King Conan #1… Oops! I mean Thor. I mean The Mummy. I mean Troy.
I am a huge fan of any media set in a different world. Movies like the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. In my teens, I loved the Conan films as portrayed by the great Arnold Shwarzennegar. In those movies you always had the same wizard narrating the story along, which they actually utilized a narrator for this comic as well. It brought joy to my heart to hear that old man’s voice once more telling the tales and adventures of Conan.
For the most part I enjoyed this book based on all of the reasons above. The story, Truman, was intriguing and yet very basic. Old man reflects on past life and love. The art was also basic yet enjoyable, Giorello and Villarubia. I cannot complain too much about either of these two major components of a comic book. The one thing I can complain about was the relationship of the plot line to many different recent films. The beginning felt a lot like a Thor scene from the first feature film released in 2011. The aged Conan looked like Thor’s father, Odin. A few panels later and it merges into a seen from The Mummy, 1999, where Brenden Fraiser helps to release one from the grave. A few pages later their is a conversation between Conan and his fellow soldiers. A few mishaps down the road, and someone has to pretend to be Conan so that the soldiers would still fight. This plot sounds a lot like the feature film Troy starring Brad Pitt.
All in all, I enjoyed the book. However, too many things reminded me of something else that I have seen. Nothing “new” popped out at me.
I give this Three “BY CROMS” out of Five.
I LOVED the original Marvel King Conan that switched eventually to Conan The King! I grew up in the 80’s reading that and Savage Sword of Conan! Hopefully if Schwarzenegger does end up getting the role for the movie, I can die happy :-)
I don’t think anyone can play it better. Unfortunately, our beloved Kahl Drogo from Game of Thrones didn’t do that role justice!
I read he was furious over how the movie turned out! He was good as a young Conan. The problems were: 1. Wrong Director! You need someone Snyder-Like to pull Conan off 2. Wrong time for that movie. Historically, Sword and Sorcery Flicks bomb (except C1 and 2 from the old days) ;-)
One of the flat out most idiotic reviews I’ve ever read. The reviewer seems completely unaware that the comic is based on a pulp adventure novel first published in 1935, well over half a century before any of the films mentioned. Ms. Swopes couldn’t even be bothered to get the spelling of Schwarzenegger correct. Here’s a tip: the internet is equipeed with this nifty invention called GOOGLE. This tool can be a powerful resource for the less intellegent among us, because they can use it to gain a basic understanding of any given subject before opening their mouth and embarassing themselves.
Fanboy Factor is open to anyone who wants to submit a review. We welcome you to put your money where your mouth is and submit your own review.
I could not agree more with amster….I will stay polite, but to me, it is clear that Ms. Swopes did not research much on the subject and just based her reading impression with the immediate reminders she was getting from the book. If someone is going to make a review of something, there is one very important thing that must be done through that review as well, and it is called “RESEARCH”….before even starting to type your ideas and impressions on the subject of the review, some research needs to be done, otherwise the review is useless.
You are 100 percent right. I will make sure to do more research in the future on topics. I appreciate you staying polite. As stated below I am new to reviewing and this is only my second post. I will be sure to take better care in the future.
Who told this ditz she was qualified to review anything? She can’t even win a spelling bee.
Needless to show I don’t give two spits about being polite.
Where can we read one of your reviews Russ?
Oh yeah, about Schwarzenegger: he’s about as Conanesque as an 18-wheeler.
Well, I hate to pile on, especially as I see that this appears to be only your second blogpost, but I have to agree that if you want to have your work taken seriously you need to put more effort into it. Please take this as constructive criticism. Mario and Amster are right in that even a little bit of research might helped considerably here. If you have no understanding of the material you are reviewing, no frame of reference within which to contextualize it, then your opinion holds little weight.
For example, the reason the armor-switching reminds of the Brad Pitt Troy film is because Robert E. Howard (you know who he is, right? Google it), when he wrote the original story this comic is adapting nearly 80 years ago, was making a homage to the famous scene in the Iliad in which Patroclus dons Achilles armor and dies pretending to be him. Howard’s readers would have gotten that because in 1930’s everyone read the Iliad in high school. You do know that the film Troy (1999) is based on the Iliad right?
Research. You should do it. Especially since it seems like you enjoy this kind of material. The original Conan stories, including Hour of the Dragon, are available on project Gutenberg Australia. Check ’em out — you might enjoy them. And you might discover that there was actually some pretty cool popular culture out there before 1980 believe it or not.
While research is important in writing reviews, NAME Calling is not necessary ANYWHERE, Russ Parkhurst. I also notice that, like myself, many of you do not write reviews for this site (aside from Joey and Jeff). Constructive criticism is one thing…but tearing someone down for their opinion on a comic book is just childish. Some of you were helpful. Most were just trolls.
Hello All,
I am sorry to have caused such a fuss. I appreciate all the constructive criticism especially that given by Jeff Shanks. As he stated this is only my second review. I decided to try material that is unfamiliar to me. I am very young when it comes to writing things like this so I was not really sure how exactly to go about it. I wrote the review immediately after reading the book. All of you are right, I should have waited and done so more research. No one will take me seriously or my reviews if I don’t follow up on it. Again, sorry to those I offended. Jeff thanks for all of the critiques. I will be sure to research as much as possible on future topics.
PS. I do know how to use google. It was an honest typo on the misspelling. Also, everyone is allowed to have their opinions about things. That is kind of what reviewing is all about. Please try to refrain from name calling because that doesn’t really help anyone accept yourself feel accomplished.
If you didn’t like this…you would hate all of my reviews (shameful self plug).