Conan the Barbarian #20
Conan the Barbarian #20 — 'The Black Hound of Vengeance!' — is the dramatic conclusion to the title's first genuine multi-issue epic, the War of the Tarim, which writer Roy Thomas modeled in part on the scope and tragedy of Homer's Iliad. The issue delivers the series' most consequential act of character violence to that point: Conan slashes a permanent facial scar onto Prince Yezdigerd, creating a recurring antagonist who would haunt the Cimmerian across dozens of future stories by both Thomas and Robert E. Howard-era lore. It also marked the precise moment the series regained a monthly publishing schedule, reflecting a decisive commercial recovery that would help establish Conan the Barbarian as one of Marvel's best-selling titles of the 1970s and cement the broader sword-and-sorcery genre in American comics.
In "The Black Hound of Vengeance!", Conan the Barbarian and his companion Fafnir find themselves caught in a deadly web aboard a Turanese ship near Makkalet. When Conan attempts a daring raid on the Temple of Tarim to seize the living god, he’s forced to flee after a brutal confrontation—and a mysterious black hound meets its end. With Fafnir left for dead and his enemies closing in, Conan turns on the ship’s commander, Balthaz, in a moment of fury. Written by Roy Thomas and brought to life with dynamic art by Barry Smith and inks by Dan Adkins, this issue delivers a relentless clash of survival and vengeance. The cover, a striking piece by Barry Windsor-Smith, captures the raw intensity of the tale.
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The issue was released on August 15, 1972, with a November 1972 cover date, scripted by Roy Thomas with pencils by Barry Windsor-Smith (then credited as 'Barry Smith') and inks by Dan Adkins — a full creative team after the problematic experiment in the preceding issue (#19), where publisher Stan Lee had authorized printing the back half of that story directly from Windsor-Smith's pencils without inks, a cost-cutting trial that Thomas later called uneven at best. Windsor-Smith was deeply collaborative on the Makkalet arc: Thomas credited him in his 2018 book Barbarian Life with originating the idea of the companion Fafnir losing his left arm, a plot turn that drives the entire emotional engine of #20, and Windsor-Smith also designed and hand-lettered the story's title logo and served as the issue's colorist. The letters page of this issue carried the announcement of Conan the Barbarian's win at the 1971 Academy of Comic Book Arts (Shazam) Awards for Best Continuing Feature.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Story title: 'The Black Hound of Vengeance!' — script by Roy Thomas, pencils by Barry Windsor-Smith (credited as 'Barry Smith'), inks by Dan Adkins, colors by Windsor-Smith, letters by John Costanza (with the story title hand-lettered by Windsor-Smith himself).
- This issue concludes the multi-issue Makkalet / War of the Tarim storyline that began in #19, which Thomas described as the series' first proper extended arc, consciously invoking the Iliad as a structural model.
- Conan scars Prince Yezdigerd's face with a sword slash before diving overboard — the wound becomes a permanent mark on one of the series' most durable villains, referenced in subsequent issues and grounded in Howard's own Hyborian Age lore.
- First and only appearance of the Black Hound (dies in this issue); first appearances of the characters Lykas and the formally revealed Queen of Makkalet ('Caissa'); Fafnir the Vanirman suffers his arm amputation and is presumed dead after being thrown overboard by Balthaz.
- Barry Windsor-Smith credited (per his own statement in Spectrum Super Special #3) as the originator of the idea to amputate Fafnir's arm — an unusually direct artist contribution to the series' plot continuity.
- Issue #20 coincides with the series returning to a monthly publication schedule after a bimonthly period, driven by rising sales that would eventually make the title one of Marvel's most popular of the decade.
- Reprinted in: Dark Horse's The Chronicles of Conan Vol. 3 (2003), Dark Horse's The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives Vol. 2 (May 2010), Marvel's Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 1 (2018), and Marvel Epic Collection: The Original Marvel Years Vol. 2 — 'Hawks from the Sea' (covering issues #14–26).
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Reprints
Reprinted in Conan #1/1975 (1975), Conan le Barbare #[2] (1977), Conan #2 (1978), Conan de barbaar #2 (1979), Conan el Bárbaro #78 (1985), Conan el Bárbaro #79 (1986), Conan Saga #7 (1987), Espada Selvagem de Conan em Cores #5 (1989), Conan #7/1991 (1991), Conan Le Barbare #35 (1993), Conan Saga #75 (1993), Conan Saga #4 (1994), Conan el bárbaro #20 (1998), Essential Conan #1 (2000), The Chronicles of Conan #3 (2003), The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives #2 (2010), Conan el Bárbaro. Edición 35 Aniversario #[nn] (2017), Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus #1 (2018), Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years Epic Collection #2 (2021), Conan The Barbarian: The Original Comics Omnibus #1 (2024), Conan #2, Conan el Bárbaro #11, Conan le Barbare #5, Gli Albi dei Super-Eroi #41
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