When last we saw Conan, he had followed the trail of a beautiful princess into a haunted/resurrected city and come across an indomitable demon. Joining him again, we see now that Conan – the recently minted leader of a Kozaki clan of warriors – has been followed by his enemy, Jehunghir Agha, in an attempt to ambush him away from the other Kozaks.

Issue #10 of Conan the Slayer is full of action, from front to back. Writer Cullen Bunn paces the events so that they push swiftly forward, like a sequence straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conan bounces around from one close call to the next, while the unsuspecting group of Agha’s warriors have absolutely no idea what they’re about to step into.

The princess feels like she stepped out of The Temple of Doom, as she causes more problems than she helps to resolve which leads to a couple of nice laughs.

I’ve said over and over again that this is a wonderful book. It captures perfectly the serial adventure aspects of the old-time novels like John Carter of Mars and Tarzan (and Conan!) with the epic textures of heroes and villains out of old English poetry. The one thing it delves into that I don’t always see with fantasy is the after effects of the violence and the emotional weight that Conan has to carry with him. Not every ending is a happy ending, and although Conan in this run is titled the Slayer, he is unable to simply shrug off the effects of those he kills or those that have been killed under his watch. He is a warrior with the burdens of war. It’s interesting to me when that element rears its head. This is not that issue, but knowing that this is the world that Conan lives in, you can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen in the next issue to rupture Conan’s sense of being even a little bit more and where that might end up taking him.