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The Savage Sword of Conan: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus
The Savage Sword of Conan: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus, Vol. 3
Writer Roy Thomas and Conan artist supreme John Buscema are joined by a host of top-tier visual talents - Frank Brunner, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Ernie Chan and Carmine Infantino - to tell Conan's most savage tales. This volume's stories range from the young Cimmerian's exploits as a mercenary to his latter days as king of Aquilonia in the iconic "Scarlet Citadel." Anchoring it is Thomas and Buscema's 160-page adaptation of Conan the Buccaneer. It's a high-seas masterpiece that entangles Conan, a vile pirate and a beautiful princess with the forces of Thoth-Amon. Also featuring pinups galore, an exhaustive dictionary of Hyborian-era names and places and the stunningly painted, full-color masterpiece "The Trail of the Bloodstained God." COLLECTING: SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN (1974) 29-44 AND MARVEL COMICS SUPER SPECIAL (1977) 9
Hardcover
First published July 10, 1979
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77 people want to read
About the author
Roy Thomas
4,478 books270 followersRoy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel--After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrow's Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.
Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.
Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 23, 2022
All the comics are scripted by Roy Thomas are based on the writings of Conan creator Robert E. Howard. Many of the stories here are adaptations of the writings of Lin Carter and L Sprague De Camp who are best known for continuing the adventures of Conan and finishing some of REH's fragments. I believe they also changed some of REH's non-Conan stories to be set in the Hyborian age with Conan.
Contains:
✓ Savage Sword 29
A female lead story written by Roy Thomas drawn by Ernie Chan
✓ Savage Sword 30
REH's The Scarlet Citadel drawn by Frank Brunner. Some excellent epic battle imagery in this one. It's a classic King Conan story.
✓ Savage Sword 31, ✓ Savage Sword 32
The Flame Knife by L. Sprague deCamp based on a REH story. the first one in this book drawn by John Busceme (with Tony DeZuniga on inks). The deCamp (and Lin Carter) adaptations tend to be quite unwieldy, lots and lots of plot and narration. Roy Thomas seems content to leave a lot of the prose on the page instead of letting Buscema's art speak for itself, which is unfortunate. Lots of purple prose. But the stories are quite fun and Buscema's artwork is marvellous.
✓ Savage Sword 33
The Curse of the Monolith by deCamp and Carter art by Gene Colan and Pablo Marcos. A fun one and done simple story of Conan being tricked and left for dead... but he of course escapes and gets his revenge. Colan is a wonderful Conan artist.
✓ Savage Sword 34
Lair of the Ice Worm by deCamp and Carter. Another quick one and done, this time Conan rescues a girl but then has to avenge her death by a giant ice worm. It's fun! Art by Carmine Infantino and Alfredo Alcala. Great artwork here but I suspect Alcala is doing some heavy lifting, the inks are wonderful.
Savage Sword 35
Black Tears by deCamp and Carter with art by Ernie Chan.
✓ Savage Sword 36
Hawks Over Shem by deCamp (adapting a REH story) art by John Buscema and Alcala. Finally the A-team is back in action.
✓ Savage Sword 37
Sons of the White Wolf by REH. Art by Sal Buscema and Rudy Nebres. John's younger brother does art on this one and a few others in this book. Although not quite on the level of John, he's quite good. Pretty similar too. He does faces perfectly but overall he's not quite as detailed. This is an excellent story. A one-and-done epic.
✓ Savage Sword 38
The Road of the Eagles by deCamp (over an REH story) with John Buscema and DeZuniga. This may be my favourite story of the bunch. It has everything a good Conan story needs, including Conan leading a team of men, finding ancient treasures, getting embroiled in some larger political mess, getting revenge, and to top it off ancient undead demons come in at the end!
Savage Sword 39
Legions of the Dead by deCamp and Carter art by Sal Buscema and DeZuniga. A tale of young Conan impressing an Asir chieftain.
✓ Savage Sword 40, Savage Sword 41, ✓ Savage Sword 42, ✓ Savage Sword 43
These issues contain an adaptation of Conan the Buccaneer novel by deCamp and Carter. Art by John Busceme and DeZuniga. Although it does come across as fan-fiction, it has all the Conan tropes and features Thoth-Amon as the main villain... this was excellent! Buscema brings some of his best work across the whole story.
✓ Savage Sword 44
The Star of Khorala by deCamp and Carter art by Sal Buscema and DeZuniga. This is a sequel to REH's story Shadows in Zamboula. It's alright.
✓ Marvel Comics Super Special 9
A full-color issue! Trail of the Bloodstained God by deCamp (over an REH story) Art by John Buscema with DeZuniga. Conan is on the trail of a temple full of treasure... but a temple idol comes to life and threatens his life. Pretty typical stuff, just another day in the life of Conan.
Overall this book was a lot of fun. The deCamp stories can be a bit overbearing with unnecessary plot baggage. The Conan the Buccaneer story makes me forgive him though, that one was fun.
Contains:
✓ Savage Sword 29
A female lead story written by Roy Thomas drawn by Ernie Chan
✓ Savage Sword 30
REH's The Scarlet Citadel drawn by Frank Brunner. Some excellent epic battle imagery in this one. It's a classic King Conan story.
✓ Savage Sword 31, ✓ Savage Sword 32
The Flame Knife by L. Sprague deCamp based on a REH story. the first one in this book drawn by John Busceme (with Tony DeZuniga on inks). The deCamp (and Lin Carter) adaptations tend to be quite unwieldy, lots and lots of plot and narration. Roy Thomas seems content to leave a lot of the prose on the page instead of letting Buscema's art speak for itself, which is unfortunate. Lots of purple prose. But the stories are quite fun and Buscema's artwork is marvellous.
✓ Savage Sword 33
The Curse of the Monolith by deCamp and Carter art by Gene Colan and Pablo Marcos. A fun one and done simple story of Conan being tricked and left for dead... but he of course escapes and gets his revenge. Colan is a wonderful Conan artist.
✓ Savage Sword 34
Lair of the Ice Worm by deCamp and Carter. Another quick one and done, this time Conan rescues a girl but then has to avenge her death by a giant ice worm. It's fun! Art by Carmine Infantino and Alfredo Alcala. Great artwork here but I suspect Alcala is doing some heavy lifting, the inks are wonderful.
Savage Sword 35
Black Tears by deCamp and Carter with art by Ernie Chan.
✓ Savage Sword 36
Hawks Over Shem by deCamp (adapting a REH story) art by John Buscema and Alcala. Finally the A-team is back in action.
✓ Savage Sword 37
Sons of the White Wolf by REH. Art by Sal Buscema and Rudy Nebres. John's younger brother does art on this one and a few others in this book. Although not quite on the level of John, he's quite good. Pretty similar too. He does faces perfectly but overall he's not quite as detailed. This is an excellent story. A one-and-done epic.
✓ Savage Sword 38
The Road of the Eagles by deCamp (over an REH story) with John Buscema and DeZuniga. This may be my favourite story of the bunch. It has everything a good Conan story needs, including Conan leading a team of men, finding ancient treasures, getting embroiled in some larger political mess, getting revenge, and to top it off ancient undead demons come in at the end!
Savage Sword 39
Legions of the Dead by deCamp and Carter art by Sal Buscema and DeZuniga. A tale of young Conan impressing an Asir chieftain.
✓ Savage Sword 40, Savage Sword 41, ✓ Savage Sword 42, ✓ Savage Sword 43
These issues contain an adaptation of Conan the Buccaneer novel by deCamp and Carter. Art by John Busceme and DeZuniga. Although it does come across as fan-fiction, it has all the Conan tropes and features Thoth-Amon as the main villain... this was excellent! Buscema brings some of his best work across the whole story.
✓ Savage Sword 44
The Star of Khorala by deCamp and Carter art by Sal Buscema and DeZuniga. This is a sequel to REH's story Shadows in Zamboula. It's alright.
✓ Marvel Comics Super Special 9
A full-color issue! Trail of the Bloodstained God by deCamp (over an REH story) Art by John Buscema with DeZuniga. Conan is on the trail of a temple full of treasure... but a temple idol comes to life and threatens his life. Pretty typical stuff, just another day in the life of Conan.
Overall this book was a lot of fun. The deCamp stories can be a bit overbearing with unnecessary plot baggage. The Conan the Buccaneer story makes me forgive him though, that one was fun.
March 20, 2022
Another spectacular volume in the Marvel Omnibus series of Conan reprints, which is coming out parallel to volumes for the color Conan comics of the time as well as other volumes covering King Kull and Solomon Kane. It is a pity that we are getting no Omnibuses, Omnibi? for Red Sonja at the moment as she is being held by Dynamite comics, I think. We also don't get her stories in SSoC or any of those other characters that have their own volumes.
It would have been great to be able to get full reprints of the magazines, but here we get only the Conan stories and articles. I think it was a smart decision to separate the volumes by character instead of just having these big gaps. These magazines are enormous even without the other characters, this volume covers little more than a year of issues and goes well over 900 pages.
The art is amazing as always and the stories are fun adventure romps. In this volume there is a clear increase in blood and nudity, which is pretty much what you want from Conan, you even get some Conan skinny dipping butt! Another big change in this volume is that Marvel finally got the rights to adapt the De Camp/Carter Conan stories, adding to the pool of adaptations showing up here. As always, some great stuff.
It would have been great to be able to get full reprints of the magazines, but here we get only the Conan stories and articles. I think it was a smart decision to separate the volumes by character instead of just having these big gaps. These magazines are enormous even without the other characters, this volume covers little more than a year of issues and goes well over 900 pages.
The art is amazing as always and the stories are fun adventure romps. In this volume there is a clear increase in blood and nudity, which is pretty much what you want from Conan, you even get some Conan skinny dipping butt! Another big change in this volume is that Marvel finally got the rights to adapt the De Camp/Carter Conan stories, adding to the pool of adaptations showing up here. As always, some great stuff.
June 3, 2021
It’s been a weird 3 months as I haven’t read as much as I usually do with some crazy work and spring yard work as well. During that time tho I was able to regularly read an issue of SS in this collection. A great 3rd entry in the series collection, most notably a multi part story featuring Conan and Thoth Amon. You won’t regret buying these if you are a Conan fan or a REH fan.
August 22, 2023
I have never read any L Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter stories but I sympathize with John Buscema who didn't enjoy adapting their stories, as I did not much enjoy reading them. And this collection has a lot. Since I'm waiting for the Titan reprints of Volumes 1 and 2 of these and regular Conan omnibuses, I am starting here with volume three. I do have to say the art is outstanding, Scarlet Citadel is the standout for me, and any story other than Sprague / Carter is a joy. Roy Thomas is the MAN as he does a spectacular job adapting short stories and novels into comic form. It's more impressive than the average reader might imagine. It isn't just plagiarising, but completely restyling, reimagining and condensing so many words, picking the best of the best lines and framing it in a visual way. Each frame is a masterwork. It took me a long time to understand the appeal of pure black and white art as opposed to the standard color comics. Apart from the magazine format that allowed for more mature content, the artistic significance of black and white art allows for true professionals (such as those represented here) to create scenes of light and darkness in a way that is more contrasted, and I would argue, detailed, than any regular color comic. Color can be done beautifully in its own way but there's something unique and endlessly wonderful about line work. I recommend this book but I also believe there is better in store as they start to move on from the Lancers. I'm not a Howardian purist but his stories are infinitely better than the pastiches.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 28, 2025
(Zero spoiler review) 4.5/5
Batman be damned, Conan is the undisputed king of comics, and the evidence is right here before you. Yet another superlative slice of sword and sorcery styled shenanigans from everyone's favourite slayer. That's right, Buffy be damned, too. Amazing adaptations from the richly talented and criminally underappreciated Roy Thomas. Gorgeous artwork from a list of pencillers and inkers that cannot be mentioned, lest a single deserving name not be mentioned. And if this outstanding collection needed any additional impetus to have you pick it up and read it, then you get the editors ever so slowly sticking two fingers up at the comics code, with the steady increase in violence and partial nudity. What a package, by Crom! 4.5/5
OmniBen.
Batman be damned, Conan is the undisputed king of comics, and the evidence is right here before you. Yet another superlative slice of sword and sorcery styled shenanigans from everyone's favourite slayer. That's right, Buffy be damned, too. Amazing adaptations from the richly talented and criminally underappreciated Roy Thomas. Gorgeous artwork from a list of pencillers and inkers that cannot be mentioned, lest a single deserving name not be mentioned. And if this outstanding collection needed any additional impetus to have you pick it up and read it, then you get the editors ever so slowly sticking two fingers up at the comics code, with the steady increase in violence and partial nudity. What a package, by Crom! 4.5/5
OmniBen.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews