Conan the Barbarian #23

History

The story adapts Robert E. Howard's 1934 historical fiction short story 'The Shadow of the Vulture,' originally set during the Ottoman siege of Vienna, which Roy Thomas transposed wholesale into the Hyborian Age: Vienna's siege became the siege of Makkalet, the German knight Gottfried von Kalmbach became Conan, and Howard's red-headed Polish-Ukrainian swordswoman Red Sonya of Rogatino became Red Sonja of Hyrkania — with her spelling altered and her firearms replaced by a sword alone. Thomas, inspired by a critic's observation that Red Sonya might have been 'a bit too much' even for Conan, engineered the character's entry into the Conan continuity deliberately, and Windsor-Smith's pencils for the issue were inked by three different artists (Dan Adkins, Sal Buscema, and Chic Stone) because original pages were apparently lost in the mail during production of the previous issue, creating an ongoing deadline crisis. The cover was penciled by Gil Kane, and the published story's title on that cover — 'Swords in the Night!' — was actually a mislabeling, as the correct story title 'The Shadow of the Vulture!' had already been printed on the cover of the reprint issue #22 before the mail mishap occurred.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Red Sonja (Earth-616), the warrior woman of Hyrkania, created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith — her first appearance anywhere in print.
• Story title: 'The Shadow of the Vulture!' — a free adaptation of Robert E. Howard's 1934 non-Conan historical short story of the same name, published in The Magic Carpet Magazine.
• Also the first and only appearance of Mikhal Oglu, 'The Vulture,' the Turanian swordsman sent by Prince Yezdigerd to kill Conan; he dies in this issue when Conan sends his severed head back to Yezdigerd.
• Interior art credits are split across three inkers over Barry Windsor-Smith's pencils: Dan Adkins (pages 1–4 and 20), Sal Buscema (pages 5–8 and 15–19), and Chic Stone (pages 9–14); Sal Buscema also both penciled and inked page 6 per Roy Thomas's memoir Barbarian Life (2018).
• Cover art by Gil Kane; the cover title reads 'Swords in the Night!' rather than the story's correct title, because the correct title had already been printed on the cover of the preceding reprint issue (#22) before production pages were lost in the mail.
• Red Sonja's original costume as drawn by Windsor-Smith in this issue was a long-sleeved mail shirt and short red silk pants — not the now-famous 'metal bikini,' which was introduced later via an unsolicited illustration by Spanish artist Esteban Maroto.
• The issue is part four of the 'Hyrkanian War' arc, a multi-issue serialized storyline running through issues #21–24 of the Thomas/Windsor-Smith run.
• The story has been reprinted in Dark Horse's Chronicles of Conan Vol. 4: The Song of Red Sonja and Other Stories (2004), Marvel's True Believers: Conan — Swords in the Night! one-shot (March 2019), and collected in the Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 1 (2018) and the corresponding Epic Collection Vol. 2 (2021).

Full credits

Key issues in Conan the Barbarian

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#1 1st appearance — Conan

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#14 1st appearance — Elric

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#270 1st appearance — Milo

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#6 1st appearance — Jenna

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#7 1st appearance — Thoth-Amon

Variants (1)