Conan #8 is another exceptional issue of this series, perhaps the best one yet, and the first of "Born on the Battlefield," a series of occasional stories that will spell out Conan's early life before this series began. As interesting as it was for me to see Conan as a cunning rogue rather than a musclebound oaf, it is equally eye-opening in this issue to see him as a youth. Busiek's story of Conan as a young boy growing into his destiny is fascinating and approachable, and the guest art by Greg Ruth is gorgeous to look at, conveying a different but equally lush vision of Cimmeria and the rest of Hyborea as the one that Cary Nord, Thomas Yeates and Dave Stewart provide on a regular basis.
The notion of Conan having a destiny, of rising from barbarian to king, fascinated me from the start, but the notion that he was preordained for such greatness by an unusual birth is a really neat addition to the mythos. The scene of his birth, made up of equal parts brutal violence and heroic courage, is perfect for a heroic legend, and the typewriter font written narration really helps to sell the compelling images that Ruth provides. I've always enjoyed the feeling that we're "hearing" Conan's story as interpreted by a pulp writer and also by a scribe reading for a distant prince, and we get reminders of both of those structural elements in this issue.
It's very interesting to see how Busiek writes Conan as a youth, definitely young and inexperienced but with an intelligence that belies his age. His innate ability to lead, or to learn the use of a weapon in a time of crisis, speaks to who the character will become. However, there's an innocence to Conan, a likability, that is very different from his charming, rough nature shown by his current incarnation in the series. This is almost Stand By Me by way of Conan, a story of youthful friendships and jealousies that turns darker and more violent as part of the period that it is set in.
Busiek and Ruth really sell the notion of Cimmerian living, which is clearly based pretty heavily on a blend of Welsh and Norse traditions from the real world. The simple existence of a village, driven by simple occupations like blacksmith and tanner and faced with border raids from neighboring tribes, gives us a pretty good insight into how Conan became the man that he was. It is clear in this story that from a young age, Conan was being taught to be self-sufficient and strong, although his curiosity to see the world may have come about as something unusual for the culture, which sets him out even more as the hero.
I haven't really read any of Robert E. Howard's Conan work, so I don't know which of these tales are adapted from his work and which are creations of Busiek and his collaborators. However, that speaks to the strength of the series, that Busiek has adopted the tone and style of Howard's work so truly that his own stories blend smoothly with those of the originator of the character. At the same time, the appeal of the book is very modern, with Ruth's painted artwork and Busiek's natural dialogue making it all come to life in a more approachable way than you'd think, given that the setting is such a distant and foreign place to modern existence.
