X-O Manowar #1: Old School FN Awesome

Writer: Matt Kindt
Artist Tomas Giorello
Colorist: Diego Rodriguez
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment
Released: 22nd March 2017


**WARNING- LOADS OF SWEARING IN THIS REVIEW**


Fuck yeah, my dusty memories of youth have been rekindled. Days spent messing around outside, going everywhere, anywhere, with my mates, messing around, getting in trouble, running from that trouble, doing it again, having fun, truly living before this adult half-life, which is pretty much indoor delay, thinking rather than doing, writing rather than experiencing.

Oh to be a kid again, in the 1980’s, before the Marxists reprogrammed women into thinking that they should be just like the men. Those days were fucking awesome, and I know now just how lucky I was to experience them. Today, the kids are indoors, ipads in hand, spoilt, stunted, closeted, deified and bored as fuck. It’s awful, and if you want to know why it all started to go wrong for western civilisation, stop, go into your living-room, look towards the poison lefty box that lurks in the corner, and you will have found the culprit largely responsible for the decline of it all.

Good comic books in 2017, and there are not that many of them, take me back to the days when leftist bullshit was confined to a room full of bearded commies at the local polytechnic, and not the dominant ideological cancer that it has grown into today. Before white guilt, Islamaphobia, gender pronouns, antifa fags, gay marriage rights and open border terrorist atrocities, there were young boys reading comic books about the men they wanted to grow up to be.

These men were big, strong, courageous, kick-ass, big muscled warriors with long hair, cool scars, and sexy girlfriends who looked at them longingly, with lust and admiration. I did not want to grow up and be Carl the fucking cuck, a subservient worshipper of empowered women, and their society wrecking PC bullshit. I, like all of my mates, wanted to be Conan the Barbarian, a kick ass warrior who did what he wanted to do, and didn’t give a shit about anybody’s precious fucking feelings. I read comic books because they were awesome, the male hero characters were manly and cool, and the girls wore very skimpy clothes, and were sexy as fuck.

THAT IS WHY COMIC BOOKS WERE COOL.

But look at today’s comic books <FUCK> Just look at the state of them. The girls are in charge now. Read a contemporary Marvel comic book, and you will see that a far-left/Marxist/feminist consensus has been reached. Young girls are the best leaders, pilots, fighters, warriors, engineers, lawyers, accountants, politicians, fucking everything, and there’s no need for men at all.

It’s not just Marvel, though they are the worst, pick up any comic book today and you will see young girls elevated to such a ridiculously fucking unbelievable standard of excellence that men are simply no longer required.

PLUS, the Mary Sue heroines don’t even look very attractive anymore, and certainly not to any young male reader. The progressive heroines of contemporary comic books are starting to become more covered up than women and girls in Islamic countries. FUCK. There are only TWO kinds of people who will get anything out of this kind of pandering to Marxist/feminist infiltration. The first group is obese girls with daddy issues (you will see them in the streets with metal in their faces and blue hair dye dripping into their brains) and the second group is their pathetic cuck, testicle free jellyfish boyfriends who couldn’t fight themselves out of a wet paper-bag.

FUCK THESE PEOPLE.

The twelve-year old version of myself would have laughed his ass off at these fucktards, and seen them as the pathetic losers that they are, and now these are the people who are keeping the comic book industry alive? What a sorry fucking state the entire industry is in, how fucking sad it all is.

So, when I pick up a NEW comic book in 2017, a book that features a big buff man with a bad-ass attitude, cool hair, stripper girlfriend and the story is all about him fighting weird alien creatures in space, fuck yeah, this is the good shit. This is what I want, this is what comic books used to do, this is what comic books should be doing to reclaim their place in the hearts of masculinity deprived young boys in the west today.

Let’s talk about the art in this book. Tomas Giorello, you are a fucking genius mate. You know how to draw the bulging biceps, scarred up, growling glint of pure testosterone that is MAN. Giorello knows how to draw the man that every young boy dreams that he will grow up to be. Muscles, individualism, aggression, determination, pure, badass, masculine authority, that is what he draws, and nobody does it better.

What’s the story all about then? It’s a straightforward tale, easy to follow, and focuses on our man, ‘Aric’ the hero. That’s exactly how it should be. That’s what young boys want. That’s what gets them into reading comic books in the first place. To break it down, here’s what you are getting. You have super buff Aric on a farm, and he has a stripper alien girlfriend. There’s a hint that he has some super weapon technology thing that he hides, and then he’s sent to a war that he doesn’t want to go to. He kicks ass in that war (and the alien creatures whose ass he kicks look fucking awesome) and the issue ends with him about to be sent off on a suicide mission where he’ll obviously have to unpack and use his super weapon technology. What is it? What does it do? All shall be revealed next issue.

That is fucking awesome. What else could a young boy want out of a comic book? The protagonist is everything that any kid would ever want to be. He’s a kick-ass warrior with a bad-ass attitude, he’s got big muscles, cool hair, an alien stripper girlfriend and A SECRET FUCKING WEAPON THAT HE HASN’T EVEN FUCKING USED YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s really very simple, isn’t it? That’s it. That’s all you need to fucking do in a comic book. Do this, put a real man in the book, let him do what men do, and you rescue the entire fucking comic book industry. Not only that, but you start to give the kids of today a glimpse into that rare realm of ancient lore, that strange mythological dark space that is rarely glimpsed today, PURE, HONEST, SWEATY BALLS, KICK-ASS, DON’T GIVE A FUCK, MASCULINITY.

This issue, of course, is just a very, very, very, very good start. The following issues could social justice it all up and lay a big turd of progressive weakness all over this awesome start, but as a stand-alone first issue, X-O MANOWAR SOLDIER ISSUE 01 is old school fucking awesome.

This is the kind of book that I used to read as a kid in the early 1980’s, the kind of book that got me into comic books in the first place, and the kind of comic book that you just don’t see anymore. Everything about it is fucking awesome, the characters, art, story, simplicity, and the take no shit old-school masculine attitude itself. If you are searching for evidence that the Marxist era of progressive insanity and weakness is finally coming to an end, then this is the book for you.


Rating: 10/10 (Art, story, characters, everything about this book is old school fucking awesome)

Conan the Avenger #18- Conan the Barbarian, and the legion of strong independent feminist warriors

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Art: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 30th September 2015



There was something very mainstream about this book. It didn’t read like a traditional ‘Conan’ comic book to me at all. Instead it read like a Gail Simone book, or any other feminist tinged contemporary comic book coming out of the US comic book industry today.

I couldn’t envision Robert. E Howard writing a story like the one I had just read, and so I checked, and no, he didn’t write it. The story in Conan the Avenger #18 comes directly from the mind of writer Fred Van Lente, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the original stories.

I don’t insist on writers endlessly recycling the original stories, but Howard’s tales are all about rugged, independent, heroic masculinity, and when you strip that from a new ‘Conan’ story what do you have left?

Conan the Avenger #18 reads like a dime a dozen modern pro-feminist narrative. It has Conan on the cover, but the book is more concerned with empowering women than doing anything with the Conan character.

Having a pretty young girl matching Conan in one on one combat is not very believable, but it’s very PC, and that’s exactly what you get in this book. It’s also what you get in Marvel books and DC books, this wilfully stupid idea that women are the equals of men when it comes to physical strength and sporting/fighting prowess. It’s stupid because it’s not true. You don’t have males versus females in competitive sports. If you did it would be a mismatch, and that is why you will never see men versus women in a MMA fight or on the football field. Sorry feminists, but men and women are different, and although political correctness can’t get with that truth, that doesn’t make it any less true.

There’s nothing in Conan the Avenger #18 that differentiates it from the Avengers, BatGirl, Red Sonja, Spider Woman, Wonder Woman, or any of the other comic books on the market place today that are in faithful PC obedience to the insanity that is the modern feminist movement.

I read Conan books as a brief respite, as an escape from the lies of the modern feminist movement. So when I read a book like Conan the Avenger #18, a book that is identical to all of the other mainstream comic books in 2015, it’s disappointing.

I want my Conan books to be Conan books, and what I have read in Conan the Avenger #18, whilst not bad, is not a Conan book. It’s just another average, contemporary mass-market, mainstream comic book with a six packed bloke, and some warrior kick ass women matching him blow for blow. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I expect something different from my Conan books.

What I want from Conan is old school damsel in distress action. I want brave manly men and gratefully rescued girls. I want men to act like men, and women to act like women. I want Conan to be a testosterone fuelled, over-sexed, super aggressive, male chauvinist pig, not a pretty boy that spar/flirts with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m well aware that I sound like a misogynist old fossil in saying that, but that’s what I want from Conan the Barbarian. He’s a ‘Barbarian’ for Crom’s sake, not a metrosexual hipster.

Conan is a simple character. He has wonderfully sexist adventures using his mightily phallic sword to rescue pretty young girls from evil sorcerers and their pet monsters. It’s a bit ridiculous, but that’s what he does, that’s what makes him Conan, and if he’s not even allowed to do that anymore, well, he’s not really Conan, is he?

Rating: 6/10 (A decent comic book, but there’s no trace of Howard here)

Comic review: Weirdworld #1- A Flabby Voice of Surrender.

Artist: Mike Del Mundo
Writer: Jason Aaron
Colours: Mike Del Mundo & Marco D’Alfonso
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 10th June 2015


I didn’t find this ‘WeirdWorld’ to be particularly weird. The art portrayed weird, if weird is psychedelic trippy hippie 1960’s weird, but the narrative itself was just another mainstream comic book story of a lost Conan clone trying to get home, and fighting monsters.

I don’t think that it’s unfair to call Arkon (the protagonist in this book) a ‘Conan clone’ because, well, just look at him. He’s Conan, and it would be daft to pretend that he’s not. I read a lot of Conan books, and there’s no mistaking it. This guy is as close to being Conan as you can possibly get, at least visually speaking anyway.

Jason Aaron writes Arkon as a generic, indistinguishable 2015 era comic book protagonist. The narrative unfolds with Arkon as narrator, telling his own story as he waves his chopper at sharks and jumps off waterfalls. The actions are blood and guts toughness, but the voice of Arkon, unfortunately, is not in the least bit Conan. In place of the iron willed barbarian voice of defiance, courage and brutal integrity we get wet, limp and border line comedic.

‘How does one eviscerate despair? How do you strangle hopelessness?’

What a wuss. Is this Conan the Emo? I don’t think that it’s supposed to be. No, it’s just another limp comic book character written during very dire times for western masculinity. As I read this comic book, enjoying the beautifully painted artwork and lovingly crafted panels, I’m becoming painfully aware that this barbarian, this man of muscles and swords, isn’t really any different to any other whining ‘hero’ that I would read in a mainstream comic book of today.

Five pages in and he’s crying like a child lost in a supermarket. On page seven he is already done. A victim of despair, he’s ready to kill himself, not because of any great problem, not because he’s injured and about to be torn apart by a pack of dogs and unable to defend himself, but because he’s lost, and can’t be bothered to keep on trying to fight. I’m not joking. Seven pages in and this child-man is looking to jump off the nearest cliff. Now that’s a modern emo barbarian hero for you. Why continue to fight to the end when you can moan like a little girl and then do yourself in?

Before our hero takes the final leap into self indulgence, he’s forced into another fight, and the narrative goes into the usual ‘cool’ mode of story-telling that is so common in books (and movies) of today. You know how it goes, right?

Do you have nothing to say? Do you spend your entire life in a fantasy world where reality never peeks, thus making you incapable of saying anything about the world or what it means to have real human experiences? No problem, do something ‘cool’ instead. ‘Cool’ is God now, the comic book geeks live for ‘cool,’ so give it to them until they drown in the stuff.

The cool continues in Weirdworld #1 until the end of the book where the narrative POV switches to a sexy villainous, a girl for Conan the Emo Barbarian to have adventures with. Who knows? If he’s lucky he might even get a small peck on the cheek from her? No girl with anything at all going for her would want to give this drip a proper kiss, so friend-zone is the best that somebody like Arkon the weak could ever hope for.

Poor old Jason Aaron. He’s trying to write tough, and all he’s doing is writing another limp-wristed death of masculinity contemporary ‘hero.’

The artwork by Mike Del Mundo is great. I loved his swirls, his colours, and his artistic theme of harsh bloody, dirty reality mixing with the golden shine of magical fantasy. Mike Del Mundo is a new name to me, and I’ll be keeping an eye on him, but the writing, Aaron’s version of masculinity in particular, is embarrassing. There’s a sense of passive aggressive wetness about it all, and the supposition heavy, narrative voice of the protagonist reads about as well as the awfully stilted dialogue in a Stephen King novel.

It’s a shame. I loved the art, but the voice of the hero, the voice of everybody in the book actually, was just too much wet for me to take.

I really tried to like the book. It’s swords and sorcery, and I love swords and sorcery. It’s Conan (it is) and I love Conan, but it’s an old genre with a modern voice.

That modern voice is completely unbearable. It feels soft, bloated, unused to difficulty and unwilling or unable to endure empty days of useless toil for zero award. There was a feeling of entitlement to it, of expecting that life will be easy, that it will have meaning, that there will be rewards, when anybody who has actually lived a life knows that existence is usually just routine, pain, indifference, frustration, nothingness and toil, toil, toil.

I couldn’t help but take a dislike to the flabby tone of the book, and as much as I loved the artwork, that narrative voice of surrender ultimately stopped me from having the fun that I was desperately trying to have.


Rating: 5/10 (For the art alone)

Review: Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword #10 (Featuring ‘Demon In a Silvered Glass’)- Drugs Come Out of Boredom Babe

Main story: Demon in A Silvered Glass, by Doug Moench & art by John Bolton. 

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Released: April 1st 2015

Note- The images in this review are of the 1981 black and white version of the story. The 2015 version in Savage Sword #10 has been beautifully coloured by Jim Campbell, so to enjoy the coloured version please buy the book.

Savage Sword #10 was a reminder of quite a few things, of feelings, of moments in my life. It triggered a recollection of boredom, and of what can (or will, to be more precise) happen to you when you let the hooks of inertia dig deep within your psyche. Boredom will kill you, it will leave you open to the Reptilian part of your nature, that old demon that lurks, waiting for an opening, before pouncing at your moment of weakness, taking you over, killing your body and rotting your soul.

The book also reminded me of being a kid. Of being a young boy in love with comic books where brave heroes battled against evil sorcerers and their seductive, yet equally as dangerous daughters. It reminded me of that boyish suspicion of all things ‘girl’ related, that there is something alluring there, but be careful son, that beauty has a heck of a bite on it as well.

The story I’m talking about in Savage Word #10 is the old one, the story about a bored King and what happens to him when he gives into adult boredom, and the boyish fear of all things girlie is ignored. It’s the longest story in Savage Sword #10, and by far the best. The title of the story is ‘Demon In A Silvered Glass,’ written by Doug Moench, and with art by John Bolton. The story was first released in 1981, and it really stands out because you don’t get anything like this anymore. It’s too good, too clever, too intelligent, too insightful about the nature of power, boredom and human nature. It’s brilliant, and you don’t get that many brilliant comic books in 2015.

I hadn’t read the story as a kid. How I missed it I do not know, but I did, so reading it here for the first time is pure pleasure, a mix of nostalgia not only because the story (and art) is in a different league to anything available today, but also because it brings me back to my boyhood of reading cool American comic books with manly heroes who you could really look up to as being the personification of the man you want to grow up and become when the lazy days of boyhood fights and tree-house adventures sadly comes to an end.

Like I previously mentioned, the story is about a bored King. He gives in to the animal side of his nature, and becomes something akin to the neo-liberal democratically selected leaders that we have in the morally bankrupt west today. The spiritual, moral side of his nature, the very thing that makes him a man slowly ebbs away as he lives a life of authoritarian pleasure. He reverts to the Reptilian side of his nature, and by doing so he leaves not only himself open, but his entire Kingdom open for take-over as well.

This is a book that could have been written by David Icke himself. What this is about is the leaders of humanity being taken over by Reptilian outsiders who have hacked into the DNA of our species, implanting their evil into our brains in order to corrupt the species and eventually take it over and use it for their own ends.

The only difference between this book and our real world is that in this book the Reptilian outsiders are eventually defeated and the spiritual, eternal soul of man wins over the grounded, animal part of our nature. In our world the Reptilian elements have yet to be defeated. They haven’t yet won, but they are largely in charge of the world and are currently running it for their own benefit through the use of their Reptilian (influenced at least) front-men in the political sphere. Look at the world, look at what is happening, look at who is running it, and then ask yourself this question:

Is the world being run for the benefit of the human race, or is it being run for the benefit of something else?

I know how it looks to me. It looks like a world being controlled by the kind of woman/man who has given in to boredom, the kind of human who has completely given in to the animal side of their nature who want to kill, to destroy, to rape and pillage and indulge their baser instincts. If there is a God, he is not in charge of this planet. What is in charge is an animal/reptilian man who sits on a throne of boredom and decadence. He looks at the world and hating humanity, bored with it all, wants to set it all on fire, and warm his toes as he watches it all burn.

‘Demon In A Silvered Glass’ then is not just a silly boyish nostalgia tale from the early 1980’s bought back to life for a new generation of comic book readers. It’s much more than that. To me it is a warning of what happens when you give in to boredom and see yourself as nothing more than just another beast in the field. But more than that it’s a warning about what happens when you allow that kind of mindset to be the dominant mindset of the leaders you allow to control your world. That is the mindset of the neo-liberal consensus leaders who are controlling our lives today. We stupidly vote for them every four years or so and expect ‘change,’ then when we get none we are confused and angry. That is stupid, really stupid. We get what we deserve. We vote for the reptilian, the animal, so that is what we get.

This 1980’s comic book gets to the heart of the matter. It is telling us not just what is wrong with society, but what is wrong with each and every one of us. We are potentially independent, powerful and self-governing human beings, but we have become inert, lazy, and are ruled by the worse of us because we have allowed ourselves to be ruled.

We would rather be bored, owned animals than the strong, powerful, self-determined heroes that we should be. The comic book heroes that we read as children had important moral, ethical, societal and spiritual messages to impart to our young minds. These lessons have gone unheeded, and what we have today on this enslaved, chaotic, archon infested planet is just the natural result of what happens when a lazy species allows itself to be enslaved.  This is what is always going to happen to a bored, decadent, indifferent, lazy, selfish, animalistic race of beings who refuse to learn and insist on repeating every single mistake of the past.

When a King gets bored and lazy his Kingdom decays, the people revolt, outsiders capitalise on the disorder, and eventually it collapses. So what happens when an entire species is suffering from the same disorder? I ask that question because that is what is happening to the human race right now.

We are bored, lazy and ruled by those with a Reptilian mind-set. Collapse is inevitable. It’s not if, it’s when. That is the warning that is contained within this comic book. Whether or not we act on this warning and start doing something to stop the decline, well as always, that’s up to us. We have been too decadent, too indolent, and too indifferent for too long. The Reptiles are in charge now, we let them get in charge, and the only question left is whether or not we are too far-gone to do anything about it.



Overall Rating: 8/10 (Best of the rest was ‘The Sea Dog’s Tale’ by Ron Marz. A very good parable about evil, false religion and mind-control)

Demon In a Silvered Glass: 10/10 (Perfect)


Note about the heading, 'Drugs Come Out of Boredom Babe'
The quote comes from a Manic Street Preachers Song called 'Another Invented Disease.' Click link to have a listen: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PK133q19lg

Review: Conan the Avenger #12- Dreaming of pretty girls, wizards and monsters

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 25th March 2015


Dreams of pretty girls, of wizards, monsters, and far away lands of legend, myth and adventure give you a reason to live, a reason to battle through the hangovers, a reason to keep on writing, to keep on dreaming, to keep on living.

For if there cannot be anything better in this world, write it, and live it in your mind.

I can sense that feeling of silent desperation and loneliness when I read Robert E. Howard. It’s a feeling of disconnection from his world, and a longing to go back, to be somebody else who could be brave, strong, fearless, a leader with passion in his life, a passion that drives him, that makes living not a chore, but a pleasure.

Reading ‘The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob’ by Jim & Ruth Keegan (the excellent short at the end of Conan the Avenger #12) I get a sad sense of who Conan author Robert E. Howard actually was. It’s not a happy tale. Dreaming of being somebody else, of a beautiful woman, of a ship, a monster, a beach, he wakes to reality with a hangover:

‘Dreams, and dreams and the ghosts of dreams. Last night I was drunk but there seems to be no especial hangover this morning.’ (Robert E. Howard)

Looking on the bright side, at least his head doesn’t hurt from the wasteful nothingness of the night before. He can write again, make something happen in a world that he feels no connection to.

Conan is essentially a boyish dream, a fantasy character that allows you to experience a life you want to live, but without the difficulty that real life contains. You get the muscles, the cool hair, the exotic locations, the monsters, the wizards and the pretty girls, and you don’t even have to put your pants on and leave the house to get it all.

But live there for too long and you will start to rot from the inside. You cannot hide from the real world forever. You can try, for a while, but reality has a way of getting to you, and of bringing you kicking and screaming back to that dull grey place that you don’t want to be.

Reality can be awful disappointing, and people are never as interesting or courageous, as you want them to be. If people were like the characters in Conan comic books then I would be surrounded by heroic, honest, strong, morally upright, beautiful, monstrous, interesting, passionate, deceitful, mendacious, scheming, mysterious, fascinating people. Guess what? I’m not surrounded by those kinds of people.

I’m surrounded by the bored, the lonely, the stupid, the uninteresting, the cowardly, the trapped, the dreary, the suspicious, the petty, the angry, the spiteful, the lost, the indifferent and those just stuck in an endless routine of keeping their heads down until the day that they die. That’s real life, and it’s hard to square it with what you read in a Robert E. Howard story about Conan. You end up asking, where are the heroes? Where are the villains? Where are the interesting characters? You find none, and it’s bloody depressing, so here’s my solution to the problem. If you cannot find somebody who interests you, then be the person who interests you.

Set a goal, go for it, be good at something, achieve something, increase your social status and have adventures.  You don’t have to stay indoors, and you don’t have to create worlds in your head. The real world is big enough, and although the people might seem a bit dull and predictable compared to the wonderful characters of fiction, there are real adventures waiting for you in reality.

Take the masculine essence of Conan if you want to be Conan, and achieve, achieve, achieve, and if you don’t achieve, well sod it, a good failure can be just as much fun as well. There are a million ways to do this, all you have to do is set your mind on a goal, and go for it. Having something to strive for, to get out of bed for, to live for, will be enough, and don’t worry; there will be plenty of wizards, monsters and pretty girls along the way.

Robert E. Howard wrote a lot, probably too much. He created so much, but lived too little, and when life kept kicking him in the guts there was nothing left to anchor him to the reality that he didn’t really care much for anyway.

You have to force yourself to care. Fantasy is enjoyable, but fantasy is not reality. Take the metaphors, the analogies and the moral lessons, and use them to navigate the real, but don’t get the two confused, and don’t spend too much time in a world that doesn’t exist. Fantasy can lead to unhappiness, to self-delusion, it can lead you into voting to be a slave, and reality is a lot more interesting than you might think.



Rating: 8/10 (A happy ending to the arc with some enjoyable moments of humour from a delirious Conan)

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #11- Developing a passion for knowledge, and desire for truth

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Colourist: Michael Atiyeh
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 25th February 2015


Reading a good Conan book always cheers me up, and this was an excellent one, with a devious wizard, a beautiful girl, treachery, bravery, cunning and revenge.

All of this is beautifully portrayed with large (I have to put that one on my wall) panels of excellent artwork from artist Brian Ching. The art, from the pencilling, to the colouring, to the panel layout and size is uniformly excellent, and it puts a fruity, ripe scrumptious cherry on top of what is already an extremely delicious comic book cake.

Am I not a hypocrite though for railing against ‘Dominators’ as I did in my previous review of Sinestro #10, and then heaping praise on this Conan book? Surely Conan himself is just another dominator? No, he is not. Conan has never been about domination. To me, and when he is written as he should be, he is a moral man, brave, cocky, adventure seeking, but also (as Robert E. Howard himself describes) deeply melancholic.

At the end of his adventures Conan becomes a reluctant King. It is something that he never wanted to be, but in the twilight of his life all of the battles have been won, and so almost by default the crown goes to him, and unhappy is the man who wears it.

That Conan, that melancholic Conan, is not on display in Conan the Avenger #11. In this book Conan is the young, happy, adventure seeking Conan. He is arrogant, funny, brave, sharp as a blade and full of enthusiasm for life. This is the Conan before the victory, doing what he lives for, fighting, conniving, struggling and spitting in the faces of those who would rule over him. He is carefree, bleeding, in pain, but having the time of his life. That is the true essence of Conan. That is who he is supposed to be.

Conan isn’t the only character in this book that is fighting against those who would dominate, there is a girl as well, and it is her story that is the backbone to this issue. She fights for revenge, for the memory of her husband who fought not for gold, for power, but for knowledge.

Imagine what the world would be like today if everybody had the same mindset, where money was not as important as the search for truth? We can have that world, but it has to start on an individual level. It’s up to each and every one of us personally to learn to fall in love with the search for knowledge, the search for truth.

Or we can keep living for money, and the world can continue as it does today. Our choice, we make it every day.

I’m in a fantastic mood now, my spirits have been lifted and I feel more optimistic about the human race than I did before. That’s quite an achievement for a comic book don’t you think? So that’s why I still read Conan comic books, because when they are average they are good, when they are good they are excellent, and when they are excellent, as Conan the Avenger #11 certainly is, they transcend superlatives, showing what it is to be a human being, what it is that we should be living for. To live with passion, with strength, with courage, with determination and a burning, burning, burning desire for knowledge and that elusive yet essential spiritual Holy Grail called TRUTH.

Ratinmg: 10/10

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #10- Sit-up, stand-up, don’t be a slave

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 28th January 2015


Writer Fred Van Lente gives us some good old fashioned manly action in this month’s Conan the Avenger, and it continues to have everything that you could ask for in a Conan story.

Issue #10 features a pretty girl on the back of Conan’s horse, Conan himself having a far from friendly cuddle with a giant reptile, and a devious wizard doing what devious wizard’s do.

It features superb panel construction from artist Brian Ching, who builds up the narrative tension before giving the reader superb full page panels of artwork when the action or narrative development peaks in terms of excitement/peril for our brave hero.

Two panels stand-out, but I won’t spoil them. Get the book for yourself and I guarantee that you’ll have just as much fun with them as I did.

The book is a lot of fun, but it’s not perfect. It has a weak ending, and some of the dialogue is a bit too cute, a bit too self-aware and a bit too annoying in a way that you’ll find in a lot of mainstream comic books today.

You know how it goes? Everything is a joke, and the exchanges read more like a writer trying to be clever rather than two believable people having a genuine conversation. Some people like that, but it gets on my nerves. Lets get away from Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarrantino and move on to more realistic dialogue. I like realism, not cleverness.

Apart from that point on the ‘too cool for school’ nature of some of the dialogue I have no hesitation in recommending this exciting, well drawn, expertly constructed slice of good old fashioned swords and scorcery, damsel in distress, lizards and wizards action.

Conan the Avenger #10 is an enjoyable book, there’s no Police state worshipping about it, and Conan himself is an archetype, a hero who still resonates strongly today. In these collectivised, authority
worshipping times Conan reminds us that we have to be responsible for ourselves, and if we rely on authority to protect us we’ll end up living in a prison of our own design.

Don’t sit down, don’t watch, and don’t give away your power to those who would control you. If you want something, then do it for yourself. Be like Conan. Sit-up, stand-up, and don’t be a slave.


Rating: 8/10

Conan Red Sonja- The Age of Innocence #1: Feminist liberal morality hole

Writers: Gail Simone & Jim Zub
Art: Dan Panosian
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 14th January 2015


The two writers of this book have achieved the impossible. They have made me dislike a book that is starring Conan the Cimmerian. How did they achieve such a momentous, incredible, reality shaking, thunderous, unprecedented feat? I’ll explain.

First off, the art is excellent throughout. The panels are lovingly detailed, the colouring is gritty, dirty and atmospheric and the individual characters are full of personality and character. The only problem is the characterisation of Conan himself. He’s drawn great, but he’s drawn as a male model, as a pretty boy. He is not Conan, he is Red Sonja’s boy toy, but more of that later.

The story itself, at this early stage, has two huge fundamental flaws to it. It begins with Red Sonja doing what she always do in Gail Simone’s books, using the victim status given to her by her gender to dish out some violent ‘justice’ to animal rights abusing, sexist fat rich (right wing substitute) men.

Sonja sticks up for poor, abused animals (before completely forgetting about them later) and beats up a man who dared to find her attractive and wanted to sleep with her. Don’t worry, the man is old and fat, so that’s okay.

Anyway, so far, so normal for your typical Gail Simone book. The first problem is that this surface reason for Sonja’s violence hides her true motivations, which are thievery. Animal cruelty and sexism are the moral get-ins for the character, allowing her to steal, because the people she steals from are bad people. Just think about that for a second. This comic book is telling you that stealing is okay, just as long as you are stealing from bad people. Who gets to define whether or not a person is ‘bad?’ That would be the political left, as epitomised by the animal rights, feminist crusader Red Sonja, of course.

After the animal rights and sexism excuses are discarded Sonja teams up with (a very pretty) Conan to rob a young prince as he is laying in his bedchamber. This completely innocent, blameless young man is then brutally murdered by Conan, and what is Red Sonja’s reaction to this horrific, unjustifiable murder? Surely a truly moral person who cares so deeply about animal suffering and gender equality would find murder abhorrent? Nope, not at all, she meekly comments that the murder ‘seems excessive,’ and then completely forgets about it. She then spends the rest of the book looking at pretty boy Conan (the murderer) with puppydog eyes, completely indifferent to the fact that she has witnessed him murdering a young man, who did absolutely nothing wrong.

What happened to morality? How are these two character heroes? Sonja and Conan have been commissioned by a third party to steal somebody’s possessions, entered a young man's bedroom late at night, murdered him, and stolen his box of jewels. That, in anybody’s eyes, makes Conan and Red Sonja the villains of this story, not the heroes, doesn’t it?

After commencing their spree of murder and robbery our two heroes/villains (SPOILER ALERT) deliver their loot to the man who commissioned them to steal it. He then, inexplicably, explains his evil plans to them, rather than simply paying them and continuing on his way. Why would he do this? It makes no sense whatsoever, as he has nothing to gain by revealing the truth behind his schemes. That information would be on a need to know basis and the two mercenaries would quite simply, not need to know.

If you reveal the truth behind your scheme your paid mercenaries might not like it. They might even want to stop you from completing your evil plan, which is exactly what happens in this book. This twit of a villain has barely finished boasting about his evil plans when Conan quickly snaps his neck, and once again Red Sonja is completely indifferent to the casual murder.

What we can take from this is that Red Sonja is perfectly happy with murder, just as long as handsome young men like Conan are committing it. I guess she cares more about animal rights and sexism than anything else, as murder doesn’t appear to be much of a concern to her.

I find it very telling that animal rights and sexism have been used as a framing device within this narrative, as an entry point into a story about murder and thievery.

This deceptive technique has many parallels with western ‘democracies’ invading numerous middle-eastern countries for declared reasons based on neo-liberal definitions of human rights. When the ‘heroic’ liberators of the west actually get to those countries reality kicks in, concerns for human rights completely disappear, and it’s all about murder and stealing resources. In that way this comic is very much in keeping with the liberal values of our times. Use surface issues to justify your actions, then ignore reality as you loot, maim, murder and plunder, all the while portraying yourselves as the good guys, as the heroes of your fantasy narrative of liberal values.

I really enjoyed the art in this book, apart from Conan being drawn as a pretty boy, but I can’t continue to read it after this morally fractured first issue.

If you want to understand why the liberal mindset is so flawed, so twisted, so deluded, then you need to buy this book. Left leaning feminist types will love it, and they’ll hate what I have to say about it in this review. I’m happy with that. They live on hate and the desire to shut people up unless they agree with them, so this review is just more fuel for their fire of delusion, intolerance and politically correct mind control programming. The phoney ‘liberal’ left needs to wake up, and if I can expose their delusional mindset in some of these reviews then at least I’ve achieved something. Some people will get what I am saying here, others won’t. I put it out there, make of it what you will.

Rating: 4/10 (Apart from the depictions of Conan himself, the art was very enjoyable)

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #9- Have a Happy Conan Christmas

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse comics
Released: 24th December 2014


On this cold Christmas morning of 2014 what better way to spend my time than reviewing the latest Conan the Avenger book? Is that a bit sad? Probably, but hey, I’m a comic book reader, so sad is what I am.

Don’t worry, I’ll keep the review short. It’s Christmas day and I have a bucket load of calorie intensive food to eat and bad television to watch, just like everybody else.

So, the book is pretty bloody good. Conan is young in this one. He is scheming, helping an invading army, but with his eyes set not on conquest, but a ‘fabled treasure.’ Throw in some gorgeous blonde sisters for him to rescue and impress and you have a pretty good Conan book.

The one thing that was missing from the book was a devious wizard. Without spoilers, the last panel of this book delivers big time, and it left me punching the air in delight as the final panel reveal unfolded before my delighted, geeky Conan fanboy eyes.

Conan the Avenger #9 is a very welcome addition to the mythos. The art is a bit too cutesy for some, but I like it. Conan has a snarl and youthful arrogance about him, and it’s just as I envision the ambitious, cocky, cunning, yet still learning from practical experience young Conan to be. The narrative can be a little complex, difficult to follow, but a couple of reads clarify the events, and as its such an enjoyable book, reading it two or three times over is pure pleasure anyway.

So, finally to end the review. Have a happy Conan Christmas, now lets eat some food, drink some ale and have a bloody good time.

Rating: 8/10

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #8- Individualism versus corporate collectivism

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 26th November 2014


I always go back to my old Conan comics, reading them again and again to remind myself that comics can be good, if done properly. I need the reassurance every now and then, especially after reading bloody awful, intelligence insulting mainstream comic books that obsess over race, sexuality and gender politics, whilst deliberately ignoring the important issues of our times.

Break down their centres of control

You know what I’m talking about here, right? I’m talking about corporate/banking criminality, endless wars against media generated villains, a lack of political representation for the 99% of ordinary people, unthinking statism and the worship of order following abusers in positions of lawless state authority. These are the pressing concerns of today, not skin colour, race, religion or sexuality. These are the issues that comic books should be addressing. They are not doing so, and you don’t have to be a genius to understand why.

A good Conan comic is about individuality, and standing up for yourself whilst sticking to a strict set of moral codes, punishing the corrupt and being kind to the weak. Conan is not a government agent; he’s not an uniformed enforcer, he’s not an order follower, he’s not a good corporate slave. He would be completely out of place in the Marvel comic book universe of 2014 where order following state slaves are portrayed as heroes and true individual, independent masculine heroes no longer exist. It’s not a ‘conspiracy,’ it’s a corporate thing.

Marvel/Disney is a corporation that relies on consumer slave culture, and so it pumps out consumer slave heroes. It’s only natural for them to do so. They can turn Captain America black, or turn Thor into a woman because that is perfectly allowable within a corporate culture that sees humans not as individuals, but as passive consumers. How do you double your consumers? You get women to buy your crap as well as the men. Marvel doesn’t turn Thor into a woman because it cares about women’s rights. They turn Thor into a woman because they care about female consumers. It’s not about morality. It’s about business. What Marvel cannot do is push stories where the hero is an individual; a man who works outside of the collectivised, government sponsored Avenger/Corporate status quo. Pushing individualism is bad business for a corporation that relies on herd mentality consumer repeaters.

Conan the Avenger #8 is a good old fashioned Conan tale. It’s lacking an element of magic and sorcery at the moment, but it has political intrigue, a gorgeous slave girl for our hero to rescue and a despicable villain who is suppressing the people through threats of violence. It’s what all villains do. Threatening people with order following goons and bureaucrats is at the heart of what government is all about. It’s what your government is doing to you and your family right now. It’s what all governments do, and that’s why we need to get rid of them, all of them.

Conan ends up as King Conan at the end of his life, so he’s not perfect. But he’s always a sad King, a reluctant King who doesn’t really enjoy the position that he has attained. He’s not the power tripping type. He’s melancholic, a bit confused, and a bit in need of a book about anarchy if you ask me, because that’s what all of his adventures are about. They are about fighting against control systems, against kings, governments, wizards and every other kind of scumbag who has set himself up in a big White House on the hill. That’s why I like him, and that’s why he’s my comic book hero.

This particular Conan book is very well drawn, it has some gruesome battle scenes, it has a good villain and it closes on a cliff-hanger where Conan is staring down a wall of archers. Oh no, he looks in trouble this time. How is he going to get out of this one? I like that in my comics. Give me a cliff-hanger, give me a reason to look forward to the next issue, don’t rush things and have some fun with it all.

So far Conan the Avenger is a pretty decent Conan book. Conan is young, he’s not that talkative, he’s taking things in, learning and strategizing as the adventure progresses. It’s good stuff, far better than the cops and government agent crap you get from DC and Marvel. If like myself you get fed up with corporate Police state propaganda then you’ll get a kick out of it. Conan is still Conan in Dark Horse comics. They haven’t turned him into a girl. Not yet anyway.  He’s still fighting against control systems, and he’s still the main man, the number one hero in the comic book world of 2014, just as he was in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s and 2000’s. All hail King Conan, the melancholic, anarchist hero who doesn’t want to be a King.

Rating: 8/10

Blitz Review: Conan the Avenger #3- Slowly building, terrifically coloured

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Colourist: Michael Atiyeh
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 25th June 2014


What a great start to the day, reading a Conan book with political intrigue, gorgeous girls, scheming sorcerers, terrible beasts and Conan the Cimmerian right in the middle of it all.

This took a couple of re-reads, just to clarify in my mind exactly what was going on, and I really appreciated that as the artwork is gorgeous, in particular the dark colouring by Michael Atiyeh, so going back over the book to clarify a few points is an absolute delight.

 It’s been a great week for me, Conan wise. I've read two fantastic Conan books from Dark Horse comics, two books that have completely obliterated any feelings of depression that came from reading a couple of stupid superhero comics. King Conan Conqueror #5 was amazing and now this one. Both are excellent, even though they are very different books.

King Conan Conqueror #5 has a beautiful framing device of an older King Conan telling the tale of how he recovered a precious jewel and reclaimed his kingdom. There is an epic feel to it, and the Conan in the tale itself is a brawny colossus of a man, a man in his prime.

Conan the Avenger has a younger, almost playful and mischievous Conan, though when it comes time for battle he is still very much the Conan that we all know and love. Issue #3 clarifies the meat and potatoes of the story, and at the conclusion of the issue Conan accepts a role that will see him become a major player in the story that is unfolding. No longer is he an outside. He now has an important role, and a man who began the arc drinking alone in a tavern has found himself right in the middle of an internal, political power struggle between warring factions. Throw in some hack and slash action, some sorcery, a big old scary monster and some beautiful girls and you have everything you need for a classic Conan the Barbarian story.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t think that this book would impress me quite as much as it did, especially after reading the excellent King Conan Conquer #5, but this issue impressed me, a lot. The story, the art, the tone, the beautiful colouring. What a great book. Nice job to all involved, and I can’t wait for next month’s issue to see where this is all going, and how Conan takes centre stage and deals with the political machinations of that dastardly wizard and his pet goon monster. Great book, get it now.
Rating: 9/10

Review: King Conan The Conqueror Part 5 of 6: Masculinity fight-back

Artist: Tomas Giorello
Writer: Timothy Truman
Colourist: Jose Villarrubia
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 25th June 2014

The work produced by the creative team of Truman, Giorello and Villarrubia on this latest re-telling of Robert E. Howard’s Hour of the Dragon has been amazing, there’s no other word for it. This story has been told over and over again, and I have read it many, many times. Yet when the latest issue comes out, as it did this week, it’s still the one comic book that I’m most looking forward to reading, even though I know the story inside out by now. That’s the biggest compliment that I can pay to it, that something so familiar is not in the least bit worn out, and is still as fresh as anything released today.

This issue is nearing the end of Howard’s tale now, and it follows on from the previous issue's cliff-hanger, with a Hammer Horror style Mummy walking menacingly towards our eponymous hero. You have to love the dialogue here, with the testosterone and masculine strength that pulsates through the artwork being perfectly realised in the actual words coming from Conan’s mouth. Without spoilers, (for those lucky few not yet familiar with the tale) the Mummy gives Conan a gift. Here’s how the subsequent conversation between Conan and said Mummy goes-

Conan- “Who are you?”
Mummy- “ I was Thoth-Mekhi. I am dead.”
Conan- “ Well, since you’re feeling so damned helpful, show me out of this cursed temple will you?”

Is that not beautiful? How Conan, completely unintimidated by any man, living or dead talks to the Mummy like it’s some kind of random bloke in the street who’s giving him directions. Conan really is a man from a lost past. A past where men acted like men, and politically correctness and the curse that is liberal feminism had yet to blight the body politic.

This is further confirmed in the next few pages where scantily clad temple prostitutes get drunk with a corrupt and decedent king. This is not portrayed as a good thing by the way. It’s portrayed as a bad thing, as something that weak cowardly men do rather than engage with life and taking charge of their own destinies. This is no dedication to licentiousness, drunkenness and abusing your ill-deserved social status (for all of you celebrity worshippers out there), no this is a warning about what happens when you act like a fool and not like a man.

The artwork throughout this book is of the highest possible calibre, and together with the colouring it creates an impression that you simply will not see in your average Wolverine or Batman book. Just look at the panels I’ve included alongside this review, and get the bloody book immediately. If you like good art then you’ll want to get this book. Put the feminist liberal guilt trip nonsense aside for a second and be a real bloody man, or a real bloody woman, and just buy the bloody book.

This series ends next month, but if you haven’t been following it don’t worry. There will be two trade paperbacks coming out very soon that collect all twelve issues of the run. If you haven’t been following this run you need to get those two books as soon as they are released, and if you have been following this run, you need to pick them up as well, but you already know that.

This has been good. No, it’s been more than good. This is Conan being told as Conan should be told, and in this cultural wasteland of 2014 we should be immensely grateful that Darkhorse comics is still putting out books that don’t pander to the bullshit feminist liberal agenda that is poisoning all of the younger generations of comic book fans, heads full as they are with Rockefeller nonsense from their years of incarceration, mind-control indoctrination at school, college and university.

This is a book with red blood and a strong anti-authoritarian, masculine heartbeat. Do you realise how rare that is today? There are hints that the creative team will continue to work on more Conan stories past this run, and we’ll get more news on that next month. I’m sure they’ll continue. They have to continue. I can hear Conan himself roaring his demand through this generation of defeated male comic-com attending, emasculated guilt-tripping, soft dullards. ‘Oh you shall continue. By Crom I demand that you do.’ Do not ignore Conan, it would be unwise to do so.
Rating: 10/10

Review: King Conan The Conqueror Part 4 of 6- Akivasha the Temptress

Writer: Timothy Truman
Artist: Tomas Giorello
Colourist: Jose Villarrubia
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 28th May 2014

For long time fans of all things Conan related this story (an adaptation of Howard’s Hour of the Dragon) will be extremely familiar. This issue follows the part of the tale where Conan meets the vampire Akivasha, makes a run for it, witnesses the priests doing their ceremony with the heart of Ahriman, is startled by the intrusion of a third party and ends up joining the fight himself. So what is new? That’s the question here as the story is already well known, and I don’t want to go through it all over again. Firstly, the art is gorgeous. Akivasha is drawn extremely seductively, and there’s an air of menace to her, an alluring sense of danger like a siren calling a ship onto the rocks. Conan resists, but few men would, and the framing device of an older King Conan explaining how he resisted is something new.

‘That day I saw the hideous reality of immortality. The foul perversion of everlasting life. Perhaps it was the memory of Zenobia’s warm hand which put the lie to Akivasha’s cold, dead touch and kept me free of her spell.’

That is the main difference in this re-telling and others I’ve previously read, but the final panel is also particularly worth mentioning, using a cliff hanging device of Conan being in peril from what appears to be a Mummy creature that you would normally find in a Hammer horror movie. It’s a great way to end the issue, making up for what often comes across as a bit of a weak climax where the main villain Thutothmes is rather easily dispatched, and not even by Conan but by an interloper on the final, climactic scene where the power of the heart of Ahriman is revealed.

Get this book for the art, even if you’ve got dozens of other comic book variations on the Hour of the Dragon tale. Akivasha has never looked so seductively evil, and it’s a lot of fun to see Conan escaping her alluring caresses, even if you know exactly what is going to happen next. Rating 9/10