Hello friends and readers! We have a pint-sized week as this devil year slowly comes to an end! Our very own Double A-Lister Andrea Ayres looks into U.S.Agent #2 and our Conan aficionado Tony Thornley travels to Cimmeria for a comic sized specifically for royalty in King-Sized Conan #1!
U.S.Agent #2
Written by: Christopher Priest
Art by: Stefano Landini
Colors by: Matt Milla
Letters by: Joe Sabino
Priest calls U.S. Agent a morality play in five acts. He says it’s a comic about dealing with how the American dream is realized (or not) using the vector of the unlikeable protagonist, John Walker. Don’t worry, in U.S. Agent, everyone and everything is unlikeable.
If I could prevent one clicheé from occurring in comics it would be depicting folks with a certain political or ideological bend as slovenly, low-educated, fools. The shape of our body has nothing to do with political affiliation or education. If you want to know something else, education level also isn’t the predictor most people think it is. That’s why famed pollster, Anne Selzer of the Des Moines Register, doesn’t weigh education as heavily as others in her predictive polling modelling. But I digress.
Listen, not every comic needs to add something new or different to the cultural conversation but it’d be nice if it was, I don’t know, interesting in some way. I don’t know why this comic exists aside from the possible cache of attaching Priest’s name to it? The plotting is bad, the narrative progression is bad and when I think of all the stories that could have been told aside from this one, I get upset. I get upset because there is a story to be told about how America engages with and uses private security forces, but that’s not this story. Trust.
Everything wrong with this comic comes on page 17. Good gravy. Is that supposed to be a joke? This comic isn’t funny. It’s not funny in a good way, it’s not funny in a bad way. The setups never give way to a punchline that is worth a damn thing. If you want to engage with the ideas around American facisism and the military industrial complex, I promise you there are many other comics out there that do it far better and more convincingly than this one.
Is Priest trying to phone it in with U.S. Agent? I don’t know. I don’t care because it’s pretty clear he doesn’t either.
King-Sized Conan #1
Written by: Roy Thomas, Kurt Busiek, Chris Claremont, Kevin Eastman, and Steven S. DeKnight
Art by: Steve McNiven, Pete Woods, Roberto de La Torre, Kevin Eastman, and Jesús Saiz
Colors by: Ive Svorcina, Pete Woods, Carlos Lopez, Neeraj Menon, and Jesús Saiz
Letters by: Travis Lanham
Excuse me for a moment while I turn on my Conan voice- This celebration of fifty years of Conan comics is a feast worthy of the son of Cimmeria himself!
There we go.
So, this massive one-shot is a celebration of all things Conan, coming in just under the wire to celebrate his fiftieth anniversary in comics. (By the way, don’t believe that icon on the cover- twentyish of those years were at Dark Horse.) This isn’t a great comic for just Conan fans though. Any fan of comics could pick this issue up and find something to enjoy.
There are five different stories by five different creative teams here. Just like any anthology some are stronger than others. Busiek and Woods’ prequel to Tower of the Elephant, and DeKnight and Saiz’s tale of Belit the Pirate Queen are both standouts. They’re strong fantasy stories, and Woods and Saiz both do exceptional work on the line art.
Thomas and McNiven gives us a solid story that ends abruptly. However it’s notable in showing how McNiven has basically become Barry Windsor-Smith, as I actually thought it was BWS for a couple pages. It’s the best homage to one of the most famous Conan artists ever.
As for the less good stories, Kevin Eastman writes and draws a story that’s an unmemorable plot but really awesome art (but given Eastman’s style it isn’t going to thrill everyone). And Claremont and & de La Torre’s story… I’ve read it twice and the only thing I can remember about it was de La Torre’s John Buscema inspired Conan. It’s dull, lifeless and I actually forgot that I had read it until I re-read it to refresh my memory.
In the end, is it worth $7? If you’re a huge Conan fan, yes absolutely. Any sword and sorcery fan should pick it up, really, as should anyone who is a fan of these specific creators. Is a non-fan going to like it? Probably, but you may not feel you got your money’s worth.
But hey, it was a lot of fun, and that’s all I needed.
Andrea Ayres is a freelance writer and pop culture journalist.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
