Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter and Other Stories (Comics) | Review

Publisher Dark Horse Comics brought Conan back to the page in 2004 with a fresh start that felt both reverent and ferocious. Writer Kurt Busiek (Superman: Secret Identity, Superman: Up, Up and Away!) attempts to capture the essence of original pulp creation by Robert E. Howard.

This collection gathers issues zero through seven of the Dark Horse ongoing series, focusing on Conan's earliest adventures as a wanderer barely out of Cimmeria. The centerpiece is Howard's classic tale about a mysterious woman in the frozen wastes but Busiek expands the narrative with original stories that fill gaps between works.

Unlike Marvel's long-running series, this iteration stays closer to Howard's gritty prose style while taking visual cues from artists like Barry Windsor-Smith and Frank Frazetta. The result launched a new era for Conan comics that would continue at Dark Horse with multiple volumes.

If you're coming to this expecting the Arnold Schwarzenegger version or sanitized adventure stories, adjust expectations now. Busiek deliver a Conan who feels dangerous, cunning and ruthless in his pursuit of survival and glory across the Hyborian Age.

The collection opens with issue zero, titled "Out of the Darksome Hills," which sets up how Conan comes to fight alongside the Aesir against their enemies. A young Conan, recently departed from Cimmeria, finds himself near an Aesir village when Vanirmen raiders attack with brutal intent to slaughter everyone in plain sight.

The Aesir warriors are away on their own raid, leaving women and children defenseless against the assault that threatens total annihilation. Conan intervenes not out of heroism but because he's there and the violence calls to something primal within him that demands he join the fray.

This opening story establishes Conan's relationship with the Aesir and leads directly into the main event of the collection. The transition feels organic rather than forced, giving context to why Conan fights in the frozen north instead of warmer territories he might prefer naturally.

Issue two adapts Howard's "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" with remarkable fidelity to the original source material while enhancing it visually. After a bloody battle between Aesir and Vanir that leaves everyone else dead, Conan encounters a naked woman with pale ivory skin wandering the snow-covered battlefield calling out to him.

Her name is Atali, daughter of the frost giant Ymir and she exists as bait for a trap older than human civilization. She lures exhausted warriors across the frozen wastes where her monstrous brothers wait to tear victims apart for their father's amusement and her own twisted pleasure.

Conan pursues her despite his severe wounds and exhaustion, driven by raw desire and the warrior's stubborn refusal to let anything escape his grasp at all costs. The chase leads him deeper into hostile territory where survival becomes increasingly unlikely with each passing moment in deadly cold surroundings around him.

The encounter with Atali's brothers provides some visually striking moments in the collection through Nord's artwork. The frost giants tower over Conan with genuine menace, their size and power rendered in ways that make the threat feel real rather than fantastical dressing.

These Hyperboreans represent humanity's distant past, powerful beings who ruled before Conan's ancestors existed as a people with culture. They've endured through dark magic and view younger races as livestock suitable only for slavery, gladiatorial combat and whatever purposes amuse their endless cruelty and whims.

Conan becomes a slave-gladiator forced to fight for the entertainment of ageless masters who see him as nothing more than an animal. The story explores themes of captivity, resistance and the drive for freedom that defines Conan's character throughout his legendary career.

Busiek uses this extended storyline to showcase different facets of Conan's complex personality beyond just fighting prowess and raw physical strength alone. You see his sharp cunning, his ability to read people and situations clearly and his absolute refusal to accept subjugation regardless of the consequences that might follow.

The collection includes supplementary material like concept sketches, character designs and commentary from Busiek and Nord. These extras provide insight into their creative process and decisions made while adapting Howard's work for a modern comic-book audience.

Artwork by Cary Nord (Secret Invasion: X-Men, X-O Manowar: By the Sword) draws inspiration from early Conan work by Barry Windsor-Smith at Marvel while establishing its own unique visual identity. His linework has weight and texture, with great attention to anatomy and finer environmental detail grounding fantasy in reality.

Dave Stewart's colors transform Nord's pencil work into painted illustrations without sacrificing clarity for sequential storytelling. The palette leans into blood reds, earth tones and harsh whites of northern snowscapes, creating atmospheric consistency, enhancing the brutal tone.

Busiek's writing respects Howard's prose style by keeping narration sparse and letting action drive the narrative forward naturally without unnecessary exposition. The dialogue feels period-appropriate without becoming overwrought or difficult to parse, striking that difficult balance between authenticity and accessibility.

The pacing across these issues demonstrates Busiek's understanding of comic storytelling rhythms, knowing when to let splash pages dominate and when to use tight panel grids. Action sequences flow with clarity while quieter character moments receive space to land emotionally.

Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter and Other Stories succeeds as both an entry point for new readers and a treat for longtime fans of Howard's work. Busiek and Nord clearly studied the source material while bringing their own creative vision to the character, resulting in comics that honor tradition without feeling trapped by it.

The collection works because it understands what makes Conan compelling beyond sword-swinging action and muscular physiques. This is a character study of a young man learning the world's cruelty while refusing to let that cruelty break his spirit or dim his fierce determination.

If you're looking for definitive Conan comics from the modern era, this book deserves your attention and money. It's brutal without being gratuitous, faithful without being slavish and beautiful in ways that elevate the material above typical fantasy comic flooding the market.

This volume proves that Conan still has many stories worth telling when handled by talented creators who understand the character's essence and literary roots completely. The Cimmerian lives again through these pages and the Hyborian Age feels as dangerous and captivating as it did when Howard first imagined it decades ago.

The Frost-Giant's Daughter and Other Stories is collected as Conan Vol. 1: The Frost-Giant's Daughter and Other Stories trade paperback and hardcover from Dark Horse Comics. Digital editions are available on platforms like Amazon Kindle, ComiXology and Dark Horse Digital.