the star that fell on Stygia, which is protected by a giant who wants to kill Conan just for touching the sacred stone. "When Giants Walk the Earth!" (#77) concludes this diversion on the road to Luxor as Conan makes sure there is somebody new sitting on the throne of Harakht.

"The Lost Valley of Iskander" (#79), freely adapted from another non-Conan story by Howard, has Conan agreeing to take the Eye of Set, a holy gem, to the village of Attalus in the rugged hills of Stygian exchange for safe passage to Luxur. On the way Conan is attacked by Stygian worshippers of Hun-Ya-Di and discovers a woman named Bardylis to Attalus, which is ruled by her brother, Ptolemy, king of the Valley of Kiskander. "Trial by Combat" (#80) has Conan being accused of being a wizard, believe it or not, by Ptolemy's henchman Ablah. After beating the king in the titular fight, King is not the de facto king of the valley just as three hundred Stygians storm the pass and enter the valley. In "The Eye of the Serpent" (#81) it turns out Hun-Ya-Di is leading the Stygians, which means another big fight, this time with swords, before Conan restores peace to the valley. "The Sorceress of the Swamp!" (#82), adapted from Howard's "Black Canaan," finds Conan hurrying back to Harakht to rejoin Belit, but getting side tracked by what is happening in a swamp between Stygians and Kushites. Conan is also threated with the Call of Damballa by a woman who may be a demon out of hell and he STILL has not yet made his way back to Belit.

Conan Volume 10 "When Giants Walk the Earth" is the latest collection which reprints the original Conan the Barbarian series from Marvel Comics. Included in this edition are issues # 72 - 77, 79 -82. As this book opens, Conan is continuing his adventures with the she-devil Belit and her black corsairs. In "Vengeance in Asgalun" Belit and Conan must go to the city state of Asgalun, which is also Belit's home' to find a hidden elixir to save the shaman N'Yaga. While there Belit discovers that her father whom she thought dead may be still alive. Conan's arch nemesis, the Stygian Wizard Thoth-Amon makes an appearance in "Battle of the Black Walls" as he appears to Conan in a dream and warns him to give up the quest to find Belit's father. Conan ignores the threats as he, Belit, and a Zingaran slave girl sneak into the Stygian city of Khemi and travel down the river Styx on a merchant ship where they are attacked by the Hawk Riders of Hor-Neb and Belit is carried off by the giant hawks. Conan attempts to rescue Belit but is thrown into a pit with a massive giant and discovers the secret which made the Hawks and this man grow so large.

The last few issues in the book are an adaptation of a Robert E. Howard story called "The Lost Valley of Iskander". This was not an actual Conan story but an El-Borak story. El Borak was the middle Eastern name for Francis Xavier Gordon, a mercenary and adventurer, circa the 20's and 30's who traveled throughout the middle east. Howard wrote several El-Borak stories and Roy Thomas ties this into Conan chronology by having the ruler of the Khemi send Conan on a diplomatic mission to the lost valley and the city of Attalus. The adaptation comes off pretty well as most of Howard's heroes were pretty similar in their make.

As usual the wonderful John Buscema handles the penciling chores on most of the issues along with the stellar embellishments of Ernie Chan. "The Lost Valley of Iskander" was drawn by Howard Chaykin also with inks by Chan. Whether intentionally or due to Chan's inks, Chaykin's art ends up looking a lot like Buscema's. Thomas had a great affinity for Belit, obviously as he extended her stay with Conan from an initial short story by Howard into a comics run that lasted a over three years and spanned some 42 issues until her death in the classic Conan #100. As with the other Conan collections Roy Thomas provides commentary about the various issues in the run including his freely adapted version of "The Lost Valley of Iskander". Great insight from Roy as always and why not...he was there when these were all being created. Another strong volume from Dark Horse.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Reading these Dark Horse collections of "Conan the Barbarian" comic books has some pluses over the original experience. Take this volume of nine issues originally published in 1977: No need to flip past sea monkey ads, no faded coloring on pulp stock, no month-long wait between issues.

The drawback is these issues were not made to be read at once. This hits home in Volume 10. Roy Thomas often focused his stories on effect, thrusting Conan into a different adventure from month-to-month in order to change up the cover image and entice regular buyers to something new on offer. "We like to keep switch-hitting" was the way he explained it to a letter-writer in issue #76. If Conan was fighting a guy riding a hawk one issue, he could be squaring off against a giant in the next. The result was great fun to look at, but an obstacle to a consistent running storyline.

What you get here instead of a consistent story are three different narrative arcs of three issues apiece. The story in the first three issues reprinted, #72-74, is by far the best. After a secret mission to the coastal kingdom of Shem, Conan and his pirate-queen mate, Bêlit, discover her royal father is still alive but imprisoned in the heart of evil, snake-worshipping Stygia. First they must deal with a mutiny aboard Bêlit's ship. Then it's on to the coast of Stygia to begin their quest.

This story arc includes a couple of prize villains in Bêlit's puppet-king uncle Nim-Karrak and the slippery corsair Kawaku. A monster frog makes a sensational surprise appearance it would be a shame to detail here. Everything clicks pretty brilliantly, especially some panels by artists John Buscema and Ernie Chan that feature Conan in a lengthy nightmare sequence.

The next three issues, #75-77, pulls us out of the search for Bêlit's father to sidetrack us with the city-state of Harakht, home of the hawk-riders, where Conan and Bêlit are captured. Harakht somehow remains independent of mighty and fearsome Stygia despite lying inside it, and grows these giant hawks from a meteor that fell out of the sky. The same meteor also produced a giant who threatens Conan. Much intrigue follows, if of a rather sluggish kind.

We get pulled to yet another side story in the last three issues, #79-81 (#78 was a reprint). Conan here is sent on a mission as an envoy to yet another independent city-state within Stygia, Attalan, awkwardly populated by the descendents of time-travelling ancient Greeks.

Taken from a short story by Conan creator Robert E. Howard not involving Conan, this is the weakest part of Vol. 10. Howard's story, "The Lost Valley of Iskander", works better with another Howard hero at its center. "I'm a strange one to have been picked for a task to preserve the peace," Conan notes. Worse, the story pulls Bêlit away entirely just as you begin to warm to her hot-tempered pursuit of her quest. Conan instead dallies with another woman in a go-go dancer bikini outfit. Buscema is temporarily replaced for these three stories by Howard Chaykin, whose pencils are sometimes jarringly lacking in proportionality and perspective. At one point, Conan fights a man who seems to go from six to eight feet tall between panels.

If these books were written the way graphic novels are today, there would be less plot-twisting and more narrative build. But Thomas had a core market of easily-diverted teenage boys to satisfy, including me back then. No doubt he saw a need to keep us happy by changing things up. It's just more apparent here than with other volumes how much of a drawback this could be.

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