As issue #49 of Conan the King closes, our barbarian hero decides to abdicate his throne and head off into the world, leaving Prince Conn in charge of Aquilonia. It’s a destiny that was hinted at in an earlier issue by someone who noted that Conn would be an even greater king than Conan, and where Conan goes from here isn’t really known. I mean, we’ll kind of get there in 2022, but first things first.

Issue #35 continues the war in Aquilonia that has come about because of the machinations of Crassus, one of the wizards in the royal court whom is actually of the same mold as Toth-Amon and has been, over time, become more and more inhuman due to spells he has been making and potions he has been drinking. One by one, the other schemers in this conspiracy against Conan–King Xantus and Queen Leora, epsecially–wind up getting picked off and Crassus turns into a full-on dragon that Conan, Conn, and the rest of our heroes must defeat, including the actual Taurus and not the Changeling that had been scheming against his father. This is followed by long wars of conquest until, tired from the fighting and the needs of a ruler, Conan abdicates and walks off.

Don Krarr took over writing Conan the King around issue #29, and that left some of the storylines that Doug Moench and Alan Zelenetz had developed hanging in places. We’d seen Conn travel to the Far East and seemingly meet his twin brother, and it was also hinted that something or someone more powerful than Crassus was actually behind much of the evil in the castle. Then everything kind of jumped, the family was united again (really, Conn just kind of shows up one day) and we’re thrust into this fight against the monstrous Crassus as well as other sorcerers followed by a Charlemagne-esque campaign of Conan’s becoming more of an emperor than a king.

I guess that a new creative team meant kind of a new direction, but I have to admit that when I first started reading Krarr’s run as writer, I was confused. By this point, I settled in a little more and wound up reading most of these issues in quick succession because much like what we were getting earlier in the series, Krarr decided to tell a long story across what wound up being more or less a year and a half. Because the “Conan the Emperor” or “Conan the Conqueror” or whatever I would call it in my head as I was reading it marches along at a really fast pace even if it’s not written in the decompressed way we’ve come to know.

And really, the writing of this set of issues is the star because while Mike Docherty and Judith Hunt do a servicable job in their pencilling chores, they are sometimes saddled with inkers who don’t do them much good and are also coming off some very fine art by Marc Silvestri and Geof Isherwood. Still, it’s fascinating to see Conan, whom I first knew from the Schwazenegger movie as a lone barbarian (with a couple of allies and Mako) meeting with military strategests in a battlefield tent and then leading formal charges while wearing regal armor. It’s an evolution of the character I actually liked even though I knew (from reading the Jason Aaron series in 2021-2022) that it wouldn’t last. And, like I said, as of issues #48-49, it doesn’t.

But where does it go from here? That’s the weird thing, because we get a slight continuity reset with issue #50 before the series wraps up with issue #55. That’s for next time, though.