Comics Review: "CONAN THE BARBARIAN #7" Will Get a Rise Out of Conan Fans

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #7 (2023)

TITAN COMICS/Heroic Signatures

STORY: Jim Zub

ART: Doug Braithwaite

COLORS: Diego Rodriguez

LETTERS: Richard Starkings of Comicraft

EDITOR: Matt Murray

COVER: Alex Horley

VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Patch Zircher; Jessica Fong, Dan Panosian

32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (February 2024)

Suggested for mature readers

“Thrice Marked for Death!” Part III: “Haunted”

Conan the Cimmerian was born in the pulp fiction of Robert E. Howard (REH), first appearing in the magazine, Weird Tales (1932).  In 1970, Marvel Comics brought Conan to the world of comic books via the title, Conan the Barbarian. With only a few pauses, Conan comic books have been published for the better part of five decades.

Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures are the new producers of Conan comic books, and they launched a new Conan the Barbarian series in 2023.  The current story arc is written by Jim Zub; drawn by Doug Braithwaite; colored by Diego Rodriguez; and lettered by Richard Starkings.  Entitled “Thrice Marked for Death!,” the arc finds Conan taking up with a thieves guild known as “The Gloryhounds,” and the target of their latest act of larceny is a fine-cut, dark stone that only Conan realizes is dangerous.

Conan the Barbarian #7 (“Haunted”) opens as Conan dreams of what a wonderful, fierce, and deadly piece of ass the late Belit, captain of the Trigress and Queen of the Black Coast, was.  He awakens to find that his current piece of ass, Chaundra, fellow member of the “Gloryhounds” thieves guild, wants to emphasize how deadly poon can be.  Before long, Conan finds all his fellow thieves in the throes of something supernatural and murderous.  Can Conan survive the onslaught or will he too become a haunted plaything of evil?

THE LOWDOWN:  Titan Comics has been providing me with PDF copies of their publications for review for several years now.  Conan the Barbarian #7 is one of them.

In my review of Conan the Barbarian #6, I wrote... “Halfway through this new Conan the Barbarian story arc and writer Jim Zub is still throwing down like he's been throwing down.”  Zub is still in puttin' it down, and issue #7 is a fierce penultimate chapter to this second story arc that promises a fearsome end.  This is especially true because, thus far, this arc, “Thrice Marked for Death!,” is constantly going towards the unexpected.

Doug Braithwaite, the artist for this story arc, continues to summon the ghosts of the shadowy textures and muscular storytelling that the late great artist, John Buscema, brought to all his Conan comic books.  This issue, however, Braithwaite is at his most brutally imaginative and imaginatively brutal, and the result is some serious bloodletting.  The art shines brilliantly, cursing Conan's foes, under Diego Rodriguez's remarkable colors.  All the while, Richard Starking's letters give this Conan the Barbarian comic book a soundtrack of (Thulsa) doom.

People looking for good comic books should be reading Titan Comics' Conan the Barbarian.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of Conan comic books will want to try Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures' Conan the Barbarian.

[This comic book includes the essay, “Robert E. Howard and His Ages Undreamed Of” Part Seven, by Jeffrey Shanks, although it is mistakenly listed as “Part Six.”]

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Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

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