The Dark Herald Recommends: Barbaric

Could Conan the Barbarian be a good person?

Please note, I didn’t ask if he could be honorable. The black-haired Cimmerian was always a barb of his word. He clearly had a code he lived by. But could he be a good person?

That’s a trickier question.

In terms of archetype, my view has been—and still is—that the barbarian is the enemy of civilization when that civilization most needs an enemy. He’s an agent of the Realm of Chaos, unleashed when the denizens of the Realm of Law become completely and degenerately corrupt.

The barbarian reviles the effete men of cities who wear the courtesy and trappings of civilization as a mask to conceal their depravity. But what does he actually hate? Is it their evil? Is he acting on his own primal sense of prudence? Or is it their weakness masquerading as strength that drives him to violence?

There are plenty of arguments back and forth on that score, but let’s face it, some barbarians are just plain lost when it comes to the whole right-and-wrong business.

Owen the Barbarian is one such primitive. He mostly wants to do what he wants—which is fighting and, well… that other "F" thing. It’s all he ever wanted out of life.

Then a terrible curse befell him: for the rest of his days, Owen was damned to do good. He must help anyone who asks for help. Since he’s really shaky on this whole right and wrong thing he needs a moral compass.

That would be his axe.

Named… Axe.

Axe has his own issues. While he can judge right from wrong, he’s more bloodthirsty than any vampire. Axe literally gets drunk on blood. He’s gleeful about it.

Owen is being dragged—kicking, screaming, and swearing—toward the light. It’s a nice twist on the usual “gritty antihero” bullshit. Owen isn’t an antihero. He’s a barbarian. A savage. A brute. But he’s being forced to grow into something more.

And it's actually working.

Given the nature of Owen, direct comparisons to Robert E. Howard’s characters like Conan and Kull are unavoidable. Barbaric is, among other things, darkly humorous—so while Owen channels those pulp-age heroes, he also has a little fun with them by exaggerating their more openly vulgar traits. The trick is avoiding mockery, and Barbaric pulls it off with surprising finesse.

The key is Axe and his sense of morality.

Axe used to be something—or rather someone—else. While he often functions as comic relief, he also serves a mentoring role on Owen’s unwanted hero’s journey. He isn’t a gimmick. He’s not just a plot device. He’s the engine that drives the story. Axe is the living embodiment of Owen’s curse. He’s Owen’s Gandalf—assuming Gandalf was at twice the legal limit and had hyper-rage issues resulting in cultist vivisection.

Normally, I don’t like to comment about “meta-contextual this and that.” Nine times out of ten, it’s just a critic trying to sound smarter than he is. But in Barbaric, it’s legitimately there: a weapon with a stronger moral center than its wielder, dragging its owner toward the light.

That’s rare.

Truthfully it’s the opposite of most sapient swords in fantasy. Think Stormbringer, from the Elric saga—those swords tempt their masters into corruption. And as for those swords that are good—dude, you want to talk about holier-than-thou! Mostly, they go on and on about how you are totally not worthy to touch them. You have to be a moral paragon to simply touch one without bursting into flames.

Axe on the other hand drags Owen toward the light. That’s a compelling inversion.

Barbaric straddles the line between pulp parody and pulp pastiche, and I have to give writer Michael Moreci credit for sticking the landing. He’s new to me. Apparently, he has some Hollywood connections (he’s got a few writing credits) and has worked on Star Wars comics—without catching the worst of the career leprosy that usually comes from that. He primarily works in creator-owned comics and sports a Rebel Alliance tattoo on his arm, meaning he literally wears his heart on his sleeve. Thankfully, he hasn’t delivered the kind of dreck that gave us Amazon’s Wheel of Time or Amazon’s Rings of Power.

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Darklings: Is it safe for your kids?

Oh, hell no! Absolutely not.

It’s on par with the old Savage Sword of Conan non-Code books that Marvel used to put out—actually it’s worse, since this one’s got vibrant, full-color blood, boobs, and gore.

Which brings us to the art.

Nathan Gooden—one of the founders of Vault Comics—does the visuals. He studied animation and worked in Hollywood before jumping ship and launching his own line of comics. Gooden favors heavy black inks that ground his expressionist fantasy world. His art combines Frazetta-style anatomical accuracy with exaggerated, kinetic action, favoring coarse lines and movement—very typical of animation-trained artists.

Addison Duke’s coloring is, by contrast, restrained. While the palette choices are bold, they never muddy the linework. It all pops without drowning the line work in artistic overkill.

When I first started reading Barbaric, I was sure I’d put it down within a few pages and walk away. But I didn’t.

There’s more here than gory chop-chop and murder jokes. There’s an emotional payoff I wasn’t expecting. There’s depth, especially in the closing panels of the first story arc. It delivered more than it promised—and that’s rare these days. If you like a good barbarian story then…

The Dark Herald Recommends With Confidence (4 / 5)

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