Writer: Timothy Truman
Artist: Tomas Giorello
Colours: Jose Villarrubia
Publisher: Dark Horse Comic
Released: 30th July 2014
‘But of what worth are power and the treasures it brings…if there’s no one to give them to?’
So says an elderly King Conan as he concludes his tale of the glory days of battle and how he re-gained his kingdom, and his Queen.
It’s that feeling of melancholy that I will remember the most from this latest take on Robert E. Howard’s Hour of the Dragon story. This final edition celebrates Conan’s victory with gloriously illustrated panels that depict the key moments of battle.
The standout panels are the destruction of the wizard himself, in a swash of blood and furious, aggressive muscular vengeance. It’s the colouring that does it here, but in the quieter panels there is a look in the eye of the elderly King Conan. Still mighty, still a towering colossus of coiled muscularity, but the eye, surrounded by scars, it is sad, very sad.
The good news is that this creative team is going to return. There are no details as of yet, but as soon as I hear about them I’ll put it up on my blog. I don’t usually announce comic book news here, but with this creative team working again on Conan; I’ll make a happy exception.
King Conan The Conqueror Part 6 of 6 is a book of blood, battle and glorious vengeance for our eponymous hero. It was a great victory, but now as an elderly King Conan re-tells the tale of his most glorious hour, there is no joy there, no celebration, no boastful elevation of his own legend. No, there is only sadness as he surveys the life he is now living, and how everybody he knew, admired, loved or hated are no longer of the world.
All that remains is a melancholy old King with a kingdom of material riches but with nobody to share them with. Worse still, he has no heir apparent to the Kingdom he spent his life’s energies and passions to secure, and as he looks over the body of his dead wife the past is all he has. The present is numb, and the future offers nothing but dust.
Rating: 10/10
The cover of this final issue looks fantastic. From the page shown and the cover, the color definitely pops out... I put off getting this series for later, but as I'm kind of put off or uninterested with many of the current comic out there right now (minus a handful at most), your 10/10 assessment and the visuals on this last issue make me want to read it asap.. Think I just might! Again, love that cover! I'm glad the team is going to continue, very good news.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of news, I for one would love to here any Conan news and updates as time issues are and will be rough for me plus the fact that I can't stand the balonery mass-comics media and having to sift through, cosplay after cosplay or other ridiculously unrelated "comic" news. However, its easy for me to just have you bookmarked on a sidebar on my blog and click over once in awhile ;) If it wasn't for this post, it would have flew by my radar! On that note thanks.
Thanks for the kind comments Ronnie. The cover art is exactly the same as the interior, and the colouring by Jose Villarrubia has been fantastic throughout, that's why I included his name at the top of this review, even though I don't normally mention the colourist in my reviews. I'll be sure to include the latest Conan related news in my blog, and I know exactly what you mean about current comics. I don't read any Marvel books at all these days, and only a couple of DC books are worth looking at. We still have Conan though, and the team of Truman, Giorello and Villarrubia are going to return, so at least we have that to look forward to.
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