Conan # 31 - The Hall of the Dead

This is the kind of Conan that Dave Sim felt was so ripe for parody back in the day. It's just a dumb Aladdin rip off that has our hero stealing some magic gems only to have the stone guardians of the secret temple come to life and attack him. Conan is of course more than up to the task and he dispatches the magical monsters and retires to the pub for some mead and another boring anecdote session. Surprise, surprise, when he shows the gems at the end of his story, they melt into dust. It's a lame story unredeemed by Mike Mignola's witty script.

The final issue on this Toad story and it fails to impress at the end. Conan, once again leaves empty handed with the wench Jiara in tow. At least he's eliminated a few of his rightly earned enemies along the way.

The past two issues along with this one basically show the stereotypical Conan at his best. There is nothing new, or over the top. Nothing innovative, just a barbarian who has a quest for a jewel, defeats the monsters and well, that is that.

It is an alright average tale, hopefully with this new scripter from Dark Horse there will be more innovative stories attached to the Conan series. I will have to keep my eyes peeled to see if there are any drastic changes moving forward.