Jim Zub's Cursed Shores Beyond part 2: An Isle of DREAD
The Briney Wren (Captain Quinn Corvaxis' ship) has been utterly destroyed by an unnatural storm.
Conan the Buccaneer, Valeria, Morley and the rest of The Red Brotherhood disembark on a strange isle and find cadavers trapped in crystal obelisks (like mosquitoes in amber).
Conan and co. enter the adjacent jungle, Valeria encounters a baby herbivorous dinosaur, it rejoins its herd.
Three large theropods attack! Rodriguez (an homage to the colorist) is bitten in half, the herbivores start a stampede.
Conan kills one of the theropods, Valeria does the same, the third one opens Conan's back with its claws. The rest of the pirates kill the third theropod.
Conan and co. drink coconut water and eat the theropods.
Captain Quinn talks of his experiences on Captain Gunnet O'Bryan's Glory-Bae and the DawnyHawk.
Morley spins a tale about an invisible man with glowing red eyes.
While on guard duty, Morley robs Valeria of her voice and reveals that he is the invisible assassin with glowing red eyes and that he works for Jaggta-noga (sorcerer Zukala's favourite demon from Kull: The Curse of the Golden Skull and Conan the Barbarian (1970) #5).
Valeria pokes Morley in the eye, Valeria wakes her sleeping comrades, the servants of Jaggta-noga (who can mute surrounding sounds) beat the buccaneers senseless and take the pirates away to their stronghold.
Morley discovers that the Cimmerian has already decamped. Concealed in a tree, Conan silently swears vengeance.
À suivre!
What I did like:
Fernando draws dinosaurs!
Monsters on the Prowl (1971) #16 features King Kull.
Kyala from Conan the Gambler (Savage Sword of Conan (2019) #7-9) mentioned.
Erlik mentioned.
Hodgkins is an homage to Heroic Signatures' Project Manager and Curley is Heroic Signatures' Creative Director.
Powerful covers by Esad Ribić, Jesus Merino, Nicola Scott and Juan Alberto Hernández.
Valeria appears on ALL the covers!!!
A female character appears, actually speaks and has a name.
A Red Nails illustration by Alex Horley.
Archaeologist Jeffrey Shanks talks El Borak: The Land of Mystery by Robert E. Howard, Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, The Lost World (1925 film), Edgar Rice Burroughs, King Kong (1933 film), Red Nails and the Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Module X1: The Isle of Dread.
What I did not like:
Jeffrey does not mention the Arnold Schwarzenegger William Shakespeare's King Lear (a Universal Picture) poster by Drew Struzan that appears in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)!
This is more a Tarzan than a Conan story.
The Red Nails dinosaur is not mentioned.
Cute cartoony dinos from The Land Before Time (1988) never existed!
Brotherhood in name only. Nobody mourns Rodriguez, no one buries him.
Where's the plesiosaur?
Conan took the time to create a rock effigy without being seen, heard or questioned. Ridiculous.
After fighting an invisible man, a storm and dinosaurs, Conan is still not dead on his feet, he decides to patrol the jungle on his own in the darkness of night.
An unnecessary recap page disguised as a ghost tale.
No letters page!
I give it a 7.5/10. Welcome to Jurassic Park! Another plot inspired by a famous franchise. Last issue Conan had Spider-Man's spider-sense, this time around, Conan heals instantly like Wolverine. BTW, Heroic Signatures, we are still waiting for a retail version of Conan Serpent's Bluff (a Hyborian card game for 2 players).
