AGE OF CONAN BELIT #1

“Chapter 1: The Lost Verses”
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Kate Niemczyk

In Asgulin a port city in Shem the dread pirate admiral Atrahasis is looking for his young daughter Belit. She is girl who dreams of being a pirate herself and slaying a sea monster. Soon Atrahasis is taken by some men. They are debt collectors and take Atrahasis out to a sandbar to die. Belit goes to her father who doesn’t want any help but talks to his daughter throughout the day. As night approaches he doesn’t want it to end this way so Belit puts him out of his misery.

She goes back and finds her father’s fleet being plundered. She is captured by slavers who are stealing the flagship Tigress. Later the ship is captured by another pirate ship with a hipster crew and Belit is freed. Belit joins the crew and wants the Tigress for herself. She also continues to search for a sea monster which shows up at the end.

“Bone Whispers Episode One”
By Michael Stackpole

N’yaga is in his village when he is visited by Belit. He throws the bones to tell her future and sees her fate entwined with a black maned lion. Belit is there because she is looking for the Codex Osyrania. The Codex is a magical book that reveals all the treasure that has ever been hidden. N’yaga warns against the Codex for he was given it my Belit’s father to safeguard it. He also tells that the captain he served took it to buy back his ship he lost in gambling. Yet he also saw in the bones that he was destined to go with Belit to retrieve the Codex for he knows where it is.

So Marvel is doing a series that highlight the characters from Conan’s world. This first one is Belit who was Conan’s first love. She is one of my favorites in the Conan universe and I loved the old Marvel stories from Roy Thomas. Now Marvel has decided to ignore his origin and create a new one. Personally I like Roy’s better but this does have potential. The Belit here is more the classic albino that Howard originally envisioned. She has the same drive and fighting spirit that Belit should have. The only thing that perplexes me is why the hipster pirate crew?

Marvel has also decide to include as a bonus in all their new Conan series a prose novella. I love that idea. So far the Belit novella has started off with an interesting idea. Looking forward to both stories.