Age of Conan: Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast #1 (2024)

Age Of Conan: Belit, Queen Of The Black Coast (2019) #1 is the first of the third-2019 Marvel series released in 2019 (the others being "Conan the Barbarian" and "Savage Sword of Conan"). Like the others, it is graced with a serialized novella, this time by Michael A. Stackpole.

"Age of Conan" has a great premise: this series focuses on non-Conan characters, this one from Robert E Howard's story "Queen of the Black Coast"(1934 Weird tales). Unlike the other two Marvel Conan series, the novella and comic are both focused on the same characters and time. The cover is gorgeous. Belit is obviously the focus, and the series promises to track her adventures from being a young girl, a daughter of a pirate king, onward.

The Cover and Stackpole's story "Bone Whispers" are worth the cover price. N'Yaga, a shaman of sorts, meets up with Belit. As an introductory three pages, it works splendid. It fills in the backstory, develops characters, and sets up a fun adventure.

The Comic's first installment is on shaky ground.

Detracting from the decent premise, I laughed out loud at a key moment that was too contrived to be dramatic.

We are treated to the latter choice, which is inconsistent with the character relationship and the art (which shows the knife, boat, and rope together on the same page; the mentor did not appear near death).

Belit is then held captive and rescued fortuitously; then fate brings her a rare sea-creature at a random, but opportune time--merely to serve as shallow cliff hanger. I anticipated that she would have freed herself (with less help from others), and given how scarce sea-creatures are, the encounter made me roll my eyes.

The beautiful cover art by Sana Takada (of Monstress fame) may lure you, but the inside does not live up to the cover’s promise.

First off, the mistake is to write an origin tale. Be lit on the cover is badass, but in the book she is just your run of the mill saucy teenager. Origins are never as interesting as the legend a character becomes. It doesn’t help that the story itself is fairly weak, lacking any emotional depth or charismatic characters.

Next though is the art itself, cartoonish and silly-looking, giving a tone opposite to the somber and regal cover. The art just isn’t that great. If Marvel is going to write a female character under the Conan title, she should be made into a badass, not a silly girl with a silly story.

Cover: fantastic. 5 stars

Interior art:....better than the previews led me to believe, but not really my idea of Conan art. 3 stars

Story: pretty-okay, I guess. I’m not gripped yet. Placeholder 3 stars, we will re-visit with a couple more issues.

M. Stackpole’s back-up story: Placeholder 4 Stars, but again I will reserve final judgement after all 5 parts are out; however, Stackpole, if memory serves correct, authored the Star Wars Rogue Squadron books. I read a few of those in the day and enjoyed. I think Stackpole also wrote the novelization of the 2011 film. I never read it, but it’s on my list.

Overall, I was looking forward to this series. “Queen of the Black Coast” is a classic Conan tale. If you’re not familiar with QotBC, it is a Conan pirate yarn. There is a large block of undefined time between acts 1 and 2 of the short stories. Much pastiche was written over the years taking place in this block of time. The Further Adventures of Conan and Belit I suppose.

In the day, Marvel wrote stories of adventure that took place between the two parts of the story, as did Dark Horse; however, not much has been done with Belit’s origin. I’m not a believer that everyone needs an origin, sometimes a character needs to just be, but I am enough of a Belit fan that I am looking forward to this series and the upcoming novel by Stackpole being released (I think/hope) in 2019.

So far, issue 1 is not meeting my expectations.

EDIT: I finally went back and read all 5 parts of the Mike Stackpole back up short story. He had only 15 pages or so, but man was it rushed. Even rushed though, it was better than the story presented in the comic. Too bad Marvel didn’t adapt his story versus the story they went with for this far less than stellar book.

The cover art is terrific and the interior art is good, but the story of Belit's origin is average at best. This is the third Marvel comic released in 2019 featuring Robert E. Howard's Conan characters and the first to not star Conan but instead centers on Belit, Pirate Queen. Here she is just a teenager and vows vengeance following the death of her father. I will follow the other issues in the mini series to see if things improve. As with the other comics, this one also includes the first chapter of a novella featuring Belit, which was marginally better than the main story.

The art is well done, though the butch women were overdone aplenty. Belit came off as consistently imposing with a gothic beauty.

In Chapter 1, we're introduced to Belit as a self-righteous student who thinks herself better than her school mates and her father's crew. I'm disappointed that going into Chapter 2, she continually sounds like a spoiled child chiding anyone who won't give her what is hers. My impression of her from the source material is that of a sure and skilled sailor/survivor but mature and thoughtful with an overzealousness for treasure. Not so in this comic.

The crew that saves Belit in Chapter 1, going into Chapter 2, is ran by an effeminate man and a large burly masculine woman, gender-bending at it's finest ... or worst. We'll see later on that they both prefer easy, cheap women.

It's a shame such a lost opportunity to do a good comic-book series about REH's characters.
Soft —and wrong— story about Bêlit's father.
Her father was a king. It's important to read the original novels.
And bad pencils. Horrible.

3 for the main story, an extra star for the novella, which is also about Belit.

Lo mejor la portada, el dibujo del interior me parece más flojo y el guion peor.