I'm not sure why I never noticed it at the time, but apparently there was a Conan animated series in the early 90's (Conan the Adventurer). I always thought that the character would be great for animation (there have been enough cartoons inspired by him anyway). Have any of you seen the show? Does it do the barbarian justice, is it worth seeking out?
One episode featured Conan writing his name in ROMAN letters; though another featured a herd of mammoth (or mastodon) "brothers".
ReplyDeleteLet's just say...they had a lot of "Gaul."
ReplyDeleteI remember it & enjoyed it a lot, in the show he had an interesting group of allies to help him fight Set. Hey Ross here's an idea for a Halloween issue get characters as analogs for monsters such as Timber Wolf= Wolf man,Negative Man = The Mummy, Morbius =Dracula, and so on thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhen playing Pokemon Sword (or Shield) watch out for COVIDknight. lol!
ReplyDeleteIt was a strange show. Conan had a magical bird sidekick as I recall, living inside his shield, and who loved pomegranates. The story arc concerned serpent people hiding out in human form and only Conan could expose them, so it had a bit of V or Battlestar Galactica going on.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching it now and then but I think I was too old for it at the time it was broadcast so it didn't make much of an impression.
Apparently it spawned a sequel series, but that one passed me by. I'm also surprised to discover that there was a live-action TV show a few years later.
Fantastic cover. How about a followup where Asterix meets Groo the Wanderer?
ReplyDeleteI've seen at least a couple of episodes. I can confirm that there were serpent-folk in disguise, as thekelvingreen said, but the part about the magical bird doesn't ring a bell.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like Mike's Asterix/Groo idea!
Another good one, Ross. I went back for a second look at your recent Mickey Mouse/Doctor Strange pairing. Asterix looks just as pissed off as Mickey with his straight man. Conan may be in for a suprise or two.
ReplyDelete@thekelvingreen: Conan the Adventurer (1997) was probably inspired by the success of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and "Xena..."; Conan, in Marvel Comics, when in an "armor dress" (like soldiers in ancient times wore) looks a lot like a male Xena.
ReplyDelete@daviticus: Mr. Green is referring to a Funny Talking Animal sidekick that was voiced by Frank Welker. VERY loosely based on a Conan short story that was called (I think) "The Phoenix On The Shield."
ReplyDeleteOkay, I was old enough to follow so here's the deal.
ReplyDeleteIn this continuity "star metal" falls to Earth or whatever world this franchise takes place on. It has the property of exposing the Serpent Men and sending them to another dimension (not dead, I think it undoes the spell that keeps them here), who are led by Wrath-Amon and want to bring Set to this world. Conan's father turns the star metal into weapons which end up in the hands of later allies, but the Serpent Men find out and turn Conan's family and other villagers to stone. So now he's on a quest to undo the "spell of living stone" and get revenge on the Serpent Men.
The bird people are talking about is a baby phoenix that lives in Conan's shield and I think is supposed to help him somehow but darned if I know how. He later makes other allies during the course of the series, each carrying different kinds of star metal weapons and end up with their own grudges against the serpent men. The finale actually has our heroes defeating Wrath-Amon, Set, and the Serpent Men and restoring Conan's village. That's rare for a kids show. I don't know the details because I had stopped watching at that point for whatever reason I don't recall.
One of my early articles was breaking down how bad the intro is. It features the longest run-on sentence I ever heard in an intro.
https://bwspotlight.com/2010/03/30/my-not-so-favorite-intros-conan-the-adventurer/
There was a not-sequel by the same animation company using the same art style and Conan character model made for CBS's Saturday Morning lineup called "Conan And The Young Warriors" in which Conan had to care for these magical-powered kids who had some big destiny but I only saw the first episode once and wasn't impressed.
Thank you, ShadowWing, what I remember makes a lot more sense now!
ReplyDeleteCarycomic said...
ReplyDelete"VERY loosely based on a Conan short story that was called (I think) "The Phoenix On The Shield.""
I think that the original story was actually called 'Phoenix on the Sword'.
Ah, yes! You're right.*
ReplyDelete*Even TV weather-casters have the right to be right, once in a while. ;-)
What are the Kree doing here?
ReplyDelete