Conan the Barbarian #21
Conan the Barbarian #21 holds a unique place in the early Bronze Age run as both the penultimate chapter of Barry Windsor-Smith's celebrated Makkalet/Hyrkanian War story arc and a candid record of the production pressures that would soon end Windsor-Smith's tenure on the title. Its story, 'The Monster of the Monoliths!', marks one of Roy Thomas's early experiments in weaving Robert E. Howard's Cthulhu-adjacent horror fiction — specifically Howard's Weird Tales story 'The Black Stone' — into the Conan framework, broadening the sword-and-sorcery palette with Lovecraftian dread in a way that would influence Thomas's continued cross-pollination of Howard's wider bibliography. The issue also serves as a documented early-career credit for two artists who would become significant figures in fantasy comics: P. Craig Russell and Val Mayerik, both of whom stepped in under deadline pressure to carry the interior pages. Standing directly before the landmark issue #23 debut of Red Sonja, #21 is the calm before the storm — the final installment of the arc that set the stage for one of Marvel's most enduring character introductions.
In "The Monster of the Monoliths!", Conan the Barbarian finds himself trapped in the cursed city of Makkalet after defecting from the Turanian army. Taken prisoner by its treacherous inhabitants, he must survive betrayal and face a terrifying, monstrous entity born from ancient stone monoliths. Written by Roy Thomas and brought to life by Barry Smith, Craig Russell, Val Mayerik, and a stellar team of inkers, this classic 1972 issue features a cover by Barry Windsor-Smith.
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By the time issue #21 went to press in late 1972, the series had recently won the 1971 Shazam Award for Best Continuing Feature, a fact Marvel prominently trumpeted on the cover itself — giving the issue an ironic distinction, since those closest to it would later describe the interior as one of the most troubled productions of the entire Windsor-Smith run. Primary inker Dan Adkins fell behind schedule and called on two young artists working out of his Ohio studio — P. Craig Russell and Val Mayerik — to complete the pencil and ink work over Windsor-Smith's layouts; according to Russell's own later account, Windsor-Smith fully rendered only the first page and a handful of isolated panels. Colorist George Roussos, working under an equally compressed turnaround, produced a palette that both Roy Thomas and Russell would criticize decades later as erratic and inconsistent — particularly the night-sky scenes — though Thomas acknowledged at the time that schedule pressure left little room to correct it.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated December 1972; on-sale date September 5, 1972 (per The Comic Reader #88). Published by Marvel Comics.
- Story title: 'The Monster of the Monoliths!' Written by Roy Thomas; cover pencilled, inked, and colored by Barry Windsor-Smith. Interior: Windsor-Smith layouts only, with finished pencils by P. Craig Russell and Val Mayerik, and inks by Dan Adkins, Sal Buscema, Russell, Mayerik, and Mark Kersey.
- The story is 'inspired in part' by Robert E. Howard's 'The Black Stone' (originally published in Weird Tales, November 1931), a Cthulhu Mythos tale — one of Thomas's earliest uses of Howard's non-Conan horror fiction as source material for the series.
- This issue is generally cited as among the earliest published comics work for both P. Craig Russell and Val Mayerik, two artists who went on to significant careers in fantasy comics.
- The cover prominently advertised the series' 1971 Shazam Award for Best Continuing Feature, making it the first Conan cover to carry that accolade — even as both Thomas and Russell later described the interior as among the weakest of the Windsor-Smith era.
- Introduces King Eannatum of Makkalet and Captain Khurusan (introduction and death) as part of the ongoing Hyrkanian War story arc, continuing the serialized multi-issue narrative Thomas had been building since at least issue #17.
- Coloring was provided (uncredited at the time, per Marvel's standard practice) by George Roussos, confirmed later by Roy Thomas in his 2018 memoir Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian.
- The story has been reprinted in: Chronicles of Conan Vol. 3 (Dark Horse, 2003); The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives Vol. 2 (Dark Horse, 2010); Essential Conan #1 (Marvel, 2000, black and white); Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 1 (Marvel, 2018); and Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years Epic Collection Vol. 2 (Marvel, 2021).
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Reprinted in Conan le Barbare #[2] (1977), Conan #2 (1978), Conan de barbaar #2 (1979), Het bloedige zwaard van Conan de barbaar #1 (1979), Conan #6 (11697) (1979), Conan Pocket Book #9 (1981), Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian #1 (1983), Conan el Bárbaro #79 (1986), Conan Saga #7 (1987), Espada Selvagem de Conan em Cores #5 (1989), Conan #8/1991 (1991), Conan Le Barbare #36 (1993), Conan Saga #75 (1993), Conan Saga #4 (1994), The Comics Journal #190 (1996), Conan el bárbaro #21 (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 + 3 more
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