Conan the Barbarian #3: Consequences without Action

I don’t hate this issue but in my opinion much of the bad outweighs the good, with most of the interesting stuff happening off panel, a wholly unnecessarily long winded speech from a priest of Mitra for basically no reason, and the final resolution being possibly a literal act of a god. I would have liked to see the crime, Conan being buried and fighting off a half dozen guards, anything but this boring issue. I know Aaron sometimes likes to portray the aftermath rather than the event (as i mentioned recently) but this was too much aftermath with very little eventual payoff. I do overall still like this series a lot, but this issue seemed like a down issue. All of this of course overlooking the pointlessness of an issue where the main character is to be executed.

It was interesting the way the narrative made sure to drop the statement that Conan at this time is 17, as the timeline is a bit murky in this series as of now, that information sets it before the classic series which is an interesting touch.

The art by Mahmud Asrar is serviceable although I’m disappointed to say that bug eyes Conan is back. I hate bug eyes Conan. I did have an excited moment at a pretty dang graphic shot of a man being eaten by dogs, and the climax of the story with the lightning was excellently drawn. (Despite being somewhere between way too convenient and straight up stupid narratively speaking)