Savage Sword of Conan #3 Review!

The Savage Sword of Conan #3 has a fantastic story of Conan against a werewolf, the conclusion of Solomon Kane’s adventure, and a silent Conan story! The cover by Alex Horley has Conan Amed with his axe against a werewolf against a blue tinted night background! There is a pinup by Horley of Kull wielding his axe against Serpent Men, behind him is a woman by a pillar, very Frazetta “Egyptian Queen”, with a skull looming behind them! The first story is a Conan tale, “Wolves of the Tundra”, is by Frank Tieri with Cary Nord artwork. Tieri is the writer of another Hyperborean character, Red Sonja: Black Tower limited series. Nord is the artist of the Dark Horse Conan comic books. 

The black and white format is used to great effect with the stark setting and the chiaroscuro art by Nord. We open on the tundra, this can be any snowy country of Conan’s world which I like, also any time in the adult Conan’s life. We see a hare hopping in the snow and then yanked by a dark, hairy paw and munched on off panel! I also like the large panels that gives the scope and focus to tell the story. Then, we get a splash page of the werewolf howling against the moon over his meal! It turns sniffing, a closeup of its snout, and then the beast starts prowling towards footprints in the snow leading to a house! A conversation is heard of a boy and his father. 

The dark form of the werewolf is seen by a lit window of the house. The father argues against his young son going to town when he has chores. Then, we see the family in shadow. A closeup of the werewolf claws scratching the door. The door is tossed into the night! Then, a panel of the werewolf roaring, impressive, but it is startled at the empty room. The family; father, mother, son, and daughter, stand at the back of the house, eyes glowing! The father says they know what happened to the “others.” They transform into werewolves and begin to bash the invader seen with sound effects! Nice work by Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith. A twist beginning! The family that werewolfs together… 

A splash page of the lone werewolf standing above the defeated family howling with his claws dripping with pale blood! He staggers into the night, wounded, spitting blood, he falls as a man and we see his thoughts, “I am…”, then we see the naked body of Conan! He is cursed, Conan has been under spells before, but this is the first as a werewolf! A closeup of his eyes. We roll back to days earlier, Conan on his horse, he is starving and thirsty which is common for the Cimmerian. He reaches the Hungry Claw tavern, I like the Slaughtered Lamb name from American Werewolf in London (1981), and hitches his horse outside. Inside the tavern is laughter and music, Conan walks in, and the patrons go silent. 

He asked the eyepatched innkeeper for a meal, bed, and ale. Looking around, Conan notices mounted wolf heads and wolf skins. The innkeeper says they don’t get many strangers and Conan warns all that he doesn’t want to be disturbed. Two men try to threaten him and Conan smashes one with his flagon and then draws his sword! The others stand, the wind blows out the candles, and their eyes glow in the darkness! We get panels of black and sound effects! Fighting and growling. Closeup of Conan lighting a match. He sees the broken tavern. His shoulder is bleeding from bites. He sees a severed werewolf arm. Then, he transforms to feed on his horse, surprised that the horse didn’t sense the werewolves and bolted. 

He howls to the moon, but doesn’t remember what happened that night. Conan suddenly wakens in a stable with a farmer carrying a lantern. A splash page as he sees that he had killed all of the animals in the barn! The farmer says he was one of the Wolves of the Tundra! Conan is told the only way to break the curse is to kill the head werewolf, but his identity is secret. Conan takes the farmer’s horse to hunt down the leader. A two page splash has Conan killing werewolves by sword or by claw, his face divided into human and wolf half, burning down a cabin, and drowning another. This is until he finally ties one to a post  to get the location. The barbarian finds it at a cavern making me think of the movie, The 13th Warrior (1999), finding the lair of the Wendol. 

Conan enters the cavern filled with skeleton remains and a giant room of columns in a splash page! There, the leader is familiar with hordes of werewolves! A nice twist ending! There is a excerpt from the novel, Conan: City of the Dead, and a short piece by the author, John C. Hocking, on Conan inspirations. The conclusion of "Master of the Hunt" by Patrick Zircher follows with some background of the Otherworld, Annwyn, and its people, the Tylwyth Teg. This is the world out of Welsh myth ruled by Arawn, the dark figure with deer antlers, familiar to me from the Chronicles of Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander. The spires and waterfall of the castle are beautiful. Inside the citadel is the black cauldron, also the title of the 1985 Disney film, tended by nine maidens. The artwork has hints of Barry Windsor-Smith’s influence, Romantic illustration.

The cauldron holds golden mead which keeps the Tylwyth Teg immortal, but beneath the lords and ladies are the goblins and others working in the mines. One of them is the beast-like Gawr who had helped build the cauldron and carry it. The Gawr walks up the citadel steps past two guards it killed. He also slaughters the maidens, this is part of a cycle, and when restored, all will be the same. Gawr drinks the mead from the cauldron. It decides to find a hiding place in our world where we see the tower that Solomon tracked it to last issue. Solomon Kane calls out the name of the boy, Roland Maddocks, stolen by Gawr. He is armed with pistol and rapier with the tower flooded to his boots. He sees a body covered in ivy and then hears Roland’s voice!     

Gawr charges towards him and Solomon blasts his pistol at the beast’s chest! It slashes away the horn given to Solomon by the blind storyteller, Gruffudd, last issue. He stabs Gawr and it snaps his blade! Then, Gawr pounds him down, but Solomon uses his other pistol shoots its knee! He plunges the shattered rapier into Gawr’s neck and then is bear hugged by the beast! Solomon thinks his apology to the family that he vowed to save. Solomon reaches out to grab the horn and sounds it with Gawr who screams in fear! This makes me think of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) with the disbelieving Indy trusting in the power of the Ark. 

It has summoned Arawn, Master of the Hunt, whose hounds tear into Gawr and his spear kills it! Gawr’s darkness flies from the tower. Now alone Solomon finds the bound Roland and then we see him return to his mother, Gwenllyan. Solomon thinks, “The child is home.” A great Solomon Kane story! A poem, “Call Thee to Crom” by Jim Zub with art by Robert De La Torre, from the Titan Comics Conan the Barbarian comic. A silent story, “Lure of the Pit Creature”, is by Alan Quah. He is the artist of the Dark Souls comic adaptation of the fantasy video game. Conan rides in a forest when his horse falls with him down a pit! Quah’s art has some grey tones. He finds a beautiful woman, of course, and follows her to a pool. She transforms into a Kaiju insect-like monster! There is a range of swords and sorcery stories with great artwork in Savage Sword Of Conan #3! 

Five Savage Swords out of Five! 

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