Barbarians aren’t exactly known for their civility. Hot off the heels of surviving an endless gauntlet of foes in the blood sport tournament known as “The Crucible” in the City of Garchall, Conan the Barbarian appears to have fallen out of the frying pan… and into the fire. Having escaped Garchall, Conan’s tale now sees him wandering the countryside as a horrifying murderer, having come under the influence of a mysterious burnished orange blade known as “The Tooth of the Night Star,” which commands him to kill in order to satiate the blade’s bloodlust. Long a wandering strongman with a heart of gold, under the influence of the Night Star, Conan has become Marvel Comics’ most terrifying, and possibly most dangerous villain.
While this abrupt shift in moral alignment came about suddenly, Conan seems to be on the path towards irreversible damnation already. It all started when, in his bid to escape death in the arena at Garchall, Conan confronted the Chief Magistrate of the city, who revealed The Crucible and all the religious mysticism surrounding the city to be part of a grander scheme focused on keeping the populous in check. Taking a blade from the Magistrate’s weapon collection, Conan declined his offer to join him as a member of the ruling elite and instead killed him and a host of other guards standing in his way before vanishing off into the wilderness, as he is wont to do.
One might have chalked this kind of behavior up to Conan’s usual modus operandi of brutality and bloodshed, even if it did seem a bit on the vengeful side for him. However, this new story-arc, entitled “A Feast for the Blade,” picks up with Conan on a tear through the surrounding countryside, slipping in and out of a bizarre blind rage and killing every single person in sight. The Night Star had been stolen from a member of a distant clan, one of whom Conan had become quite enamored with prior to her death. And so Conan went to return the blade to its owner, seemingly a good deed. Seeing as this good deed has Conan becoming possessed by his sword, which invades his dreams with apocalyptic nightmares and finds him waking up having killed even more innocent people, it appears there might be something about the sword he doesn’t know which might be important.
The Night Star, a sword which slowly brings the wielder deeper and deeper into madness and murder, is similar superficially to the sword Stormbringer, wielded by the gothic hero Elric of Melniboné in Michael Moorcock’s series of stories about him. Elric also guest-starred in the pages of Conan as part of a two-issue story-arc in 1972. Stormbringer is an evil god who gradually forces Elric to kill every single person in the world, especially those whom he loves, as part of a plan to destroy existence. While one might hope that the Night Star isn’t that malevolent, it seems to feast on murder, and he’s apparently leading the now former-hero barbarian towards a village with the goal in mind to kill more innocent people.
So, while it took many, many years, as Robert E. Howard devised Conan way back in 1932, it appears Conan the Barbarian is finally living up to his name as a violent, bloodthirsty savage with a viscera-soaked sword. Can he be brought to his senses before he massacres an entire village? Only time will tell. Most likely not.
Conan The Barbarian #17 is available now wherever comic books are sold.