Best Conan the Barbarian Comics (September 2025)

Conan the Barbarian may be the most influential fantasy hero of the 20th century. His adventures defined the sword-and-sorcery subgenre. He inspired a character class in Dungeons and Dragons. And his comics include some of the most historically important works in all of illustrated fiction.

Texan pulp writer Robert E. Howard wrote the first Conan the Barbarian story, ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’, in 1932. Conan swiftly became Howard’s most popular creation, inspiring 20 short stories and one novel. Yet it was not until the 1970s that Conan found fame outside of fantasy fandom.

Marvel Comics‘ editor Roy Thomas negotiated a licensing deal with the Howard estate. This allowed him to begin adapting Conan the Barbarian for comics. The new series was an immediate success, inspiring a wave of similar fantasy comics. While the license has moved between publishers since then, Conan has headlined a monthly comic series for most of the past five decades.

Best Conan the Barbarian comics as of 2025

Two things have defined the Conan the Barbarian brand and helped to ensure its longevity; variety and accessibility. Howard wrote the first Conan stories without a set canon or continuity. This led to stories featuring Conan as a middle-aged king, a young thief, a pirate captain, and a veteran mercenary. It also ensured one could generally pick up any Conan comic without having to worry about the story so far. This ensures several possible entryways for a new reader seeking a good place to start.

Conan The Barbarian: The Original Comics Omnibus Vol.1

Some may wish to start at the beginning, with the earliest comics to feature Conan the Barbarian. Naturally the original comics from the 1970s are highly valued collector’s items today and will cost far more than their original 15 cent cover price. Thankfully, there is a more economic alternative.

When Marvel Comics reacquired the Conan license in 2019, they began reprinting the classic comics in hardcover omnibus editions. The first volume, Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus, Vol. 1, collects the first 26 issues of Conan the Barbarian. It also contains several stories originally printed in Savage Tales and Chamber of Darkness.

Chiefly featuring the art of Barry Windsor-Smith, this book contains the first officially licensed illustrated adaptations of Robert E. Howard’s work. It also contains the first appearance of Red Sonja, and a crossover with another classic fantasy hero, Elric of Melniboné. While the Marvel edition is now out of print, Titan Comics has taken up their metaphorical sword. The same stories are currently available in an edition titled ‘Conan The Barbarian: The Original Comics Omnibus Vol.1’

Savage Sword of Conan: The Original Comics Omnibus Vol. 1

The original Conan the Barbarian monthly comic was one of the first series to benefit from the revised Comics Code Authority of 1971. The CCA famously imposed one of the strictest censorship standards ever on the American comic industry. However, even with the new standards allowing heroes who wielded swords and killed their foes, Marvel still could not accurately adapt the original Robert E. Howard stories. Thankfully, there was a loophole, for the CCA standards only applied to comic books and not magazines.

Hither came Savage Sword of Conan. Published bimonthly, this magazine presented more adult adventures of Conan the Barbarian. These comics were also monochromatic, which was unusual for American comics at the time. Presumably it was felt the lack of bright colors might ward off younger readers from the copious bloodshed and partial nudity common to Conan’s pulp adventures.

As with the aforementioned Conan the Barbarian omnibus, Marvel published hardcover collections of the earliest Savage Sword of Conan stories in 2019. Titan Comics, likewise, has collected these stories under the title ‘Savage Sword of Conan: The Original Comics Omnibus.’ This first volume collects both the first 12 issues of Savage Sword of Conan and first five issues of Savage Tales Magazine.

Conan Chronicles Epic Collection: Out of The Darksome Hills

While Conan was a Marvel Comics mainstay throughout the 1970s and 1980s, his popularity began to wane in early 1990s. Ironically, there seemed to be no place for Conan the Barbarian in a market dominated by savage anti-heroes. Despite several attempts at new miniseries throughout the 1990s, he never recovered and Marvel finally relinquished the Conan license.

The barbarian enjoyed a Renaissance of sorts in 2003, when Dark Horse Comics took over the Conan brand. They premiered a new monthly series, simply titled Conan, scripted by Kurt Busiek with art by Cary Nord. This series unveiled Conan’s history in chronological order, starting with his leaving Cimmeria as a teenager and becoming a mercenary.

The Dark Horse Conan comics are easier to come by than the Marvel originals and generally less expensive. However, Marvel still reprinted the entire series as trade paperbacks in 2019 as part of their Epic Collection line. The first volume, Out of the Darksome Hills, collects the first 20 issues of Conan. These stories offer a more violent, visceral take on Conan the Barbarian than the original Marvel monthly series.

King Conan Chronicles Epic Collection: Wolves and Dragons

The Dark Horse Conan series was a critical and commercial success. However, some Robert E. Howard fans were concerned by the meandering pace of the new series. They feared it would be some time before they saw adaptations of the stories featuring an elder Conan the Barbarian. Chief among these were the stories set after Conan became King of Aquilonia by his own hand.

Thankfully, in 2011, writer Timothy Truman and artist Tomás Giorello began adapting these stories as miniseries under the King Conan banner. For five years, Truman and Giorello explored these classic tales through a frame story where an elderly King Conan dictates his memoirs to an attentive scribe. Years later, Marvel Comics reprinted these comics in two volumes, as part of the Epic Collection line.

While both volumes are worth reading, the second, Wolves and Dragons, is notable for containing an adaptation of The Hour of the Dragon. The sole Conan the Barbarian novel written by Robert E Howard, it details Conan undertaking a world-spanning quest to reclaim his throne after being disposed by treacherous rivals and a dark wizard. While adapted many times over the years, the Truman and Giorello version is easily the best.

Conan the Barbarian, Volume 1: Bound in Black Stone

Since taking over the Conan license in 2023, Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures have gone beyond adapting the tales of Conan the Barbarian. Writer Jim Zub has added on to the lore of Conan, while more firmly tying him to other Robert E. Howard heroes. This is well in keeping with Howard’s own aesthetic, for he set all of his characters in the same universe.

Miniseries like Battle of the Black Stone and 2025’s Scourge of the Serpent continue this tradition. These are fine stories and well worth reading. However, the whole of the Titan Age is best enjoyed from the beginning, starting with Bound in Black Stone – the first Conan the Barbarian collection of Titan Comics’ original Conan stories. The series opens with a more seasoned Conan contemplating a return home to Cimmeria, only to wind up fighting an army of the undead. Zub spins a spirited epic here, well conveyed by the art of Rob De La Torre.

How we chose the best Conan the Barbarian comics

All of these Conan the Barbarian stories were chosen for their quality and their accessibility to new readers. They were also chosen for offering a variety of tales, showcasing the evolution of the comics over time. However, attention was also paid as to which editions are currently in print.