Name Forthcoming: Pirate myth and Adventure

There is a moment where the fourth and final season of Black Sails veers from its relatively straightforward but bloody narrative of pirates struggling for independence; the war against the world, and turns straight into something else. The various plot threads are winding down and the decisive confrontations are set to play out, and all that's left is to choose the final stage.

Black Sails was always meant to be a sort of origin story for some of the characters and a prequel to the events of Treasure Island and though it took welcome detours to get to that point, the second the show arrives into the territory of the novel it goes full blown myth.

(This is where I'd show you, but that moment needs to be seen in its context
so I'm not going to spoil this one for you.)

The first moment we see Skeleton Island, our stage for the confrontations to come, the sight is a wholly unexpected one. Sure there were some scattered mentions beforehand, but the writers wisely held off until they could jump it on you unawares. You vaguely know it's coming, but when Flint launches into his 'Tale of Skeleton Island' story and all of a sudden the scene switches, it'll still catch you by surprise.
To the unearthly, echoing sound of a lone violin, slow striking cellos and booming drums, the island comes into view. And it's unlike anything shown in the series up 'till now. Completely uncharted waters in every sense.

It's one of my favourite moments from the show, right up there alongside with 'the becoming of Long John Silver' or the 'Dinner with Alfred Hamilton'.
But it stands apart from those moments, as those were quintessentially scenes and stories the show conceived of itself and then proceeded to make its own, inimitable, whereas this is a moment that must have been working at the back of Steinberg and Levine's minds since the show's conception. One of those scenes that must have loomed large all the while.
And the time they spent on it shows immediately. It is a homage that carries its influence on its sleeve and flawlessly invokes the spirit of wild adventure of Stevenson's novel. Pirate adventure on the lonely high seas, and cursed treasure on mysterious islands.

That sense of adventure and mystery is present in the works some of my fondest remembered authors, like Robert E. Howard, William King or David Gemmell.
It's also what I got from reading volume 10 in the Dark Horse Conan Series this week.

The second we leave the trudge and slush of volumes 8 and 9, and move out of the detritus of war and hit the open water, all of a sudden we're back in a land that's filled with mystery, danger and adventure. It's in my opinion what Howard's Conan tales, more than any other, do best. And it's pleasing to see that Iron Shadows in the Moonlight delivers on this.

Jup, jup, jup. I did scan this one.

Strange adventures on a cursed island.

It's taken me a long while to get to this point in the Dark Horse Conan series because after the phenomenal 6 first volumes, that abrupt change in art style took away too much from my enjoyment. And though it's grown on me since, it did take over 400 pages to do so.
It's also that since that part of the story, the first 6 volumes, was done for a long time afterwards, the clear path just seemed lost. Where before there was stitched together from the Conan tales an all-connecting chronological sequence of events, there now didn't seem to be a clear plot and instead just a lot of filler. Besides, I also read Volume 7 Cimmeria and Volume 0 Born on the Battlefield somewhere in between and to be honest, those were a little dull at times, filled with too much pointless reminiscing and too many different art styles to every truly settle in the mind of the reader. It also was just plain ugly at times.

But in Volume 10 it's revealed where this has all been leading up to: the adaptation of Shadows in the Moonlight and the turning of Conan to piracy. Looking back now, it's quite clear to see. All those scattered mentions and all that random bouncing around was the set-up for this one.
Where in the short story, Conan just seems to become Captain out of the blue, one fight and done, with just a mention of past strife here and there, in the Dark Horse adaptation, from Black Colossus to Free Companions to Iron Shadows in the Moonlight we've really been given that history of animosity, failure, defeat, vengeance and all. Unlike in Howard's tale we have in fact seen the history and it makes what comes next hit all the harder. The payoff is a deliciously good one.

Can I just remark on the dude on the right there who I find to be absolutely hilarious.

But even without all that set-up Iron Shadows is on its own quite a good Conan yarn.
From the start of the volume where scenes indirectly hinted at in the short story come to full life, to Olivia's narration, to the focused violence in the battle scenes, it was a definite improvement to the aimless mucking around in the dirt of the previous volumes. It reminded me of how Dark Horse's Kull: The Shadow Kingdom perfected the original story by adding a prologue and epilogue to it. Then, like here, they kept the tale as it was, but grounded it and gave it its own spot in a larger narrative by just a little bit of elaboration.

It's made me interested again to seek out what comes next in the Dark Horse Conan saga, Conan the Pirate, and though I haven't heard much about 11 and 12, and heard only about the bad from the Bêlit era, I've always loved a good tragic love story. And I've also heard that it's advisable to read those 4 volumes in one go anyway, so that you have a clear conclusion to be working up to, so I'll be doing that sometime in the next few months.

In the meantime though. Shadows in the Moonlight, with its violence and dark and moody adventure, also reminded me of another epic Pirate comic. It, together with Black Sails and Treasure Island form my rather unofficial 'Pirate Trilogy', stretched over three types of media.
It's another one of those that the American readers among you may not have heard from...