CONAN: THE DAUGHTERS OF MIDORA AND OTHER STORIES

I grabbed this digital volume in a sale when Dark Horse's Conan license ended a couple years ago. It contains a number of stories of varying length, which were originally published between 2004 and 2012. So without further ado, let's dive in!

"TROPHY"
Script by Tim & Ben Truman | Art by Marian Churchland
Letters by Brandon Graham

This eight-page tale is a short, light-hearted opening to the volume, but it's a nice showcase of what Conan is all about, hitting all the major marks. Conan, lugging a sack with him, wanders into a desert village and stops at a fancy inn for some refreshment. He regales the patrons with stories of how he acquired the various treasures in his bag, getting them drunker and drunker until they all pass out -- at which point he purloins their valuables and departs for the next inn on the road.

Like I said, it hits all the marks: Conan the wanderer, coming out of the desert to civilization. Conan the barbarian, as we see, through his stories, scenes in which he kills various powerful warriors through increasingly creative and violent means. Conan the carouser, drinking heavily and enthralling a roomful of revelers with his tales. And Conan the thief, making off with their belongings after his stories are done. If somebody knew nothing about Conan, this would be a nice little primer for the character -- which is possibly why it was placed first in this collection!

SPIDER-MAN / RED SONJA

Writer: Michael Avon Oeming | Artist: Mel Rubi
Colorist: Brian Buccellato | Letterer: Simon Bowland
Assistant Editors: Alejandro Arbona & Lauren Sankovitch | Editor: Bill Rosemann
Consulting Editor: Joe Rybrandt | Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada | Publisher: Dan Buckley
Special Thanks to: Tom Brevoort, Josh Johnson, Juan Collado, Nick Barrucci, Jason Ullmeyer, Arther Lieberman, and Luke Lieberman
Red Sonja is based on the Heroine Created by Robert E. Howard

In 1979, Marvel, then holder of the license which (at the time) included both Conan and Red Sonja, published a MARVEL TEAM-UP issue pairing the She-Devil with a Sword and Spider-Man in a fight against the evil wizard, Kulan Gath. in 2008, Marvel and current Red Sonja rights-holder, Dynamite Entertainment, teamed up for a sequel to that tale by the then-current RED SONJA creative team of Michael Avon Oeming and Mel Rubi.

It's worth noting that in the interim -- only a few years after the original team-up -- the scripter of that MTU issue, Chris Claremont, penned a sequel story sans Sonja in the pages of UNCANNY X-MEN, in which Kulan Gath transformed New York into a replica of his native Hyborean era and set various mind-controlled superheroes against Spider-Man for revenge. But by that story's conclusion nearly everyone involved, including Spider-Man, had all memory of the incident wiped from their minds.

For this story, Oeming borrows a cue from Claremont as Gath's sinister necklace turns up in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a visiting senator is drawn to it and puts it on. This transforms him into the embodiment of Kulan Gath, who promptly turns Manhattan once more into a Hyborean world, and plants a sword for Mary Jane Watson (Parker?) to discover, even while placing a suggestion in her head that Spider-Man is her enemy. Thus MJ finds the sword, turns into Red Sonja as she did years earlier in MARVEL TEAM-UP 79, and goes out to kill the web-slinger.

RED SONJA #0 - 6

"THE MESSAGE" | "THE FLAMING SKULLS" | "LIFE & DEATH"
"TIDE TURNS" | "TOWER OF BLOOD" | "FALLING STAR"
Writers: Michael Avon Oeming w/Mike Carey | Art: Mel Rubi
Colors: Caesar Rodriguez w/Richard Isanove (#1-4), Brian Buccellato (#5), & Blond (#6)
Color Assists: Imaginary Friends Studios (#3), Michael Kelleher (#4)
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft w/Josh Johnson and Rich Wenzke
Editorial Consultant: Luke Lieberman | Based on the Heroine Created by Robert E. Howard
Special Thanks to Arthur Lieberman at Red Sonja Corporation

There are two tropes I particularly enjoy in the world of sword & sorcery fantasy: the "lone warrior wandering the world", righting wrongs and getting involved in local struggles against hell-born demons, evil wizards, or corrupt kings, and the "she-devil with a sword" wearing impractical "armor" and killing everything in her path. Obviously the latter was pioneered by Red Sonja herself, and the former is on full display as well in this inaugural outing from Red Sonja's 2005 series (a series which would go on to run 80 issues plus numerous mini-series and one-shots before being rebooted in 2013).

There were several occasions when I considered reading the Dynamite series, but one thing above others kept turning me off: I just didn't like the art. Something about Mel Rubi's work didn't appeal to me, and because of that, I never gave this series a chance. But last year Dynamite partnered with Humble Bundle and put several digital comics up for sale in a "pay what you want" deal. I dropped a few dollars for the chance to finally check out this series.

Issue 0 begins with Sonja entering a small town, where she's attacked by (and kills) a number of men looking to rob her. Following this brief introduction, issues 1 through 6 of the series feature Sonja defending a messenger from the city of Gathia who is ultimately killed while in her care. She relays his message to the city and winds up getting abducted by a priest to help his resistance in overthrowing Gathia's sinister ruler, the Celestial. The coup is successful with the aid of Gathia's savage neighbors, the Zedda, but the priest is murdered and the city's inhabitants -- men, women, and children alike -- are slaughtered by the Zedda as Sonja proceeds on her way.