 In 1954, social psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today's Youth. It was a flashpoint for the comic book industry. Wertham had actually been speaking out for years on what he perceived to be the dangers of comics, rather unsuccessfully. He was far from the only opponent of comics in the early 50s, but his book allowed him to become the poster boy for the supposed illicit influence on kids. Comic books, he argued, would turn your kids into dope-smoking, Satan-worshipping, crime-committing homosexuals. Now, comic books are cool, but they're unfortunately not that cool. Dr. Wertham's claims are seen by most these days as greatly exaggerated, if not outright quackery, but his voice was a part of a chorus that led the Comics Magazine Association of America adopting the Comics Code Authority in 1954. The Comics Code was a draconian list of rules that severely limited what kinds of content could appear in comics in the name of protecting the most impressionable readers from "injuring" their sensibilities and producing "wholesome" entertainment. Only comic books approved by the code would bear the seal "Approved by the Comics Code Authority" in the corner, and wholesale distributors would not carry comic books without the seal. So while submitting your comics for Code approval was technically voluntary, it was functionally mandatory if you wanted them to sell. The seal was powerful, and as Dr. Amy Kiste Nyberg at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund puts it, "Nothing inherent in the form of comics prevents comic books from telling stories for different audiences, but the perception of comic books as juvenile literature was reinforced by the Comics Code."  The Comics Code was in place for decades; I even remember seeing it on some of the books available when I started reading comics in 2001. Looking back 70 years later, the Code is a great example of how censorship, even if it can be well-meaning, is not only restrictive, but actually anti-art. The 1954 Code was extremely confining, prohibiting lurid illustrations, scenes of violence and gore, and most depictions of sexuality. There are a few standards that I'm not necessarily against; for example, it didn't allow comics to ridicule or attack racial groups. But most of the Code was backward and puritanical. It banned using the words "horror" or "terror" in titles, stated that "respected institutions" and parents should never be questioned, and it criminalized slang and poor grammar. It famously barred comics writer Marv Wolfman from being credited, seeing as his name looked too similar to "wolf-man."  The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has compiled quite a few examples of the Code modifying art which frequently changed the flow of the comic and kneecapped its impact. I love to use these as examples of the dangers of censorship when I celebrated Banned Books Week annually with my students. In this first example, you can see that the Code objected to this female lounge singer character's neckline, and the Code-approved re-draw brought her dress up several inches. The Code sometimes demanded art like this be redone, but sometimes also just did slipshod jobs like erasing a line denoting a woman's cleavage, leaving a somewhat awkward space in a panel.  Here, you can see that quite a bit of the violence was taken out of this alien invasion story as part of the exclusion of scenes depicting "excessive" violence (I wonder if "excessive" violence would be identified by you the same way it would by me...). I think it's worth pointing out that not only does the word balloon at the top not really make sense with the re-drawn art---are the twelve-foot-tall aliens firing on the crowd?---but the flow of the panel is entirely changed. Instead of your eye naturally finding the word balloon, then moving to the alien and flowing downward with the ray gun blast, ultimately landing on the crowd that's running away, there's just this big emptiness where there's no movement or used space at all. Instead, there's lots of ground shown between this alien and some now-awkwardly-placed characters in the foreground. The fluid movement from the top of the panel to the bottom is eliminated entirely. And, at least for me, the re-drawn panel feels much more still and lifeless than the original. This next one might be my favorite because the resulting re-draw is so phenomenally awkward. I suppose that doctors would count as respected institutions, which means they can't be disrespected by choking them out. It's permissible, however, to show someone stealing from them, apparently. The thing that really puts it over the top is the edits to the middle panels. Instead of seeing your first-person hands on the optometrist's neck, you get these impossibly-placed hands with the optometrist somehow stroking his chin as he thinks. However, his elbows look like they must be about four feet away from him as his right hand touches his chin and his left hand floats strangely high. Then in the next panel, the shot is awkwardly framed down to his chin, and he's noticeably still blue despite his airway being Code-approved unimpeded. The text of the story is now fundamentally different from the one the writer and artist submitted.  The final example I'd like to share is baffling. When I'm talking the Comics Code with my high school students, I like to show my students the pre-Code Nick Fury submission on the left and have them guess what was too salacious for the Code to allow. They usually zero in on the smoke, the disembodied lips, or the proximity of the characters when they're shown together. But, believe it or not, it's the phone being off the hook that the Comics Code would not allow. A sensual embrace is okay, as are guns, lit cigarettes in ashtrays, and swinging 60s clothing, but a phone off its hook was far too sexy for them. Your guess why is as good as mine.  When Conan the Barbarian burst onto the comic scene at the end of 1970, the Code was still in strong effect. It was revised and slightly loosened the next year, allowing for some horror, magic, and sword-and-sorcery elements to re-enter the comic landscape. Conan historian Jeffrey Shanks opines that Code administrators seeing Conan comics might have signaled to them that the comic landscape was changing, and may have helped hasten the loosening of the Code. Without those changes, it's tough to imagine that a Conan comic could really be possible.  Whereas the 1954 Code banned most of the darker aspects of fantasy stories: the walking dead, vampires, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism, the 1971 revision of the Code allowed them when "in the classic tradition" of works like Dracula and Frankenstein. This opened the door for common Conan tropes like undead sentries protecting a treasure. Those classic Conan the Barbarian comics by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, and John Buscema are excellent, but they're definitely more buttoned-up than their source material. I wouldn't hesitate to hand one of those Conan the Barbarian issues to a 9 or 10 year-old since their fantasy violence isn't overly intense, at least not any more than a He-Man or Thundercats cartoon. They're largely bloodless. But Robert E. Howard's original, literary barbarian didn't shy away from intense depictions of violence, lurid descriptions of magic and the occult, and gratuitous sex appeal (no actual sex scenes, though). So unless you had only known Conan through the 1970s comics, something felt like it was missing. Roy Thomas has spoken openly in recent decades about how much of a pain to deal with the Comics Code was as a writer, and how he and his artists sometimes pressed their luck in getting Code approval. He recalls how Code approval sometimes vexed him: "Actually, the thing that gave me the most pause was the way John [Buscema] garbed Helgi, the damsel-in-distress-of-the-month: in a short vest, open between her ample breasts. I had visions of the Comics Code insisting, after the story was all ready to go, that she be redrawn in a cardigan sweater. Fortunately, that didn't happen. Not only were comics loosening up a bit by the early '70s, but Code head Leonard Darvin once told me he allowed things to slip by in Conan that he wouldn't have in the super hero mags, because he suspected the former had a somewhat older average audience." When putting on his writer's cap, Roy certainly wanted the freedom to tell stories in ways he thought were best. But Roy was also the editor of the book, so he knew he had to play things carefully when working around or outright pushing against the Comics Code. They sometimes acquiesced in ways that didn't make them completely happy: Roy notes how it's a little awkward that Conan's sword seems to explode off of enemies rather than cut them like on the second page of issue #1. They leave some things implied, like the character Jenna's status as a sex worker. And sometimes, they would even outright note to one another in the margins, "Hope the Comics Code doesn't cut this!"  In Conan #9, when a character is dropped into a patch of man-eating flowers, they devour the guy without any of the violence technically being shown. As the flowers eat him, their color changes from white and pink to blood red. The Code normally would have objected to violence like this seeing as they had access to the color notes on the pages: had Roy written "As the flowers eat him, they turn red with his blood," it wouldn't have flown. Lucky for the creative team, the colorist on the book was Maddy Cohen, who happened to be dating the artist, Barry Windsor-Smith. Instead of writing directions for her on the page, he was able to give her color notes verbally and the Code censors were left in the dark as to their true intentions.  Conan #10 features a kill scene which the Robert E. Howard original specifically says involves Conan decapitating his enemies, but Roy knew that would never fly under the Code. Instead, Barry decided to have the Cimmerian deliver the killing blow out of frame and then show the evil priest of Anu's head in profile, and his obese body is conveniently not where it would be in the frame if his head were still attached to his body. An inclusion by omission, which Roy Thomas says allowed readers to draw their own conclusions. The Code didn't seem to notice. The Code did notice that Conan wasn't punished for killing a priest of all people, though. Roy countered with the fact that he would be in a dungeon at the start of the next issue (with the real start to "Rogues in the House"), but that wasn't good enough for Code administrators. Three caption boxes that previewed Conan's upcoming incarceration were added to the last few panels at the Code's behest. An intimate moment with Red Sonja was made to be re-drawn in Conan #24, as Conan's wandering hands brought up above the waterline to merely be cupping her waist, rather than clearly getting a handful.  "Moon of Zembabwei," the story in Conan #28, had the Cimmerian fighting an ape beast that Conan ultimately killed by stabbing it in the neck. For some odd reason, the Code cared less about blood of other colors than red, so they made the creature bleed black. The scene is pretty violent, but the Code didn't seem to mind, and it was printed as John Buscema originally drew it.  In Conan #37, Roy remembers wringing his hands as he wondered if the Code would object to one of Neal Adams' drawings of a gigantic slug monster looking a little bit like a vulva. The Code apparently didn't think it was objectionable enough to ask for changes, and I'm glad they didn't. When I read that issue, it didn't even cross my mind that someone might object to it, but I've talked to other readers who noticed it immediately. Sometimes, Roy was worried about not only offending the Code censors, but also the general reading public as well. He knew that as he approached the "Queen of the Black Coast" storyline, he was going to have Conan split a judge's head in two, which sends Conan running from the law and onto the nearest ship, kicking off the story. But Roy was concerned that Conan would look too much like a "wanton murderer" and it would turn off readers. He decided to hide a few clues in the story (some ostentatious rings) tying the judge to a slaver seen earlier in the story, therefore making the judge also a criminal. However, Roy admits that within the story, Conan never sees the rings or connects the dots of the two men's criminal enterprise (a caption box literally says "Conan never notices a certain ring he would doubtless recognize"). He only kills the judge because he's about to be sent to prison. So Conan was still essentially wantonly murdering, but Roy wanted something in the story to point to if the Code raised any eyebrows.  The Conan creative team wasn't always successful at working around Code censors. Included below is a panel from Conan #58 which the Code rejected, and it's approved re-drawn beneath. They didn't take issue with the scantily-clad Belit's furry britches or with a "blind flood of desire," but instead found Conan's open legs objectionable. In the final drawing, Conan's legs are to one side and he looks like he's about to fall over. Elsewhere in that issue, Code censors had Roy Thomas change the "mating dance of Belit" into the "love dance of Belit." Roy pushed back a bit: aren't those the same thing? Well, "love dance," is general, they said. "Mating dance" is specific. Roy acquiesced.  It's sad to me that the Marvel staff had to either strategize around the Code, work actively to hide their true intentions, or censor their great work. Roy did occasionally censor his own stuff- he says he wasn't really out to ruffle feathers- he did so reluctantly, and got away with what he could. Conan the Barbarian wasn't an instant success. The premiere sold pretty well, but then the next six issues lagged behind more popular books, and trended downward. It was even cancelled for about a day before the Marvel editors reversed their decision. But starting with issue 8, the series began a steady sales increase that meant it was safe from cancellation for a very long time.  Around the time that Conan the Barbarian #1 was premiering in 1970, Roy Thomas got a phone call from Stan Lee with an idea for a new book. It was a for a series he wanted to call Savage Tales, and Stan outlined to Roy an idea that he had for a new character called Man-Thing, an intensely tragic character turned into a swamp monster. While fleshing out the story idea from Stan and sending it to writer Gerry Conway to script, Roy wasn't immediately sold on it. He felt that Man-Thing seemed too similar to the existing character The Heap and that Marvel already had a popular hero named The Thing, not to mention the eventual title Giant-Size Man-Thing is hilarious in a way that would probably chafe against the Code. The aspect that was unique about the book, though, is that it would be a black-and-white magazine-sized comic, which was something Marvel didn't have at the time. It wasn't a completely original idea: Warren Publishing had been putting out Creepy and Eerie comic magazines since the mid-1960s. The paper size was a little bit larger, they cost more than a regular comic, and, importantly, as a magazine they were completely independent of the Comics Code Authority. Looking at early 70s comics side-by-side today, it's a little wild to think how restricted one was while the other couldn't be touched by the Code. The magazine dimensions are only about three-quarters of an inch larger than the height and width of a regular comic book. Brian Cronin at Comic Book Resources helps explain that it was essentially a stocking trick: since magazines and comic books were racked in different places at the newsstand, a non-Code magazine like Savage Tales wouldn't be sitting right next to a Code-approved Batman comic.  A visit to the comic section at the newsstand probably in early 1972. You can see Conan #12 "The Dweller in the Dark" in the upper-left. It makes sense that Man-Thing's origin story would need to appear in a comic outside of Comics Code approval. It's terribly sad, features less-than-glorious depictions of the government, and deals with drugs, corruption, and artist Gray Morrow draws a woman in basically transparent clothes. Essentially, it's everything the Code wasn't keen on. It's also dynamite! Those early Savage Tales stories featuring Man-Thing, Ka-Zar of the jungle, and Conan the Barbarian are all wonderful Bronze-Age nuggets of weird storytelling. And in case the decapitated head on the cover wasn't a big enough clue, it was printed with a notice saying that "This publication is rated 'M' for the mature reader!" It's a sort of anti-Comics Code Seal. Stan originally wanted a King Kull story instead of Conan- Stan liked how names that started with K looked on a cover better than names that started with a C, plus, they already had one Conan comic. Did they need two? For reasons unknown, Stan changed his mind and went with Conan; he and Kull are cut from the same cloth anyway.  The first chronological Conan story "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is a good fit for the first issue. It's a simple and effective episode (surprisingly brief at only 11 pages). Brevity was always a skill both Robert E. Howard and Roy Thomas possessed, and it's one I decidedly don't have (If you think this article's long, you should see how much my next one about comic history spiraled out). Roy's dialogue and Barry Windsor-Smith's art in those 11 pages absolutely kick ass. When the adaptation was reprinted later in Conan the Barbarian #16, basically every panel had to be edited on some level due to Atali's diaphanous clothes. The letter they received from the CCA said that the story needed heavy re-draws to be deemed acceptable, and "the lightest goassamer draping of the female figure, wherever it is used on the female's breasts, pubic areas or buttocks must be made opaque and to cover these areas thoroughly." Just about every panel has some note from the Code administrator, and they use the word "buttock" about two-dozen times.  Unfortunately, not everyone was as much of a fan of those early Savage Tales stories as I am. Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, who had been working in comics since 1929 and had been with Marvel since the very beginning, cancelled the book after only one issue. Roy Thomas recalled the cancelling in 2008 like this: "I never got all the inside story, but there were several things that led to Savage Tales being cancelled after that first issue. Martin Goodman had never really wanted to do a non-Code comic, probably because he didn't want any trouble with the CMAA over it. Nor did he really want to get into magazine-format comics; and Stan really did. So Goodman looked for an excuse to cancel it. I also heard we weren't able to sell the mag in Canada, which ordinarily would probably have taken maybe 10% of the print run- that somebody at the competition, DC or Warren or wherever, told the Canadians it was salacious material. But I never got any confirmation of that, and it may be an urban legend.  Roy had a second Conan story for the next Savage Tales issue already in the works, but since the book was canned, he moved it over to Conan the Barbarian. As you may have expected, the Comics Code censors made them rework a considerable amount of art drawn of female characters which Roy notes would have been "no problem" in the black-and-white pages. For a few years, Savage Tales lay dormant while Roy, Barry, John, and others chugged away at making the Comics Code-bound Conan the Barbarian a success. Goodman eventually backed Stan Lee when Stan wanted to publish an anti-drug Spider-Man comic which the Code denied. Marvel published the book anyway. Many people have noted that Stan may have gotten a little too much credit for his work in the 60s, frequently overshadowing collaborators who deserved more recognition, but Stan definitely took some principled, measured stands against the Comics Code for which he should be lauded.  Partially as a result of Stan's efforts, the Code began to loosen ever so slightly. Goodman retired from Marvel in 1972 and Stan assumed the role of publisher, which meant that he didn't need Goodman's approval for a certain black-and-white, magazine-sized book. Still, Stan had lots of new responsibilities as publisher and president of Marvel, so he handed the reins of Savage Tales, and the editor-in-chief role, to Roy. Most of the stories they had originally planned for the second issue had already been printed, so Roy asked if he could make Savage Tales a more Robert E. Howard-focused mag. Stan said yes. Proudly declaring that it was "Back by popular demand," Savage Tales #2 hit stands in October of 1973, only 30 months after the first issue. This time, Conan was featured on the cover and the interior had an adaption of a top-tier Robert E. Howard story: "Red Nails." While the first issue had featured a "Conan the Barbarian starring in..." tag above the title, issue 2 now read "Savage Tales featuring Conan the Barbarian" with our Cimmerian hero's name as large as the title itself. John Buscema's painted cover already hints that this is not a Code-approved book as it has a nude woman threatened by an executioner and some conveniently-placed smoke obscuring her form. Any comic version of "Red Nails" would have had to look very different under the Code. Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith's adaption of it is extremely bloody and almost immediately features horrifying undead creatures. It's suggestively sexual: the words "throbs and pulses" appear together, in that order, and the story is very critical of power structures. The climax of the narrative has one fairly steamy lesbionic scene as well, all wrapped around an attempt at human sacrifice. "Red Nails" was already one of Robert E. Howard's best Conan stories, but Roy's dialogue and Barry's intricate art really do live up to their charming claim on the title page that they adapted it "with aplomb." Instead of the short 11 pages allotted for "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" in the first issue, "Red Nails" was a two-parter, spanning 21 pages for just its first installment. In addition to "Red Nails," Barry Windsor-Smith also locked in to draw an illustrated version of Howard's poem "Cimmeria" and a full-page, in-house ad. Roy convinced Robert E. Howard's agent, Glenn Lord, to write a biography of Howard for issue 2 as well. Savage Tales continued with Conan as the headline character for a few more issues, with the Cimmerian eventually sharing cover space with Ka-Zar, Lord of the Hidden Jungle. Those first five issues feature painted covers by some of the best artists working in comics at the time, covers whose intensity really lived up to the title of the book. The mag was hugely successful.  After issue 5, Conan was spun off into his own book which would bear his name permanently in the title: The Savage Sword of Conan. Savage Sword was also unconstrained by the Comics Code, meaning that it could live up to all the bloody promise of Robert E. Howard's original character. Whereas other Marvel characters played in the backup stories of Savage Tales, Roy Thomas saw Savage Sword as a Howard showcase and wanted to use characters like King Kull and Solomon Kane for the backups. According to Roy Thomas, when you were assigned to write a Marvel comic in the 70s, as soon as it was given to you, it was "due yesterday, if not the day before." As such, getting assigned the first issue of Savage Sword meant a tight deadline, so he reluctantly re-purposed the next few plots he had figured out for Conan and slotted them into the new title. It's a little awkward as a first issue: Conan meets up with Red Sonja, who he clearly has a history with, but what that history is will be mostly lost on the reader if they haven't read Conan #23. I certainly hadn't when I first stumbled across Savage Sword, so I figured it was all to be left to my imagination. It is in this issue that Red Sonja acquires her signature chain-mail bikini, which was far too revealing for a Code-bound book like Conan the Barbarian, in which she wore a full-coverage, long-sleeve chainmail shirt.  Savage Sword's first story, "The Curse of the Undead Man," would continue in Conan #43, which came out soon afterword. Roy lamented that since the black-and-white mag had a smaller readership than the color comic, some of its readers would miss the first half of the narrative, but people seem to have done okay. I think this kind of cross-pollination between books is much more acceptable in today's industry. The book was a success, Comics Code be damned, and Savage Sword would go on to run for more than 200 issues into the mid-90s. For many of the first 60 issues of Savage Sword of Conan, Roy adapted Howard's prose stories, but mixed in original yarns as well, jumping all over Conan's life. In addition to Roy Thomas and John Buscema, its place as uncensored playground of storytelling attracted some of the greatest talent in comics, including fantasy artist Boris Vallejo, X-Men mastermind Chris Claremont and my personal favorite Robin writer, Chuck Dixon, but Roy Thomas has always remained its greatest creator. He returned to the book in its later years after what most readers agree was a sag in quality, bringing the stories back up to their former glory for the final stretch of issues. Savage Sword is remembered as one of the peaks of the Bronze Age. While it was out of print for much of the 90s and 2000s, it's now been collected in omnibuses by Dark Horse, Marvel, and Titan Comics. The Comics Code was again revised in 1989, this time featuring much more sweeping changes. It was now presented within the text of the Code as a sort of optional seal of approval for comics which you could feel confident giving to young kids, rather than the arbiter between wholesome quality and evil smut.  A size comparison between my own copies of Conan the Barbarian #19 and Savage Sword of Conan #7 The submission procedure was changed to allow more conversation between comic editors and Code administrators. This time, editors could "discuss with the administrator the concerns raised with him and reach agreement on how the comic can properly bear the Code Seal either without being revised or within a mutually-agreeable set of alternate revisions." The standards were much more broad in the 1989 revision. They allowed for more nuance and reflected that times may change, making space for things like "contemporary styles and fashions" for character costumes. They still wanted to encourage "wholesome lifestyles" to be portrayed as desirable and for characters to be role models, but also actually acknowledged that there were comic books for adult readers. "The members of the Comics Magazine Association of America include publishers who elect to publish comics that are not intended to bear the Code Seal, and that therefore need not go through the approval process described above. Among the comics in this category may be titles intended for adult readers. Member publishers hereby affirm that we will distribute these publications only through distribution channels in which it is possible to notify retailers and distributors of their content, and thus help the publications reach their intended audiences. The member publishers agree to refrain from distributing these publications through those distribution channels that, like the traditional newsstand, are serviced by individuals who are unaware of the content of specific publications before placing them on display."  By this time, comic books had reached a new level of maturity. Many of the tropes that are recognizable to modern readers had their progenitors around this time: the modern "event" book like Secret Wars, the convoluting and then exploding of decades worth of continuity in Crisis on Infinite Earths, the long-form graphic novel and meta deconstruction of the superhero genre in Watchmen. It would be difficult for anyone to argue at that time that comics were only for kids, and Conan helped solidify that. Conan had reached new heights too with two major motion pictures and a Red Sonja movie which it seems like we all agree to be the unofficial third in the trilogy. By Mitra, I don't know a single Conan fan who considers "Kalidor" to actually be a separate character from Schwarzenegger's Conan. The Comics Code was still in effect until 2011 but with gradually diminishing influence. Marvel pulled their books from approval in 2001 in favor of giving their titles a rating in-house. Ten years later, DC pulled theirs as well, and Archie was the final publisher to withdraw later that year. It quietly disappeared, and NPR's obituary for the Code begins with the line, "I come to bury the Comics Magazine Association of America, not to praise it." The Comics Code isn't forgotten, but it's usually the butt of the jokes these days. Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo recently had me laughing out loud by using a Comics Code Seal of Approval lookalike as the censor bars when the villain Blockbuster gets cussed out at the end of Nightwing #96.  Every year, Banned Books Week falls somewhere in late September or early October. It's a celebration of our First Amendment right to read and an outward expression of resistance to censorship. It's celebrated by the American Library Association, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the National Council of Teachers of English (of which I am a card-carrying member), and more.
That means that every year, I teach about the Comics Code to my students. We'll dissect book bans spearheaded by anti-free speech groups like Moms for Liberty. We'll evaluate the PMRC's censorship of music and the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" label on music. We'll make the case for kids' rights to have access to books. And if I have time, I get to bring up some great comic book creators and how they fought censorship with everyone's favorite sword-and-sorcery character. Titan Comics recently revived the Savage Sword mag for a new print run which features some of the coolest writers and artists in comics today. It even throws back to classic Savage Sword artists like Joe Jusko doing painted covers again. Everyone loves it and you should check it out. Or, find the original run here.
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 When I was doing research on the novel Conan: The Road of Kings which I finished on New Year's Eve 2024, I went over to Gary Romeo's blog to see what he had to say about the book. I always like reading Gary's work- he's a clear writer with impeccably-done research who always sheds light on topics I'm interested in. While I was going through that blog post, a May 1977 letter from L. Sprague de Camp caught my eye. I'm not sure where Gary finds these letters all the time: I know that pretty much all of Robert E. Howard's personal correspondence is published, but Gary always seems to find little ephemera from de Camp and the likes that are so cool to see. In this letter, L. Sprague de Camp relates to literary agent Kirby McCauley the planned series of Conan stories that he and Lin Carter are either in the process of writing or are planning to write, and they contain some interesting Conan story ideas that the world never got to see. Many of these stories: Conan the Liberator, "The People of the Summit," "The Star of Khorala," etc. were finished and made it to the page (and have been read and reviewed and placed in chronological order on this blog), but a lot of them were names that never made it to the published page. Researching these stories caused me to go buy L. Sprague de Camp's The Spell of Conan too and to look through at some of his thoughts, which yielded some other interesting tidbits. It's all below in listicle format. 1. "Conan the Barbarian" Obviously, Conan the Barbarian is the title of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that more than likely introduced most people to Conan, and there is a novelization of that movie under the same title. There's even a novelization that was written by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and Catherine Crook de Camp that came out in 1982, but that novel is clearly not what's planned here. The movie goes far past Conan's adolescence and has him fight the Kull villain Thulsa Doom (though he's a lot more like Thoth-Amon than Thulsa Doom) and doesn't end with the fall of Venarium. The content described here actually sounds much closer to the novel Conan of Venarium, but that book wouldn't be published until 2003 and was written by Harry Turtledove, so it likely doesn't have anything to do with what Sprague planned here. Honestly, it's surprising to me that there isn't more stuff centering around the siege of Venarium since it's such a pivotal point in Conan's life. 2. "The King in the Dungeon" This story very clearly became "Shadows in the Dark" and was published in 1978, so it's really just a change of title. "The King in the Dungeon" might be a more generic fantasy title, but we have so many "shadows" in Conan titles that I think I might actually prefer it to the published name. 3. "The Eyes of Kali" This story sounds basically nothing like any published Conan story from de Camp or Carter. Conan did go to Vendhya in "The People of the Black Circle," but it takes place quite a bit after "A Witch Shall Be Born." Strangely, "Black Tears" is essentially an immediate sequel to "A Witch Shall Be Born," but that story had come out in 1968, so perhaps de Camp and Carter wanted to throw another story in between the two. This one sounds like it would be pretty fun and the name gives me Temple of Doom vibes, so I'm sad this one was left on the editing room floor, if it was ever written at all. Weirdly enough, in the pages of Savage Sword of Conan, at least three different sequels to "A Witch Shall Be Born" were written, all of which contradict each other. Who's to say which one is canon? 4. "The Oasis of Death" You know, I actually think this planned story would fill a hole in Conan's biography that needs filling as much as any other. At the end of "The Ivory Goddess," Conan is very far south on the Hyborian map and has been on the lamb, running from those he terrorized in "Jewels of Gwahlur." The next time we see him, he's halfway around the world and is well-established as a scout for Aquilonia. I'd love to see a narrative that fills in how he got there, and "The Oasis of Death" sounds pretty fun. There are a number of issues of Savage Sword with similar-sounding titles as this, so it's not an unfounded concept. 5. Two or more King Conan stories There are several stories of Conan as king of Aquilonia that take place before he's old and (relatively) gray, all of which had been published by Sprague's 1977 letter: "The Phoenix on the Sword," "The Scarlet Citadel," The Hour of the Dragon, and The Return of Conan. That chronological list also happens to double as a ranking of King Conan stories best-to-worst (I mean, they're all really good except the last one). And there are several late-life King Conan stories (that we'll actually hit more on in a minute) but L. Sprague de Camp is suggesting specifically Conan stories written in his very young kingship. "The Scarlet Citadel" happens about a year or two after Conan gains the crown and The Hour of the Dragon happens within five years of his kingship, so there are a few unexplored years that you could play with there. There's been some good, new King Conan stuff in the recent issues 5 and 6 of the 2024 Savage Sword, so you should check those out if you want more Conan of Aquilonia adventures. 6. "The Day of Wrath" This is the only story on the list that I'm really glad never got written. The tetralogy that make up most of Conan's late kingship: "The Witch of the Mists," "Black Sphinx of Nebthu," "Red Moon of Zembabwei," and "Shadows in the Skull" are mostly stinkers. But even so, they end on a fairly satisfying, triumphant note with Conan having defeated his greatest enemy on the very edge of the world. It's not a terrible way to go out with Conan, supported by his son Conn, heading back to the Aquilonian army to help them finish fighting the ancient serpent people (though victory is already assured). So to see Conan go back to Aquilonia and be the aggressor, "punishing" other nations for their treachery? It just sounds mean-spirited and unneeded. Yes, Conan is a badass and is even vengeful at times when he's been wronged, but to take his entire army to invade another kingdom sounds contrary to how Conan apparently governs, and it sounds really hard to root for. 7. "The Son of Conan" Another story that I'm not exactly sad we missed out on. Conan's son Conn is in his mid-teens when we see him last in "Shadows in the Skull" and then is an adult himself during the events of Conan of the Isles, but he's pretty much a non-character in that book. Conn isn't a super interesting character in the material that we have of him, and I don't usually love stories that focus on the offspring of characters we care about, but I could see this working. Jason Aaron's "The Ensorcelled" storyline in recent issues of Savage Sword was excellent, and it hints at some potentially cool Conn stuff. I think it would be fighting an uphill battle to write a series of Conn stories. Maybe it's just me, but a character who was born to a poor blacksmith and fought his way to greatness is inherently a more interesting character than a kid who was born as royalty. Now I'm trying to figure out what good "Son Of..." stories exist. John Carter's Children of Mars? Children of Dune? Son of Batman? Son of Frankenstein? The next three Avatar sequels? Son of Baconator? Other suggested stories In our May 1977 letter, L. Sprague de Camp is specifically responding to the literary agent of Karl Edward Wagner, who was hoping to write a novel about Conan becoming king of Aquilonia. He says that they're already working on that idea, but if Wagner would like, he can tackle a different area of Conan's life, one that sits in a narrative gap, and some of his suggestions are pretty cool. He suggests a story telling of Conan's adventures with the Aesir set between Conan's youngest days "Legions of the Dead," offering up the titles "Conan of the Northlands or "Red Swords of Asgard." I wonder if de Camp was aware that this area was explored to a small degree with some of Roy Thomas's earliest Conan the Barbarian comics in the earlier 70s. Sounds like a decent concept, but not one I'm jumping out of my seat for.  de Camp suggests "Conan of Hyrkania" or "Lord of the Black Throne," based on some ideas outlined in the Amra zine. I was totally unfamiliar with what he was talking about so I grabbed a used copy of The Spell of Conan, a book of essays and short stories edited by de Camp. In an essay by P. Schuyler Miller, they basically make the case that Erlik would have been a cool character to further develop in the Hyborian Age. Many people swear by the god of the underworld (who always struck me as a sort of evil St. Peter-type character who might collect you when you die) and there are some Conan pastiches like The Sword of Erlik. Miller outlines some real-world Turkic and Mongol mythology and how Erlik had a lot of very sword-and-sworcery-ready elements like his black throne. In some ways, they're right. There aren't that many stories that take place over in Turan that were written by Howard, though Roy Thomas has Conan spend lots of time around the Vilayet Sea in the Conan the Barbarian comic. Honestly, I'm with de Camp and Miller on this one- most of it sounds like these ideas would make for a righteous Conan story. Some similarly-titled Conan novels would eventually get published with the names "Lord of the Black River" and "Death Lord of Thanza," but they're not what de Camp or P. Schuyler Miller were writing. His final suggestion is for a Conan story set in the jungles of the south, during Conan's first pirate period alongside Belit. This makes a lot of sense to me, as the weakest part of "Queen of the Black Coast" to me is that it feels as though Conan and Belit don't quite have enough time together to warrant being so wildly in love (I think the anime crowd would call them each others' "OTPs"). Conan stories from The Spell of ConanThere are a few original fantasy stories of just a few pages each that were published alongside de Camp's essays in The Spell of Conan. I didn't expect any Hyborian Age-set fiction in it, let alone how cool these three short stories ended up being. They're not actually unpublished, but I've never seen them referenced since they were only put out in a fan magazine. 1. "The Testament of Snefru" by John Boardman This story is funny in a way I couldn't have predicted. Remember in The Hour of the Dragon when Conan infiltrates the Stygian port city of Khemi? There's a very minor character in this scene whom I had entirely forgotten. Conan steals the boat of a Stygian fisherman and uses it to get into Khemi. According to "The Testament of Snefru," that short episode completely fucks up the life of that fisherman, whose name is Snefru. This is hilariously humiliating for this poor fisherman. Conan and the Aquilonians arrive and steal the dude's boat (i.e. his livelihood) and even take his clothes. Snefru tells Conan what seems to be the Khemi gossip and is held hostage. When Conan comes back with the Heart of Ahriman, he instructs the crew to give the fisherman a helmet full of gold and to shove off back north. Even though Snefru is relieved to have escaped with his life, he's also made out pretty nicely since he gets all this money. As he tries to convert the money, he's arrested for having Aquilonian coins, convicted of treason for having "conspired" with Conan, and is sold into slavery. The story is being dictated while he lays on his deathbed in Zamboula, completely destitute and filled with rage at Conan. It's very entertaining. Author John Boardman, a physics professor, also at one point write a Conan parody called "Colon the Conqueror" so it makes sense that this story was pretty funny. 2. "The Lion's Bridge" by Ray Capella Ray Capella was more of a sword and sorcery illustrator than an author, but he did also contribute a story to a different anthology book edited by L. Sprague de Camp. In addition to Conan, it seems like Capella was mostly associated with pulp heroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow. This story takes place during the events of "The Scarlet Citadel." According to the characters, the "barbarian king of Aquilonia" has been defeated (we know he's really just briefly captured) and Tarantia is under siege by the Kothians. On the outskirts of Aquilonia, "The Lion's Bridge" tells the story of a mercenary named Berig and a mysterious stranger named Arquel the Argossean. There's some great scenery, some really cool magical elements, and some moral complexity to this one that was a lot of fun, so I read it twice in a row. 3. "When Set Fled" by Fritz Leiber This is by far the shortest of the three narratives, and also probably my least favorite of the bunch. Author Fritz Leiber was a contemporary of Robert E. Howard, HP Lovecraft, and Michael Moorcock as one of the landmark sword and sorcery writers. Dude had a pretty impressive resume, not to mention interesting WWII activities.
Like "Snefru," this one is darkly comic. A craftsman in Stygia gets his head lopped off by a barbarian warrior (Conan?) while pouring metal into a mold for a statue. This story is only about three pages, so there's not a ton to go off of and it's much harder to place in continuity. It's yet another look at a normal person in the Hyborian Age and how quickly things might change for them through violence.  The "Road of Kings" is an east-west highway in the fictional Hyborian Age, and to my knowledge is the only named trade route or thoroughfare in the entire epoch. It begins in the coastal Argossean capital of Messantia and runs north along the Alimane River to the prairies that surround Tarantia, the capital city of Aquilonia. From there, it stretches east through the city-states of the central Hyborian kingdoms through Shadizar the Wicked and across the Kezankian Mountains. From the Kezankians through the Zuagir desert is probably its most treacherous part before it ends in the carpeted capital of the Turanian Empire, Aghrapur, on the coast of the Vilayet Sea. But the novel Conan: The Road of Kings by Karl Edgar Wagner takes place almost entirely in Kordava, Zingara, which is not anywhere along the Road of Kings. If, like I did, you thought that this book might be an adventure along the physical road, you'd had to be forgiven. Instead, the "road of kings" explored here is an entirely metaphorical one. It examines the psychological road one might go on when becoming a king, contrasting the road that Conan the Cimmerian will eventually take. As much as I hate to invoke a cliché, it seems like a statement on the old adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  The Conan of Road of Kings is a bit of an angrier Conan, one who is at times less heroic and more barbarous, along the lines of Robert E. Howard's original creation. It seems to me that Karl Edward Wagner really gets Howard's civilization vs. barbarism themes and builds on them with a story preoccupied with economic mobility. While the novel takes place almost entirely in Kordava, Zingara, the city is a pretty imaginative and interesting place. Through a cataclysmic earthquake some time ago, the original city of Kordava had been destroyed, leaving rubble throughout the area. Instead of clearing away the refuse and re-building, the people of Kordava literally just built on top of the ruins of the old city, leaving a subterranean slum underneath the city proper, known as "The Pit." The Pit is occupied by thieves, criminals, and all other manner of "undesirables" in Kordava, including the thieving guild "The White Rose." It's not hard to see the symbolism of a city literally propped up on the lowest of society. In some interesting imagery that I think amounts to a clever version of foreshadowing, the Pit is not completely cut off from the rest of the city. Some of the taller buildings within the Pit have staircases that lead up into the regular city. While social mobility is minimal, there is a way to "ascend," as some characters will try to do. Those characters tend to get caught up in maintaining their newfound power, ultimately to their detriment. Conan, of course, with his detachment from society and Cimmerian's code, is immune to the rat race. The last line of the book reminds me of classic pulp writing subtlety, basically telling us the theme of the narrative. As Conan denies the crown of Kordava being offered to him, he says he won't take power yet: "I will not change my mind," Conan repeated. "Not until I know whether it is the man who corrupts the power, or the power that corrupts the man."  This is the copy I own: the 1983 reprint. Chronologically speaking, I think this story should probably land a little bit later than other people seem to think that it should. Conan is still described as a "youth," but he has a couple of signifiers that I think mean that this story should go later in the timeline. The Miller / Clark / de Camp chronology puts this story right after "Hawks Over Shem" and right before "Black Colossus," firmly in Conan's military commander days. Robert Jordan places it a little earlier, during Conan's days wandering between being a Turanian mercenary and "Queen of the Black Coast." I'm much more inclined to agree with where William Galen Gray puts this story: further into Conan's days as a military commander, right after "Shadows in the Dark." A couple of things tell me this: Conan speaks Zamorian "pretty well," which means he's been to Zamora in his thieving days. The book even makes specific mention of scaling the elephant tower in Zamora. But he's also very comfortable on the ocean, he's a strong swimmer, and is clearly already a skilled military commander capable of whipping the dreck of Kordavan society into a fighting force, which makes me think it needs to go later. Conan: The Road of Kings is a pretty good Conan tale that's imaginative in its settings and has something to say that fits with there rest of the Conan stories, even Howard's. It doesn't feel much like other Conan books, which might be a gripe for some people. Over on Dark Worlds Quarterly, G.W. Thomas quotes Karl Edward Wagner about his philosophy on Conan writing: "I have written Howard pastiches myself, so I can speak both as a reader and an author: Every author leaves his personal mark on whatever he writes; the only man who could write a Robert E. Howard story was Robert E. Howard. Read Howard pastiches as you will — but don’t let anyone kid you that you’re reading Robert E. Howard. It is far more than a matter of imitating adjective usage or analyzing comma-splices. It is a matter of spirit." While Robert E. Howard was extremely economical with his prose, covering a lot of ground in few words, not that interested in developing supporting characters, that's what this book focuses on. After the exposition with Conan being threatened with hanging, we spend quite a bit of time in the Pit, just getting to know the city and the other characters, for which I think your mileage will vary. Might this story deserve more than three stars? If only I had a half-star icon! ★★★☆☆   Around a year ago, I was crate-digging in a horrendously messy comic shop in Colorado Springs, about two hours away from where I live. I looked through stacks of comics piled shoulder-high from the floor as I asked the clerk if they had any Savage Sword of Conan without any real hope that they would, and he said, "We don't have many old issues, but we're going to get the new one." I was totally unaware there would be any new Conan stuff in comic form- I hadn't really been following new Conan releases since I hadn't really followed Marvel's modern output. But I'm sure glad that clerk said something. Comic shop employees are heroes when it comes to recommendations. Jim Zub is doing some awesome stuff over at Titan Comics with Conan. Back in October, I got to interview him about some chronology minutia and I asked him some questions about how the question of chronology works for him and the rest of the Conan team these days. "On the new Titan series, we are jumping around the timeline on each story arc, just like Howard did when he wrote the original prose stories, but there is an overall plan in place and I know where each one fits together. Thankfully, Heroic Signatures has Jeff Shanks, an REH scholar who writes the essays in the back of each issue. He’s a resource on hand to provide additional feedback and suggestions when it comes to getting our details right." "When I started working on the new Conan comic series [Heroic Signatures] gave me the timeline they decided upon in terms of story order and Conan’s age during each one, but so far they haven’t decided to publicize it." Jim and co. have made it clear that the current publishers consider only the Robert E. Howard stories to be canon to their timeline and that the rest are non-canon, legend-type stories. While reading both the new Conan the Barbarian title and Savage Sword of Conan, I got to thinking about what Heroic Signatures and Titan consider their canon Conan timeline to be. This question has only gotten more interesting to me as time goes on, seeing as some stories refer to plots, characters, and events that I wouldn't expect them to! I've currently read the first three Conan the Barbarian TPBs and the first six issues of Savage Sword of Conan, as well as the Battle of the Black Stone miniseries. Seeing as Titan has positioned the original REH works as the only true canon in their eyes, this is more of an exercise of where these stories might fall within that canon, rather than an attempt to map out what they consider the canon to be. It's all just for fun. So below is my best guess at how they order the original Robert E. Howard stories and their additions from the last year. Howard's originals are in black, Titan's new stories are in red, and my stray chronological notes are in blue. Stories whose canonicity seems shaky at best will be noted in green. A guess at the Titan Comics Conan timeline Conan the Barbarian #9 - 12: "The Age Unconquered" Issues 9 through 12 of Conan the Barbarian, an arc called "The Age Unconquered," takes place in the Thurian Age, about 80,000 years before Conan is even born. Like much of his Conan work so far, Jim Zub implements Thulsa Doom of the Kull stories and even gives him a very cool new twist of a backstory that fleshes him out. Of course, Conan has to return to the Hyborian Age before too long... Savage Sword of Conan #6: "Forged" This short comic in the back of SSoC6 shows Conan as a young boy, learning to use a forge for the first time. Conan the Barbarian Free Comic Book Day issue The siege of Venarium happens when Conan is in his mid teens and the Free Comic Book Day issue shows him leaving Cimmeria for the first time pretty quickly afterword. A page at the end shows the events of "The God in the Bowl," "The Tower of the Elephant," the undead soon to be seen in the "Bound in Black Stone" arc, "Rogues in the House" and "Queen of the Black Coast," drawn beautifully by Roberto de la Torre. Conan the Barbarian #14 - 15: "Frozen Faith" Issues 14 and 15 of Conan show the young Cimmerian venturing forth from Cimmeria for the first time, going up north to the frosts. These two issues greatly expand on the premise of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and show how Conan ends up with the Aesir raiders that are dead at the beginning of that story. "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" (Conan the Barbarian #16) This story's placement is always fought over whether it should be the first REH story or if it should land much later, but it's clear that for the Titan gang, it goes first. It is retold in issue 16, but in a new context. Not only do we see a much more contemplative, yearning Conan in this issue, but we get to see a much more fleshed out Atali. Conan the Barbarian #17: "Frozen Faith" The last issue of the "Frozen Faith" arc is a postscript to "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and sees Conan break from the Aesir to move south. It ends with him looking at one of those "gleaming cities" we always hear so much about. Savage Sword of Conan #6: "Madness on the Mound" Even before the "Frozen Faith" arc solidified "Frost-Giant" as one of the earliest Conan stories, there were clues: in the prose story "Madness on the Mound" by Matthew John, Conan is referred to as very young. On the first page, he's called "a young pup" and "a young lad," but the story explicitly takes place just a few days after "The Frost-Giant's Daughter." People don't generally refer to Conan this way once he's out of his teens, which is well before the other common "Frost-Giant" placement. In issue 1 of Conan the Barbarian, Conan says to another character that he "Travelled north to Asgard, south to Nemedia, the through Corinthia, Zamora, and other spots I barely remember. Each one a new experience, yet also very much the same." The "then" is the operative word there, implying that "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is Conan's first adventure away from Cimmeria, then "The God in the Bowl" is the first thief story as it's the one that takes place in Nemedia, followed by "Rogues in the House" in Corinthia, and then "The Tower of the Elephant" in Zamora. "The God in the Bowl" Conan's first time thieving in Nemedia. This is his first encounter with Thoth-Amon. "Rogues in the House" Conan heads west from Nemedia to an unnamed city-state in Corinthia where he gets arrested and then goes to the house of the Red Priest Nabonidus and fights Thak. "The Tower of the Elephant" Conan lands in the thief city in Zamora where he meets the elephant alien Yag-Kosha. "The Hall of the Dead" / the Nestor synopsis The interesting thing about Conan recounting his early adventures in Conan #1 is that he leaves out "The Hall of the Dead." Perhaps he just rolled it into the "other spots I barely remember" line. Maybe Jim Zub felt like the speech bubble was a little wordy so he left it out. Some people treat the unfinished Conan stories as non-canon though, and one of Jeff Shanks's essays describes Conan's thief period as "God in the Bowl," "Rogues in the House," "Tower of the Elephant," "and a pair of other unfinished stories," so it kind of sounds like Titan doesn't consider "The Hall of the Dead" to be canon.  Conan the Barbarian #1 - 4: "Bound in Black Stone" The first arc of the new Conan book, "Bound in Black Stone" begins in northern Aquilonia and says that Conan is closer to Cimmeria than he has been in 8 years, implying that Conan is now about 23. As already noted, he's already had his thief period and maybe some other adventures left up to the reader's imagination. There's a flashback in issue #4 to the Thurian Age. "The Hand of Nergal" / the Yaralet fragment This story has yet to be referenced by any of the Titan stories and the fact that it was unfinished by Howard doesn't bode well for its canonicity. It is the first story in which we see Conan's red cloak, which usually places it before "Queen of the Black Coast." Conan and the Spider God I don't actually think anyone at Titan Comics is considering this story canon, but the events of this novel are mentioned in SSOC6's "The Ensorcelled, Part Two" by Jason Aaron. "Queen of the Black Coast" Conan's first pirate experience with Belit, captain of the Tigress.  Conan the Barbarian #5 - 8: "Thrice Marked for Death" Belit is a central figure in the "Thrice Marked for Death" arc, which puts Conan in Shadizar the Wicked, unhealthily mourning her death. Many of the original Howard stories have yet to be referenced in any of Titan's Conan books, so their placement in the chronology is extremely squishy. I could be entirely wrong here, but there's a long section between Conan's young days and his employment for Aquilonia where they haven't set many stories yet. "The Snout in the Dark" Conan is much further south on the map in this story, near Stygia. Savage Sword of Conan #1: "Sacrifice in the Sand" This short prose story by Jim Zub gives very, very few chronological clues except for the fact that it's set in Stygia and that Conan and the villain Nkosi have crossed paths before. I'm setting it here as Conan is a little more south and currently operating as a mercenary. "Black Colossus" Conan commands an army for the first time in this tale. "The Vale of Lost Women" I moved this one further back since Conan seems to go back to Shadizar immediately after Belit's death rather than working his way back north from the Black Kingdoms. Because this story was finished by Howard but never published during his lifetime, I'm not sure if Titan would consider it canon. "Iron Shadows in the Moon" "A Witch Shall Be Born" "Shadows in Zamboula" "Xuthal of the Dusk" "Drums of Tombalku" Another unfinished story of Howard's. Not sure if it's canon to Titan. "The Devil in Iron" This story is on the Vilayet Sea, near Hyrkania, which would lead in nicely to "Conan and the Dragon Horde."  Savage Sword of Conan #1: "Conan and the Dragon Horde" This is the lead story in SSoC1, featuring Conan commanding troops on a Hyrkanian steppe. I was tempted to put this one with Conan's Turanian mercenary days like "The Hand of Nergal" but Conan seems older here and is also addressed by the rank of "general," which he doesn't usually achieve until later in life. It's also not even explicitly Turanians that he's traveling with. This one probably goes a little later than his Turanian days. Did I mention he fights a fucking dinosaur in this one? I'm putting it near his time in Vendhya, perhaps before gaining the chieftain role of the Afghuli hillmen of "The People of the Black Circle." "The People of the Black Circle" "The Pool of the Black One" "Red Nails" "The Servants of Bit-Yakin" Savage Sword of Conan #2: "Leaving the Garden" This is the lead story in SSoC2 by Jim Zub. Conan is headed across Shem, toward Argos. He says that he has "old debts" in Argos, which could refer to his legal trouble at the beginning of "Queen of the Black Coast." More definitively, though, is a splash page which shows Conan telling a young boy of his exploits. It includes Conan fighting frost giants, commanding armies, sneaking up on Thak, eyeing Belit, and fighting a dragon alongside Valeria, which would put it at least after "Red Nails." Savage Sword of Conan #3: "Wolves of the Tundra" I'm basically closing my eyes and throwing a dart at the board for this one. Conan doesn't seem necessarily old or young and is said to be a warrior "of some note," meaning it's probably not his younger days, but that's all we've got. Maybe he wanders in the north a bit before joining up with Aquilonia to make a few bucks.  Savage Sword of Conan #4: "Birthright in Black" Both this story from SSoC4 and the Battle of the Black Stone event book take place during Conan's days as an Aquilonian scout in Conajohara. Because Fort Tuscelan is still standing, the book has to take place before "Beyond the Black River." Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone Like "Birthright in Black," the Conan of Battle of the Black Stone is Aquilonian scout Conan. "Beyond the Black River" "The Black Stranger" "Wolves Beyond the Border" Another unfinished story that may or may not be canon. "The Phoenix on the Sword" "The Scarlet Citadel" The Hour of the Dragon  Savage Sword of Conan #5: "The Ensorcelled, Part One" This incredible King Conan story by Jason Aaron is set definitively in Conan's older days. He is sporting facial hair and has reigned for apparently quite some time in Aquilonia, placing it after the King Conan stories "The Phoenix on the Sword," "The Scarlet Citadel," and The Hour of the Dragon. Conan is in the mountains of Brythunia. Savage Sword of Conan #6: "The Ensorcelled, Part Two" This is the conclusion of Aaron's story that began in issue 5. Interestingly, dialogue brings up several things here that I did not expect to see mentioned. An enemy of Conan's verbally references many of the sorcerers Conan has defeated: Natohk of "Black Colossus," Xaltotun of The Hour of the Dragon, Thoth-Amon, of a half-dozen stories, the Black Seers of Yimsha from "The People of the Black Circle," Salome of "A Witch Shall Be Born." Additionally, he adds "The crimson witch of Razazel," which was unfamiliar to me. Apparently, it's from Jason Aaron's Marvel-era Conan book. With a certain Marvel character referenced at the end of Battle of the Black Stone and now this, I guess the Marvel Conan stuff is fair game! But that wasn't the only curveball in terms of references here. The narration mentions the skull gate of Hyperborea, something from L. Sprague de Camp's "The Witch of the Mists," and "the city of the Spider God in Zamora," which refers to Conan and the Spider God. It feels kind of like when we got a "Castle of Terror" reference late in Conan's life when I was sure we'd never see that story alluded to ever again. I mean, more than likely this was just a fun Easter egg that Aaron was throwing at fans rather than hinting at any actual canon, but a guy can dream. If "The Ensorcelled" is mentioning aspects of "The Witch of the Mists," it stands to reason that the three stories that make up its sequels are also in the realm of hazy canon. Their events are mentioned necessarily, but "Mists" doesn't really stand on its own: it's the first of a four-parter. "The Witch of the Mists" "Black Sphinx of Nebthu" "Red Moon of Zembabwei" "Shadows in the Skull" Conan of the Isles "The Ensorcelled" says that Conan may have spent his final days across the Western Ocean, clearly referring to the events of Conan of the Isles. Stories I couldn't placeA couple short stories in the new Savage Sword were pretty much impossible to place in the chronology. Like Ernie Chan's wordless panels in several of the old Savage Sword books from the Bronze Age, we get a few vignettes that don't have any hints as to where they lay. Savage Sword of Conan #3: "Lure of the Pit Creature" Conan falls down a pit and silent fun ensues, but I couldn't for the life of me even begin to guess at where or when it happens. Conan following a young woman kind of reminds me of him following Atali in "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," but he clearly means her no hard and looks to help her rather than to have his way with her, so your guess is as good as mine. Savage Sword of Conan #5: "Damn Thing in the Water" This short, two-page, nearly-wordless story could happen anywhere and anywhen between Conan's thief days and prior to his kingship. This one's funny! Well, that's my best guess as to the current canon over at Heroic Signatures, though I'm sure I'm wildly off on some of my guesses.
I think the best way to put the Titan canon is that the original REH stories are canon to these comics, but the comics are not necessarily canon to anything but themselves. The only thing I'm really truly wondering about are the unfinished Howard stories and their canonicity. I'm looking forward to all the cool new stuff they'll be doing in 2025 with "Scourge of the Serpent" on the horizon! Happy New Year! |
AuthorHey, I'm Dan. This is my project reading through the career of everyone's favorite sword-and-sorcery character, Conan the Cimmerian, in chronological order. 
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