Jim Zub's Cursed Shores Beyond part 1: Perilous Waters (with a snippet from the poem: The Sea (1923) by Robert Ervin Howard)
The Western Sea. We are aboard Captain Quinn (an homage to Harley Quinn) Corvaxis' ship: The Briney Wren (a very salty songbird).
Conan the Buccaneer, Valeria, Morley and the rest of The Red Brotherhood raid a Zingaran military ship (a ship that sinks other ships), the Zingaran captain yields and Conan and co. steal their cargo.
Morley mentions that Valeria met Conan in Robert E. Howard's Red Nails novella.
Morley wants to duel Valeria for a kiss, she wants his share of the Zingaran booty if she wins.
A violent storm assails the ship. Conan's barbarian-sense starts tingling, he knows that a threat is approaching.
Conan sees an invisible man with glowing eyes (a Predator (1987) homage) murdering the first mate.
The phantom kicks Conan's derriere. The ghost spares the Cimmerian... for the UPCOMING RITUAL. The glistening spectre knocks Conan out and disappears.
Captain Quinn steers his ship right into a wave. The ship survives the storm.
The crew disembark on an unknown beach on an unknown isle and find cadavers trapped in massive monoliths.
À suivre!
What I did like:
Mitra mentioned.
Flamboyant covers by Roberto De La Torre, Fernando Dagnino, Max von Fafner, Don Aguillo, Rebeca Puebla aka SubversiveGirl, Dan Panosian, Lucio Parrillo & Brandon Lynn.
A female character appears, actually speaks and has a name.
Archaeologist Jeffrey Shanks talks Red Nails, Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, Bêlit, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, Red Sonya of Rogatino, The Shadow of the Vulture and Sandahl Bergman.
What I did not like:
Valeria is seen smoking. COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!
Extremely well behaved freebooters.
Too much humour.
The Sunless Isle (Savage Sword of Conan (2024) #9) is ignored.
No one is fleshed out or even given a nationality. Lazy writing!
Fernando doesn't draw the dinosaur from Red Nails. Disappointing!
Why was Franco Columbu's cameo cut from Predator (1987)? Why!?
No letters page!
Robert E. Howard's poem is not printed in its entirety.
I give it an 8/10. Calling all swashbucklers, Fernando Dagnino Guerra is back and he's better than ever! Fernando's style is now a mixture of Alan Davis and John Buscema. We get multiple pages where NOTHING happens... pages that could have been used to properly introduce the villains and/or to give us a marvellous flashback to Red Nails.
