Conan the Barbarian's BATTLE OF THE BLACK STONE Unleashes Robert E. Howard's Shared Universe

Summary Conan the Barbarian is teaming up with other Robert E. Howard characters in Titan Comics' Battle of the Black Stone event this fall.

Many of Howard's characters share a universe, setting the stage for a massive apocalyptic threat faced by Conan and friends.

FCBD 2024: Conan Battle of the Black Stone #0 is the starting point for this ambitious story, featuring familiar and lesser-known heroes.

WARNING! Spoilers ahead for FCBD 2024: Conan Battle of the Black Stone #0Conan the Barbarian is getting his own crossover event, and he’ll be bringing some friends along with him. Creator Robert E. Howard’s other fantasy and adventure characters will be appearing in the Battle of the Black Stone event this fall, gathered together for a massive story spanning across space and time.

After a stint at Marvel Comics, an all-new Conan the Barbarian series was published last year by Titan Publishing. Overseen by writer Jim Zub, the new Conan comics aimed to launch an entire shared universe featuring characters that original Conan author Robert E. Howard created for pulp magazines in the early twentieth century.

The Battle of the Black Stone is the ambitious story that will bring them all together to handle an apocalyptic threat. Yet while many fans are familiar with Conan, some of the other Howard characters aren’t as well known. Consider the following a primer for Titan’s new “Howard-verse.”

Battle of the Black Stone Pairs Conan With Other Robert E. Howard Characters

The event officially kicks off in this month's FCBD 2024: Conan Battle of the Black Stone #0 and will continue this fall. The story starts with Conan leading a group of Aquilonian soldiers against an attacking force of Pict warriors. After defeating them, Conan recognizes a stone with an ancient symbol around one of the fallen warrior’s necks, which leads him to recount the events of the previous issues of Titan’s Conan series. The warlord Thulsa Doom previously foretold of a coming evil to the Hyborian Age, and the story then cuts to heroes throughout the ages finding the symbol in their own adventures.

FCBD 2024: Conan Battle of the Black Stone #0 comes from the creative team of Jim Zub, Jonas Scharf, João Canola and Richard Starkings.

The four heroes depicted in the following montage of panels are Solomon Kane, “Dark” Agnes de Chastillon, “El Borak” Francis X. Gordon and Professor John Kirowan. Also appearing in the issue’s prologue is the author James Allison, who goes missing after encountering a dark shape in his humble Texas home. The story ends with the shocking appearance of Brissa, the Pict warrior who Conan had a brief fling with in the early Titan issues, who has somehow found herself transported to Allison’s abandoned home in 1930s Texas.

In the essay that ends the issue, Robert E. Howard historian Jeffrey Shanks explains the vast library of characters that Howard created during his lifetime, stating that, “Howard contributed to many genres that were popular in the 1920s and 30s - and in fact has been credited with being the ‘father’ of several hybrid genres like sword-and-sorcery and weird westerns.” Shanks describes Howard's protagonists ranging from “barbarian warriors, two-fisted detectives, Texas gunslingers and blood thirsty pirate captains.” Shanks also notes that many of Howard’s characters all shared a connection - more or less occupying the same universe and setting the stage for Battle of the Black Stone.

The “Howard-verse”: Conan Creator Robert E. Howard’s Universe of Heroes

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Among the heroes featured in the #0 issue, Solomon Kane perhaps has the highest profile in Howard’s literary canon. A Puritan operating around the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Solomon Kane wandered the world to vanquish evil in all its forms. Encountering all manner of monsters, demons and evil spirits, Solomon Kane dispatched them all with his rapier, a pair of flintlock pistols and the Staff of Solomon, a magical staff gifted to him by the African shaman N’Longa. First appearing in 1928’s “Red Shadows,” Solomon Kane would go on to appear in more than a dozen stories written by Howard.

“Dark” Agnes de Chastillon appeared in only three stories written by Howard, none of which were published during the author’s lifetime. A mercenary and sword-for-hire operating during 16th century France, Dark Agnes gained her name upon killing her would-be husband when she was sold into marriage by her abusive father. Known for her red hair and fiery temper, Agnes was one of the inspirations for Marvel Comics’ Red Sonja (along with Howard’s Red Sonya of Rogatino). Dark Agnes previously played a significant role in the 2019-2020 Serpent War event from Marvel, where she teamed with other Howard characters to fight the serpent god Set.

“El Borak” is the name given to adventurer Francis X. Gordon, a Texan gunslinger who made his debut appearance in Howard’s story “The Daughter of Erlik Khan” in 1934. El Borak traveled to South Asia against the backdrop of the early 20th century, inspired by real-life figures such as T.E. Lawrence and Richard Francis Burton. While the character usually fought human enemies, El Borak did come across a supernatural foe in Howard’s story “Three-Bladed Doom,” so there is precedent for the character’s role in Battle of the Black Stone.

Will Other Robert E. Howard Characters Appear in Battle of the Black Stone?

John Kirowan was a professor specializing in archeology and the occult, who often appeared alongside the younger John Conrad in several of Howard’s horror stories. The pair first appeared in 1931’s “Children of the Night,” a Cthulhu Mythos story that also features many of the cosmic horrors created by H.P. Lovecraft. Howard and Lovecraft became friends after a lengthy correspondence, with the two writers trading ideas and concepts that made up the Cthulhu Mythos. Howard’s story “The Black Stone” is his most Lovecraftian, and seems to be the inspiration for Titan’s upcoming story event.

The other character seen in Battle of the Black Stone #0 is James Allison, a writer who can recall all of his past lives, many of whom were warriors in the Hyborian Age. First appearing in 1934’s “Valley of the Worm,” Allison recalls his past life as the Aesir warrior Niord, who fights various monsters in the crumbling ruins of an abandoned Hyborian city. Howard completed two other James Allison stories during his lifetime, along with several other unfinished fragments.

Jeffrey Shanks highlights the importance of James Allison in Howard’s literary canon in the accompanying essay at issue’s end. “It’s not hard to see the appeal of such a character to Howard,” Shanks writes, before elaborating on the character’s significance further: “Howard must have felt trapped and confined - bound by circumstances to a small rural town in Texas, while his incredibly prodigious mind was free to roam the cosmos of his imagination.” Robert E. Howard may be best known for Conan the Barbarian, but the upcoming Battle of the Black Stone should stand as a testament to the prolific writer’s oevre and imagination.

FCBD 2024: Conan Battle of the Black Stone #0 is available now from Titan Comics.

FCBD 2024: Conan Battle of the Black Stone #0 (2024) Writer: Jim Zub

Artist: Jonas Scharf

Colorist: João Canola

Letterer: Richard Starkings

Cover Artist: Roberto De La Torre