Customer Reviews

Conan Vol. 3: The Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have the first 3 in this series:
The Frost Giant's Daughter And Other Stories, The God In The Bowl And Other Stories and The Tower Of The Elephant And Other Stories.

I find the artwork to be superior to the "Chronicals of Conan", and there is always at least one original Howard tale included in these books. The "Other Stories" stand up very well to the Howard adventures. They are very much in the same spirit and style, and are fitting tributes.
So far all have been extremely enjoyable, and I plan to purchase the rest of them.
I only buy what I like (as opposed to collecting for its own sake), and I like this!!

Great for new readers and old Conan fans alike!

The Tower of the Elephant continues the great tradition of Dark Horse's Conan relaunch which began in the last two volumes.
In this volume, Conan hits his stride as a professional thief and we are treated to three prequel chapters setting up the "Tower of the Elephant" short story from Conan creator Robert E. Howard, a story which solidifies Conan's reputation in criminal circles.
Minor flaws for this book are a dip in quality in the first part of Tower (chapter 4) where Cary obviously is falling behind and sketches his way through about 12 pages worth of story, and although it is always nice to see Mike Kaluta draw something, I would much prefer to see Mr. Nord draw the flashback sequence himself.
Still a fine book and worth your time.

In my opinion, this one actually kicks it up a notch from the relatively disappointing The God in the Bowl. For most of volume three, the writing and artwork both are back up to the expected awesomeness that is the reason I read this series. Each of the original stories here is excellent, fitting in nicely with the Conan universe and staying true to the feel of what Conan tales are meant to be. This faithful rendering of "The Tower of the Elephant" does credit to the original, bringing new life to one of the most popular of REH's short stories. As in every Conan book ever written, this one if full of beautiful women, mundane and supernatural dangers, and strange places. As Conan makes his way to Zamora, and begins to reach true mastery of his thieving skills, he'll have to avoid all kinds of pitfalls. Conniving and deceitful women (always a weak spot for Conan), magical guardians, and unscrupulous robbers get in his way, and all are faced down and beaten.

The end of this book contains a fascinating piece of fan mail, that details the chronology of Conan's life, as well as some original sketches used in the book, and a rough map of the realm inhabited by Conan. Also, I believe that the final version of this book has a different (and much nicer-looking) cover than the one pictured here on Amazon. At least the version I have shows Conan battling a huge lion, and is a great looking cover.

What is best in life?
Conan: "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

These stories are generally fine, continuing on Conan's youthful adventures and his further development as a thief.

The one totally ridiculous story here is the one entitled Hounds of Marduk. Whilst promising in concept, the "hounds" turn out to be men walking on all fours without any other real attributes. This rather diminishes the fear (fun) factor. Whats more, these hounds have absolutely no other role in this story except to get gobbled up by a totally ridiculous (both in concept and artwork) gigantic worm-like monster.

The other reviewers are not critical of this. I am as I really like this series.

Great adaptation of one of the greatest Conan stories ever. Dark Horse exceeds expectations with this collection of stories. Don't miss it.

The classic Conan story was only enhanced by the great artists working on this! Well done! CROM SMILES!

This could not be better! The drawings are fantastic! Storyline is very good, great characters. Brutally fantastic! You should have this in your comic collection, it will be worth to have it.

I don't think this third volume lives up to the other two. The story is still pretty solid, and for the most part the art is up to par. There's a few pages where the art takes a noticeable decrease in quality though. There's a few really good moments in this book so I still recommend picking it up.

----Possible spoiler...

Let me say the title story is one of my favorite stories. Also that Dark Horse's Conan adaptations have been by far the best comics ones ever done of the stories, and that takes some doing with all the great artists and writers and multiple re-tellings. But, comparing it to the old Savage Sword story and the text itself, there's little if anything left out and the story itself is told perfectly. I even love it down to the "Pulp Fiction" font in the narrative.


The Tower of the Elephant is a neat story. It's one I hope is someday animated or turned into a movie. However, if it gets popular it might generate some controversy, or rather the media will try to cause it for cheap ratings and to try to keep truly "Good" authors from the mainstream.


They will do this by trying to get Indians (from or descended from natives of Indian subcontinent) angry that the character who is the subject of the story the book is named for (3 issues from the comic series, this was no "Rush Job") is somehow designed to be insulting to the God Ganeesh. Complete, total balderdash. During REH's time, and again in the 60s/70s when his stories got popular again and stayed popular, there was a popular hypothesis that aliens visiting Earth inspired ancient mythology, including some non human ones being interpreted to resemble animals. Howard probably read, "Perhaps some alien evolved from beasts like we consider elephants visited and inspired the Indians to create Ganeesh." in a paper no native Indians read to write letters showing how ridiculous that idea was. In any case the character except by the most obvious similarity is not intended to be Ganeesh in any way.

I grew up reading the Marvel Comics Conan series, and I loved it, but I think these Dark Horse Comics capture the spirit of Conan even better, and the art work is great!