Conan the Barbarian #78 (September 1977) was a reprint of a story that had originally been published in black-and-white in Savage Sword of Conan #1 a few years earlier. I think I first read it in Savage Sword (though the higher priced magazines Marvel published were only occasionally within my paper route-fueled budget) and I think that Conan's saga and John Buscema's superb art work very well in black-and-white. The story looks mighty good in color as well, though, and that's the format in which I now own it.
It takes place not long after Conan had deserted from an army and traveled to the notorious City of Thieves, arriving after a series of adventures that included an encounter with a monstrous crocodile. Now all he wanted was a night on the town before finding another army to fight for.
But Conan can rarely get through a night without needing to kill someone. This time, some panicking priests wearing hooded robes run past him, fleeing from armed thugs. The thugs don't like witnesses to whatever shenanigans they are up to, so they make the unwise decision to attack the Cimmerian.
He's not really having much trouble taking out the thugs until he trips over a ringed finger that one of the priests must have dropped. Fortunately, an old friend happens by to take out the last thug.
Red Sonja had first appeared in Conan #24 a few years earlier, in a story based on Robert E. Howard's short story "Shadow of the Vulture;" That story was set in the 16th Century, but moving Red Sonja ("Sonya" in the original story) to the Hyborian Age was not a bad idea at all. Barry Smith was still the Conan artist at the time and he drew Sonja wearing a chain mail shirt that probably showed her figure better than a chain mail shirt would in real life, but it was still a reasonable way for a warrior to dress.
Esteban Maroto first put Sonja in her chain mail bikini in a back-up feature in Savage Sword of Conan #1 and John Buscema kept the look that has become her standard "uniform" ever since.* I love Buscema's art, but I've always been bothered by this. I realize that most female comic book characters are going to have a role as eye candy for male readers and the appropriateness of this makes for an important debate in of itself. But what bothers me about Sonya's bikini is how impractical it is. And how out of character it is. The armor doesn't cover enough of her to be of any significant help in a fight and Sonja has no interest at all in being attractive to men. So why does she wear it other than to provide a contrived reason to be eye candy for comic book readers? In the end, it makes the character weaker and it's especially aggravating because Sonja was still nice to gaze upon in the mail shirt that Barry Smith gave her without looking like she was deliberately designed to be a centerfold model.
Oh, well, she's still a good character dropped into good stories. After saving Conan, she notices the ring on the finger dropped by the priest. It had belonged to Costranno a sorcerer who had been beheaded for practicing black magic earlier that day, after being betrayed by a woman named Berthilda. Berthilda had learned Costranno's power was in the ring he wore and cut off the finger, allowing him to be caught and executed.
Backtracking the priests, Conan and Sonja find Costranno's body and head laid out together. That the priests had been trying to bring all his body parts back together was obvious, but the two warriors decide the "why" of it all is none of their business. They toss the finger down and walk away.
The finger then moves on its own to reattach itself to the body...
So when Conan later sees a hooded figure wearing that ring walk by, he deduces that Costranno might have been resurrected. By this point in his career, Conan had run into enough dark magic to make this a reasonable guess. Feeling responsible, he talks Sonja into going with him to Berthilda's house.
They find out that the sorcerer has indeed come back to life and it getting ready to sacrifice the woman who betrayed him. This leads to a typically wonderful fight sequence of the sort that Buscema could choreograph and draw so well.
They win the fight, of course, which includes having to force a monster being called up from a pit back into that pit. But Berthilda shows very little gratitude about being rescued. After they get her outside, she insists on going back into her own house now that it's safe.
Of course, though Conan had cut Costranno's hand off during the fight, the sorcerer and the ring are still in the same room together. So, when Conan and Sonja here Berthilda scream, they decide they can't make a career over saving her from her own "treacherous folly."
It's a good, solid story and a fine re-introduction to the Hyborian Age version of Red Sonja, who would periodically return and also have her own book for awhile. Red Sonja stories have since been published by other comic companies, though I haven't read them and I don't know if they are still set in the Hyborian Age or if she's been moved into her own universe. But, despite my complaints about that silly chain mail bikini, she really is a great character--an Action Girl from a time before that character template had become as common as it is nowadays.
Next week, more sword fighting, but this time it'll be... Billy the Kid wielding the sword?
*Thanks to artist Joe Jusko for correcting me via a Facebook post after I initially credited Buscema with creating the chain mail bikini.
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