CTC #17 - cover blurb The Devil-God of Bal-Sagoth!
Great cover by Gil Kane and Frank Brunner. The opening splash page by Kane and inked by Ralph Reese is a good one as well. Reese'sinks compliment Kane's pencils, softening and rendering Kane's sometimes spare, clean line approach. Kane does his share of pencil duties on Conan the Barbarian and while he is an acknowledged master, he was never my favorite when held up against the brutish vitality of Buscema and Chan, either on their own or together,
Fighting with the Turanian navy, Conan boards a pirate vessel, crewed by a variety of warriors from across Hyboria. The leader of the pirates is Fafnir, last seen in CTB #6 in the classic story Devil-Wings Over Shadizar. Conan had thought he died when accidentally stabbed by another thief, but Fafnir is a tough proto-Viking that has a way of cheating death that rivals even Conan. We'll be seeing him again in stories to come.
For now, Fafnir fills the role of one of the two main characters in a repurposing of the REH story The Gods of Bal-Sagoth. Fafnir stands in for Athelstane the Saxon and Conan is the analogue of Turlogh O'Brien the Gael. You might even say that for this one story he's *cough* Conan O'Brien.
Captured by the pirates but ultimately spared by Fafnir, Conan is cut loose moments before the pirate ship sinks upon a submerged reef. On the beach, Conan pursues his people's age old vendetta against the Vanir, but Fafnir refuses to fight back and soon an uneasy friendship emerges. Cue the beautiful half-dressed woman pursued by a weird-looking birdlike dinosaur.
If you've read the original story by Howard, you pretty much know how things go from there. The mysterious woman, Brunhild in the original tale and called Kyrie in the comic, tells her tale and enlists Conan and Fafnir to help her reclaim the island she once all but ruled as a goddess. My favorite line of the haughty Kyrie: "A nation of fools -- like ALL nations!" I can't recall if this is a line used in the original story or not, but it sounds like something Howard would have one of his prehistoric femme fatales say.
There follows a battle with Vertorix, the defender of the usurping king and a magical puppet of the evil high priest, which uses one of my favorite visual conventions for depicting the movement of a sword in battle. I really love that crazy looping trail tracking the exaggerated swinging of the blade.
Conan gets a little help in defeating Vertorix through Kyrie's craftiness. The evil king and high priest escape, leaving things set up for the conclusion next issue, though the final panel is somewhat strangely marked with a box reading "Fin" for some reason.
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