This is a short review/rant about the so-called "one-shot" from Dark Horse, a Conan story called "The Daughters of Midora". The story is set a few years later in Conan's career than the main storyline of Dark Horse's new Conan comic.
But oh boy, is this one-shot a stinker
. It is a return to the bland, mediocre Conan stories that also plagued Marvel's output the last few years (after the golden age of Thomas/Buscema collaboration ended).
The story starts off, predictably, in a tavern, where Conan kills a few city guards; gets thrown into prison, where Conan accepts to undertake a quest in return for his freedom; then Conan and his companions are attacked by a horde of blue-skinned orcs (WTF?!); and then there's a brief fight against a big, stegosaur-like monster. And that's more or less it.
There are few, if any, plot twists along the way, and it all reads like one of a dozen other (boring) Conan stories which climax with a big monster fight.
The plot also fails to explain who these blue-skinned orcs are, where they come from, and why they cooperate with the "wizard" Killver (a crybaby who gets decapitated without even putting up a fight...). Perhaps the biggest mystery is the fact that the stegosaur-monster is actually one of the daughters of Midora (another WTF?!); no explanation is given for this and the main characters (Conan and Hannah) seem to accept this weird fact without any reflection.
On the positive side, I found the artwork to be quite okay, especially some of the fight scenes where blood spatters and heads roll, giving these scenes a nice, savage energy and life. The cover is also pretty good, but nothing spectacular.
Rating: 2 out of 5 (would have been 1 out of 5 except for the artwork)
- thulsa
But oh boy, is this one-shot a stinker
. It is a return to the bland, mediocre Conan stories that also plagued Marvel's output the last few years (after the golden age of Thomas/Buscema collaboration ended).The story starts off, predictably, in a tavern, where Conan kills a few city guards; gets thrown into prison, where Conan accepts to undertake a quest in return for his freedom; then Conan and his companions are attacked by a horde of blue-skinned orcs (WTF?!); and then there's a brief fight against a big, stegosaur-like monster. And that's more or less it.
There are few, if any, plot twists along the way, and it all reads like one of a dozen other (boring) Conan stories which climax with a big monster fight.
The plot also fails to explain who these blue-skinned orcs are, where they come from, and why they cooperate with the "wizard" Killver (a crybaby who gets decapitated without even putting up a fight...). Perhaps the biggest mystery is the fact that the stegosaur-monster is actually one of the daughters of Midora (another WTF?!); no explanation is given for this and the main characters (Conan and Hannah) seem to accept this weird fact without any reflection.
On the positive side, I found the artwork to be quite okay, especially some of the fight scenes where blood spatters and heads roll, giving these scenes a nice, savage energy and life. The cover is also pretty good, but nothing spectacular.
Rating: 2 out of 5 (would have been 1 out of 5 except for the artwork)
- thulsa
