Created by Robert E. Howard, Conan is the archetypal barbarian - strong, silent, and totally willing to chop heads off left and right. Let's take a trip back and see how he's been portrayed across all of our favorite media.
The Phoenix On The Sword
Conan's first appearance in print wasn't even supposed to star him - Robert E. Howard took an unpublished story starring his other fantasy hero, Kull the Conqueror, and rewote it to feature Conan for the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales. It opens with Conan in middle-age, having seized the throne of Aquilonia and growing restless. A group of conspirators wish to kill him and retake the throne, but the machinations of the dark wizard Thoth-Amon might have something to say about that. This story established Conan as world-weary, amoral, and a total badass with a long history, and fans were hooked right away.
The Hyborian Age
One of the things that makes the world of Conan so awesome is its richly-developed setting. The "Hyborian Age" was a lost period in recorded history, after the destruction of Atlantis but before any civilization we now know rose. When Howard sold the first Conan story, he sat down and wrote an eight thousand word manuscript detailing the culture and history of this time, giving his heroes and villains an incredibly well-rendered playground to hack and slash through.
Frank Frazetta
Robert E. Howard only wrote a little over two dozen Conan stories, many of which weren't even published in his lifetime. The character passed through many hands in the world of fiction, including Robert Jordan, Poul Anderson and L. Sprague de Camp. But if we were going to pick one creator who is most linked to the Cimmerian, it's illustrator Frank Frazetta. Frazetta developed the iconic visual look for the character across dozens of book cover paintings, almost single-handedly developing the genre known as barbarian art.
It's fair to say that non-superhero comics from Marvel and DC typically don't do very well. The one notable exception was Conan The Barbarian, which ran uninterrupted from 1970 to 1993 - that's almost a quarter of a century of barbarian action. Primarily written by Roy Thomas, the series spotlighted the awesome art of John Buscema, who gave the barbarian a muscular, hard-edged look that has carried forward to this day. The series both adapted classic Howard stories as well as added new tales to the lore, and because it took place in the Marvel universe, Conan met such luminaries as Dr. Strange and Spider-Man every once in a while.
Some fans balked at the casting of blonde-haired Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Cimmerian, but really, who could provide the physical presence necessary to make Conan seem like such a badass? Arnold had been in a few films before 1982's Conan The Barbarian, but this was the flick that kicked him into superstardom. With great fights, an amazing score, and John Milius's assured direction, it's one of the best fantasy movies ever made, and features a classic downbeat Conan ending.
Arnold returned for a second flick two years later, this time directed by Richard Fleischer. Conan The Destroyer is widely seen as inferior to the first flick, which is true, but it did boast a seriously awesome supporting cast - Grace Jones! Wilt Chamberlain! Andre the Giant! - and a stirring climax featuring a horribly twisted mockery of Dagon, the dreaming God of the Old Ones. To tone down the violence, a lot of the action scenes were cut from the theatrical release, which marks the beginning of the unfortunate pussification of Conan.
The 90s saw a pair of animated series starring the mighty barbarian hit the airwaves. Conan The Adventurer featured a young Cimmerian traveling the world battling Serpent Men and questing to free his parents from an eternity of life as stone statues, and Conan And The Young Warriors, which teamed him up with the bearers of magical "star stones" to protect the Hyborian Age. Both series showed a kindler, gentler Conan more in line with contemporary morals than the rapacious, pillaging barbarian king we know and love.
The success of shows like Hercules and Xena prompted the O.G. barbarian to return to the airwaves with a syndicated live-action show starring German actor Ralf Moller as the Cimmerian. This will mark the last time we see the chill dude Conan on this list, as after the myriad attempts to soften the character in the 90s, people realized that Conan is only awesome when he's chopping heads and looking out for himself. The show only lasted a single episode, and might mark the nadir of the franchise.
After Marvel let the Conan license lapse, there was a fallow period of a few years before Dark Horse picked up the license. They did so with a bang, putting top-flight talent on the books like Kurt Busiek, Tony Harris and Richard Corben. These books are some of the best adventures of the Cimmerian available anywhere, perfectly capturing his honor and his brutality as he rages through his enemies. The artwork is fantastic as well. This sparked a resurgence of interest in Conan that resulted in the character catching a new wave of popularity.
Conan In Video Games
Conan has had a long and checkered history in video games, from a 1984 platformer for the Apple II and Commodore 64 to the recent Age of Conan MMORPG. Some of the games have been good, some have been bad, but they've all given players a chance to step into the Cimmerian's boots. The Age of Conan massively multiplayer online game had some major stumbles early on, but the game seems to have found its feet with a free-to-play version and the combat model is probably the best in any MMO game on the market.
And the culmination of all this is the return to the silver screen of Conan, this time played by Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa. The Hawaiian-born Momoa has big shoes to fill, and the flick has been in development hell for nearly a decade, spending seven years stalled at Warner Brothers. A re-imagning of the basic story, the key points are all there: Conan's village is destroyed and he sets out to make life miserable for those responsible. Directed by Norwegian remake machine Marcus Nispel, it remains to be seen how this one will lead Conan into the 21st century.
