Savage Tales #2 - Marvel

Oct. 1973 - I had a pile of magazines sitting on my desk, and while I was deciding which one to talk about next, I got a bunch of scans from Marvel's Savage Tales #2 sent to me by Robby Reed of Dial "B" For Blog, and that very issue just happened to be in the pile! So thanks Robby and here we go!

After a two-year hiatus between issues, Marvel brought Savage Tales back to give the whole b/w magazine thing another go. Behind the tough-as-nails cover (drawn and painted by John Buscema!) is the lead feature--Conan of course--written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Barry Smith:

All Conan fans are familiar with this story by now, where Conan is chasing after the beautiful but savage Valeria, but she makes it pretty clear she's not interested. Crom!

After their horses get eaten(!) by a giant dragon, they escape for higher ground. With no way to escape, they decide to try and wait the dragon out. Of course, with nothing else to do, Conan gets amorous:

After fighting off the dragon, they wander to a mysteriously-quiet city, where they discover even more strange goings-on, like a skeleton that has come to life, introduced in this very creepy sequence:

...Conan disappears while searching the city, and Valeria, given the chance to leave, chooses to stay behind and make sure Conan leaves with her. Aw, she is sweet on the Cimmerian!

Next is an article on The Hyborian Age by Thomas and featuring spot illustrations by Al Williamson, and then another about Robert E. Howard:

...this article features illustrations by Frank Brunner, full of guys fighting a genie, a giant octopus, plus this piece:

Mitra, I love the way Frank Brunner draws women.

Anyway, next is a sword and sorcery/sci-fi tale called "Dark Tomorrow" by Gerry Conway and Gray Morrow:

...I find all of Morrow's work to be exceptional, but this story is especially nice. He uses a lot of heavy darks which gives the visuals a real sense of heft. Plus he draws beautiful women, too.

Next is "Cimmeria", a prose piece adapted by Barry Smith:

Each b/w Marvel mag usually had at least one reprint, and this issue is no exception. In this case, the story is "The Crusader", drawn by Joe Maneely and written by Stan Lee:

Reprinted from Black Knight #1 (1955), its the story of Sir John O'Dare, who was part of King Richard's Crusades. Maneely does a really nice job on the art.

Another text piece follows on Conan's history, assembling the original Howard tales into some sort of chronology, and even features reprints of some pulp covers. Neat.

Last is King Kull in "The Skull of Silence", which originally ran in Creatures on the Loose #10:

...sure, its reprinting a story that ran less than two years ago in a color comic, but when you've got Berni Wrightson doing the art, who cares?

This issue is lots of fun, of course--soon after Marvel would turn Savage Tales over to Ka-Zar, give Conan his own magazine, and then not too long after cancel Savage Tales altogether.