Conan in the City of Magicians is a seven -part adventure from 1992-1993. I had enjoyed the cast in the previous volume- Valeria the hoyden pirate girl and the pragmatic Lady Morganis- and was sorry to see them written out. I like seeing Conan juxtaposed with more civilized characters like Tara the acrobat or Epimus the scholar. In this storyline, Conan is partnered by a demon named Imhotep, like the mummy in, er, The Mummy. Imhotep is a scythe-wielding demon in the mould of Kirby's Etrigan: treacherous, deadly but with a sardonic wit.
After a quick reference to Conan's 1977 adventure with Belit on the island of Kelka, the pirates land in Kush. We saw a revolution there in the colour comic adaptation of The Snout in the Dark and the wizard in that story is now an empire-building king. Conan and Imhotep are dispatched to kill a rival wizard.
Riding to the Kushite capital on zebras (!), Cimmerian and demon become enmeshed in intrigue and betrayal. Then Conan makes a detour to the lotus-eaters' city of Gazal from SSOC 21- my third issue, as a matter of fact. The ensuing destruction of the city is tragic and horrible. Conan is then sold into slavery ( with rather too many threats of castration ) and bought by his and Belit's old ally Zula, the magician's apprentice.
Zula ( also featured in Thomas' 90s run on the colour comic) has become an ambiguous character: a member of the dreaded Black Ring . It's an interesting development and it would have been rewarding to see Conan as a king challenged by a more amoral and powerful Zula.
In the seventh and final episode, Conan is a living pawn in a chess game with the Devourer of the Dead and the arrival of Thoth-Amon brings the conflict between the Kushite wizard-king's forces and the Black Ring to an abrupt end. Imhotep, who has been an engaging monster throughout, gains his freedom and Conan rescues his pirate crew from impalement.
There are two forgettable back-up stories - the first, by Romanian artist Sandu Florea, is an adaptation of one of REH's Lovecraftian pact/ ghost stories. The second is dreadful- an attempt to drug and frame Conan for an assassination; the art by Ovi Hondru resembles early Val Mayerik. Through a combination of the art and references to back issues of the colour comic, however, the City of Magicians arc feels like a more bloodthirsty continuation of the Conan saga of 1976-77 and is the highlight of the book for me.
However, in the next arc, Conan and the Spider God- an adaptation of a 1980 novel by Conan pasticheur L. Sprague de Camp- the author's name is the best thing about this mediocre plodder.
Conan,having received some very handy training in resisting hypnosis, poses as Nial the Blacksmith and infiltrates the spider-worshipping city of Yezud to rescue a kidnapped wife of the Hyrkanian king and get a price off his head. It's a convoluted motivation further complicated by thoughts of marriage to a temple dancer.
Although matrimony seems very out of character, Thomas seems to try to steer back to his Conan. There are continuity references to previous adventures with the giant spider Omm ( now renamed Zath, for reasons unclear); Rotath the Golden Skull; Lilitu the Were-woman and the minstrel Laza-Lanti.
Evil priests ( of course) are planning to hatch more baby giant spiders as a secret weapon and poor Rudabeh the dancer dies of a spider-bite ( of course). The pencilled pages by Buscema and ER Cruz are fantastically moody but the whole saga, complicated by a jewel heist, takes far too long to unfold.
Conan and the Gods of the Mountain is supposed to be a sequel to Red Nails. Certainly, Conan and Valeria encounter more dinosaurs and the Rafael Kayanan pages are very much in the style of Barry Smith. But I found the "God -Men of the Living Wind" obscure and a little boring. The story is continued in the next volume.
The book concludes with The God of Thieves, a two-parter set in Corinthia, where a city is under siege from an army of theives who want to open a portal to Hell, It's by the team of Thomas and Chan -like the newspaper strips of the late 70s- but there's a writing assist from a James Rose- I don't know if that's the Australian journalist but perhaps that's why this doesn't feel like a Marvel Conan story. Conan has a relationship with a doomed warrior priestess and the goddess Ashtoreth intervenes in the siege in the form of an old crone. It's a tragic romance for the hero but the priestess Suva Marsa isn't characterised enough for me to care about her death in battle.
I'd say this volume made me more cautious about buying number 21, if there's less of the classic Marvel Conan I recognise. Coming up next on Materioptikon, colour Conan in the 90s.
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