Sword-brothers, sword-sisters, your local spinner rack is once again displaying another brand new issue of SSOC!
Sixty-four startling pages of barbaric savagery in black-and-white printed on newsprint paper!
Inside this magazine you will find the following:
Art pin-ups:
Bêlit the Queen of the Black Coast by Nick Marinkovich
Conan the Barbarian by Jordan Raskin
CONAN: DWELLERS OF THE OASIS part 1: Deserted Goods and Shifting Sands by Jim Zub and Ivan Gil (Conan: Scourge of the Serpent)
It's only eight months after the events of "A Witch Shall be Born".
Turan on the shores of the Vilayet sea.
Conan is still the leader of a band of Zuagir bandits.
Conan and his raiders decimate the Turanian soldiers of King Yildiz.
Conan is still suffering from his wounds, he remembers Queen Taramis of Khauran, Salome (an homage to the one who asked for the head of John the Baptist), Constantius aka The Falcon, his crucifixion (as seen in the Conan the Barbarian (1982) movie), Olgerd Vladislav (the previous leader of the Zuagirs), the demon Thaug and Constantius' crucifixion.
Conan and his best warriors: Nergui of the knife, Chono of the bow and Uksen of the prickly club try to find the owners of an abandoned merchant caravan. Like the merchants before them, they fall into a sand hole and end up in an underground oasis.
CONAN: DWELLERS OF THE OASIS part 2: Fateful Visitors and Forgotten Wounds by Jim Zub and Ivan Gil
Conan and his marauders meet the inhabitants of "Paradise", an ancient, intricate, sparsely populated underground city ruled by Lady Lagietta of the Tribe Beneath.
Lagietta aka the warden/servant of the Pure Flow water invites Conan to dip his body in the Source of the water, he does so and the liquid heals his wounds (obtained in "A Witch Shall be Born") instantly.
Nergui and Conan follow the sound of strange voices back to the Source of the water.
The Source has turned into a Scrying pool.
Lagietta puts Nergui to sleep and tries to bewitch the barbarian. Conan dives into the water, escapes from bloodthirsty mermaids and runs to the Forbidden Place (the oldest Shrine, a gigantic bell tower).
Conan decides to ring the church bells. The resounding sound transforms Lagietta, her tribe, the birds and the mermaids into monsters. The structures become hideous.
Nergui gets eaten by the mermaids. Lagietta turns into a massive soul-eating sea lamprey (a Sarlacc & Jabba the Hutt hybrid homage), Chono and Conan hurt Lagietta, the yet undigested souls (the missing merchants) within Lagietta somehow rematerialize. Conan kills Lagietta and the long digested souls within her body escape her corpse.
The underground city crumbles, the monsters, Chono, Uksen and most of the merchants get crushed, the oldest Shrine shields Conan and four merchants from the devastation.
CONAN, FACES OF DOOM a short story by Matthew John (Conan: Madness on the Mound) with a tiny illustration by Juan Alberto Hernández (The Twelfth Labor of Breckinridge Elkins)
Nestor (the Gunderman crapshooter from Gunderland from "The Hall of the Dead" and possibly "The Tower of the Elephant") and Conan are in a sewer tunnel owned by the acolytes of the Zamorian spider god Zath. Their attempt to steal secondhand jewels fails... now trapped like rats, Nestor and Conan have to contend with... a River Dragon (not a crocodile, not a Fire Dragon, not the creature of Lake Silerus from Bran Mak Morn: The Road to Isca).
BÊLIT: BECOMING A GODDESS by Joseph Pruett and Goran Sudžuka
Bêlit is aboard her pirate ship, the Tigress with her raiders.
An island not found on nautical charts appears, the shaman N'Yaga warns against exploring it.
N'Gora returns alone from his recon mission.
On the island, within a temple was a glowing jewel on a throne of stone.
The corsairs of Bêlit who entered the temple... died instantly.
Bêlit and more of her corsairs enter the temple, the men also die upon entering.
Bêlit encounters Althea, an ancient, ageless Goddess who is forever bound to her temple that kills all MEN who penetrate it.
Althea transfers her consciousness within the brain of Bêlit and as Bêlit she leaves her temple.
Outside the temple, the strong-willed pirate queen purges the Goddess from her mind and destroys Althea's body (still in the temple) with a spear.
What I did like:
Tarim, Ishtar, Mitra and Bel mentioned.
Conan rumbles with a Kaiju!
Conan uses the line "Come with me if you want to live." from The Terminator franchise.
The Southern Isles/Isles of Silver mentioned.
A woman appears on one of the covers.
Powerful covers by Doug Braithwaite and Alex Horley!
What I did not like:
Would have made more sense to stain the sand red instead of the sky.
Conan never inquires about the missing merchants.
The weird fish with human eyes in the aquariums remain a mystery.
Who was the stranger in the Scrying pool?
The mermaids let Conan go?
The four horses do not flee.
Needed more pin-ups!
No removable poster in the middle of the magazine! When are we getting a pull-out poster of the Robert E. Howard Group Shot by Rafael Kayanan?
Still No announcement that the CONAN NEWSPAPER STRIPS are getting collected in stunning hardcover volumes!
The editor is not doing his job.
No letters page!
No cover featuring Bêlit!
Conan killing a baby bear that is coming out of its den. Worst Conan pin-up ever? Disgusting and shameful.
It's Breckinridge Elkins Not Breckenridge Elkins.
The delightful illustration by Juan Alberto Hernández is not given a full page.
I give it an 8/10. We get an impossible soul stealing story (with similarities to Conan: Leaving the Garden) that can only be a fever dream, the return of Nestor the Mercenary and the Queen of the Black Coast finally gets to shine in her own tale. Support the Cimmerian and his beloved! Buy this mag!
