Marvel Treasury: Conan

Of the twenty-eight issues of Marvel Treasury (1974-1981), super-size format reprints 10×14 inches, four of them featured Conan the Barbarian. The only other character who was not a superhero to get an issue was Howard the Duck though he appeared with superheroes. The final issue had DC’s Superman and Marvel’s Spider-Man face-off in a cross-company edition.

The contents were reprints taken from Conan the Barbarian, Savage Tales, the Conan the Barbarian newspaper comic and Savage Sword of Conan. Each issue had a number of pin-ups and fillers. Because of the color nature of the Treasuries, a four-color version of some of these stories was presented here for the first time. Let’s have a look at these:

Issue 4

Reprinted “Rogues in the House” from Conan the Barbarian #11 (November 1971), “Red Nails” from Savage Tales #2 (October 1973), “The Lurker From the Catacombs” and “He Comes From the Dark” in Savage Tales #3 (February 1974).

Reprinted “The Song of Red Sonja” from Conan the Barbarian #23 (March 1973), “Night of the Dark God” from Savage Tales #4 (May 1974), and “Black Collusus” from Savage Sword of Conan #2 (October 1974).

Reprinted “Iron Shadows in the Moon” from Savage Sword of Conan #4 (February 1975), and “People of the Dark” from Savage Sword of Conan #6 (June 1975).

Reprinted “A Witch Shall Be Born” Savage Sword of Conan #5 (April 1975), “The Sword and the Sorcerer” (daily newspaper comic strip from September-October 1978).

Colorists have always been largely ignored over pencilers and inkers, but they bring their own style to the finished product. The Sunday version of the daily Conan comic strip was in color. That colorist is, of course, not known either. Marvel didn’t pursue the treasury size after 1981. Instead they reprinted Conan in glorious black-and-white in Conan Saga (1987-1995) where ironically some color comics appeared without their colors.