The Complete Marvel Conan the Barbarian, Volume 1 [Paperback]

Roy Thomas (Author), Barry Smith (Author), Robert E. Howard (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Ace (February 1, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441116922
• ISBN-13: 978-0441116928
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,976,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A paperback cut & paste version of "Conan the Barbarian" 1-3, June 19, 2004

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Marvel Conan the Barbarian, Volume 1 (Paperback)

Do not get too excited by the title "The Complete Marvel Conan the Barbarian, Volume 1," because this paperback from Ace, published in the late 1970s, is not what you think. What you will find here are the first three issues of the Marvel comic book "Conan the Barbarian," with the panels cut up so that they can fit close to the right size on each page. The coloring job is pretty decent, but nothing compared to the wonderful job Dark Horse did with a computer in "The Chronicles of Conan, Volume 1" last year. These Ace paperbacks, of which I believe there are six getting us through the first fifteen issues of the comic, are a nostalgic oddity for fans of the series.

Working from the pulp fiction stories of Robert E. Howard, writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith produced one of the more unusual comic books in history (and one that managed to stay outside the Marvel universe except for a strange "Marvel Team-Up" issue with Spider-Man). Most striking was the evolution of Windsor-Smith as an artist and when you compare his growth from these first issues to his final ones on "Conan," it is one of the most impressive in the history of the medium.

Collected here are #1 "The Coming of Conan," #2 "Lair of the Beast-Men," and the first adaptation of a specific Howard tale with #3 "Twilight of the Grim Grey God." The first is inked by Dan Adkins and the other two by Sal Buscema, with Sam Rosen doing the lettering on all three. The trio of stories introduce us to the young barbarian in the Hyborian Age, with his helmet with the two horns and that necklace, both of which he would manage to lose within a few issues. They all have the same setting in that Conan is still in the north among the other barbarian lands and would not make it to Arenjuin, the thief-city of Zamora where he would enter the Tower of the Elephant, until the next issue. Again, "The Complete Marvel Conan the Barbarian, Volume 1" is really more of a collectible than anything else, now that Dark Horse has reprinted all of the Windsor-Smith Conan stories.