Review by Frank Plowright

Although for obvious reasons marketed as a Conan graphic novel, as was the case with Battle of the Black Stone, this is a second tale where Jim Zub unites various additional characters created by Robert E. Howard. A cover design and logo differing from the usual offer a clue. Pictish warrior Brule the Spearslayer is given a vision of Conan, Kull the Conqueror and Professor John Kirowan. Kull is of his era, so Brule seeks him, out, and two parallel narratives follow the other characters. It’s not long before it’s revealed serpents are the connection, although in Conan’s case that’s rather well hidden in plain sight by Ivan Gil’s artistic misdirection.

Gil is a delightful artist, and surely a colourist’s nightmare for all the welcome fiddly detail, especially on mightily impressive spreads. While Conan and Kull’s times can be fudged as much the same period of sword and sorcery, Kirowan’s 1930s are also well defined, and the characters are designed to be distinctive and recognisable.

Conan’s segment broadly follows Howard’s own ‘The God in the Bowl’, with Conan caught in the house of a merchant he’d intended to rob, but not responsible for his murder. Some credit for appropriating the plot on Zub’s part would have been the decent thing to do. It’s a good story, though, for confining Conan in a relatively small space, and adapted well here by making the menace greater than in the original in order that it ties into the other events. Three stories across different eras are interestingly combined, with Gil called on to produce pages depicting three simultaneous life or death struggles with an additional cosmic aspect. It’s all very satisfying.

Via an epilogue designed to appeal to anyone who’s been following his Conan continuity, Zub leaves the door open for further stories uniting assorted Howard characters.