Savage Sword of Conan #4: The Bell Tolls for…He

This fairly linear by the books issue is not bad, it is however so insanely predictable as to take away any amount of suspense one might feel in an issue like this. The clearly doomed Suty is doomed, the token lady of the group kills one draugr (in a spectacular splash panel, pictured below) and is otherwise dependent on Conan for protection, there is never a moment of doubt our hero will prevail and the bad guy is Saturday morning cartoon villain EVIL with no real motivation beyond he wants the thing. What is the thing? If we were told I’ve forgotten but I have no doubt you could interchange it with nearly anything and the plot wouldn’t change a bit. I feel like the characterization in the issue is fine, it just is a bit dull despite all the action, if that makes sense.

The art by Ron Garney I feel could use a proper inker as Garney seems to finish some panels with a magic marker, a lot of face panels, especially Conan, look almost unfinished in their unrefined nature. It could be argued this is a stylistic choice but there are panels in this book that I consider downright phenomenal, so it’s the consistency I think I have issue with. The art is a bit better than last issue though, just not as good as the first 2 which I really liked.