Battle of the Black Stone part 2: Bond of the Black, the epic new Conan event from Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics continues.
The tortured writer James Allison appears as an apparition. He mentions that he's deceased, a former story maker, drawn to mighty, courageous spirits.
Solomon Kane is sure that Allison is suffering eternal punishment in hell.
The old gunslinger El Borak wants answers. Allison confirms that not only is El Borak marked by the BLACK STONE, he's also HUNTED.
A portal that looks exactly like the mysterious BLACK STONE eye symbol pops up to disgorge The Dark One aka the Master of the Monolith into our plane of existence!
The Dark One starts massacring the members of the Wanderer's Club.
El Borak decides to attack The Dark One with a sword and John Conrad tries to gun it down. They both fail miserably.
Out of nowhere, Brissa, the time displaced Pict scout of the Gurian tribe, stabs The Dark One. She encourages El Borak, Kirowan and Conrad to fight on.
Wounded by Brissa's magical spear, The Dark One elects to return to whence it came.
James Allison dispatches: El Borak (now bleeding to death), Brissa, Dark Agnès, Solomon Kane, Kirowan and Conrad to Conajohara, the Pictish Wilderness, so that they can team up with Conan.
Conan cannot believe that his beloved Brissa is still among the living.
Surrounded by dead Picts, the elderly Puritan wants to know where he has been sent. Conan, feeling threatened by an unfamiliar weapon, offers Kane a knuckle sandwich.
We are now in 1919, in the Arabian Desert, Francis Xavier Gordon aka El Borak is younger, healthy, sober and on his own, he has to fight The Dark One once again... for the first time. El Borak tries to terminate The Dark One but fails once again... permanently.
In the Hyborian age, El Borak's body is torn apart (think similar to what we see in Looper (2012)) in front of our Heroes of Man (Brissa, Conan, Solomon Kane, Dark Agnès, Conrad & Kirowan).
Brissa recounts the events of Conan the Barbarian #1-4.
Somehow Brissa knows that Conan survived many years without her, that someone sent her through time, that The Dark One is after all of them and like The Terminator (1984) it can also go back in time. For some unknown reason, the Tetrabrachius wants to see all of our Heroes dead or insane. Brissa is also aware that the source of The Dark One's power lies hidden within the heart of the jungle.
À suivre!
What I did like:
Max Von Fafner is back and his cover features his fan favourite General Conan from Savage Sword of Conan #1 (2024) and the Atlantean Sword from the Conan the Barbarian 1982 film!
Patch Zircher's cover looks fantastic! Maybe his best ever?
Nick Marinkovich's cover features Brissa!
Archaeologist Jeffrey Shanks talks Dark Agnès de Chastillon, Étienne Villiers, Françoise de Foix, Francis I of France, Thomas Wolsey, The Heart of Ahriman from The Hour of the Dragon, Black God's Kiss by C.L. Moore, Jirel of Joiry and Novalyne Price Ellis.
Women appear on 2 of the variant covers!
2 female characters actually speak! Two!
A nice interview with German comic book artist Jonas Scharf.
Predator (1987) homages: Our heroes are hunted; If it bleeds, we can kill it; You're one... ugly mother and the orange Jean-Claude Van Damme suit.
What I did not like:
Everyone understands and speaks English? What?! No one questions the implausibility.
Multiple F-bombs in a Robert E. Howard comic? No one wants to see that. Classless.
Dark Agnès does almost nothing.
Agnès does not say one word in French! Lazy and shameful. Canada has two official languages. I wanted to see Zub flex his French.
El Borak, a strategist, would never fight The Dark One one-on-one.
Where's the ring of Thoth-Amon, the Serpent Ring of Set?
N'Longa, the fan favourite African shaman is still MIA. Unacceptable!
Conan always needs to be the alpha male. El Borak and Solomon Kane are naturally both frail old men in this story.
James Allison fetching El Borak and Solomon Kane in their prime would have made a lot more sense.
You wanted to know more about Robert E. Howard's most dangerous man in the world: El Borak? You are out of luck! He's already dead.
Our "Heroes" do not bury El Borak.
Nobody questions the veracity of Brissa's story.
The events of BLACK OASIS by Ron Marz and Mike Perkins are ignored. El Borak could have died saving the boy from The Dark One, instead of dying for nothing. Very disappointing.
The Dark One, the unspeakable evil, never speaks, it only roars and growls. Boring.
The tentacles of darkness that used to tag along with The Dark One are gone.
The Dark One can now appear without a sacrifice or ritual.
I give it a 7/10. Should you flee or snap up this mini? What should be your response? Jonas Scharf's art is the main reason to buy this mini-series. Zub gives us a nimiety of monster mayhem, but he still hasn't really started his story yet, and only 2 issues remain.
