Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the seven hundred and ninety-fifth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false.

As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. Click here for the first legend in this installment.

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COMIC LEGEND:

Marvel has published all of the Conan comics from their original license in the United States.

STATUS:

False

IN HONOR OF CONAN THE BARBARIAN'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY IN COMICS, THIS INSTALLMENT WILL BE ALL CONAN LEGENDS! Maybe even the next installment.

Reader Antoine V. suggested this one.

Conan the Barbarian, like pretty much every comic book that ever existed, has gone through some ups and downs over the years, sales-wise. However, a funny thing about Conan's success is that he is one of those characters who was more popular as an import than he was as an original character, so Marvel was doing better with Conan in Italy than they were in the United States! Marvel had a company in Italy called Marvel Italia that handled Marvel's Italian comics.

In 1993, after more than two decades, Conan the Barbarian finally came to a close. Marvel launched two successive Conan ongoing series to replace it, Conan the Adventurer and simply Conan, but for the most part, the comic book was not doing particularly well. So in 1996, Marvel canceled their final Conan regular series. However, the company still had the license and over in Italy, there was still a demand for new Conan material.

By this point, Marvel had, in a spat of likely ill-advised decisions, had purchased Panini, the popular European sticker company. Marvel had merged Panini with Marvel Italia and the merged company also soon found itself in charge of Marvel UK as a sort of new Marvel International company (it might have actually taken on that specific name, but I am not sure about that).

Okay, so Marco M. Lupoi, the head of their efforts there in Italy, assigned Xavier Marturet and Pino Rinaldi to do a NEW Conan series, Conan il Conquistatore. The late Rinaldi shared a number of his STUNNING pages from the series on his blog years ago, where he described his role on the series: I have never loved CONAN too much, except in the comics format. I always found the stories the same...as I would say, 'Read one, you've read all of them.' My wife, on the contrary, is a great fan of it and force me, under pain of "peace in our family," to accept the proposal to draw Conan il Conquistatore." Here are two of Rinaldi's gorgeous pages...

So this started a weird period where Marvel Italia would do new series and I believe they also worked with regular Marvel to do new series that were meant for BOTH markets. You know, have an American writer and an Italian artist and it would appear in Italy in Italian and in English in America. I BELIEVE one of these instances was Conan: Stalker in the Woods, drawn by the brilliant Italian artist, Claudio Castellini...

However, this is where things get a BIT murky for me. I think the American Marvel editorial offices ALSO started doing some new Conan miniseries projects. John Buscema, for instance, drew one final Conan series, and I believe that that was through Marvel USA's offices. So I think, for a time, that there was a split between the two different sections of Marvel, the American side doing some new Conan minis on their own and also working with Marvel Italia on some new stuff, while some stuff was made only for Italy (under the auspices of Marvel International. The name Marvel Italia was retained for projects).

The most notable one, from a modern Marvel perspective, is the 1999 Conan Speciale, a giant-sized collection of two Conan stories made specifically in Italy (the cover of the special even notes IN ENGLISH that this is Conan made in Italy)...

The two stories were "Once upon a time in Thiaras" by Ade Capone (writer) and Alessandro Bocci (artist) and "La Spada e la Rosa," by writers Otto Gabos and Massimo Semerano and art by Simone Bianchi.

Yes, soon before Simone Bianchi exploded into the American comic book marketplace with his stunning artwork, he worked on a Marvel Italia Conan story! Here's a sample page of Bianchi's work on the character from that Conan Speciale...

Marvel then allowed the Conan license to lapse. During the resolution of their bankruptcy issues, Panini split off from Marvel into its own company again, and as part of the deal, they maintained the rights to reprint Marvel Comics in Europe. Dark Horse then picked up the Conan license and it put out a number of excellent Conan series over the years, including the award-winning Kurt Busiek/Cary Nord run (Fred Van Lente wrote some great stuff for Dark Horse's Conan comics, as well).

Marvel, of course, recently regained the license and appears to have worked out an even more wide-ranged deal where they have integrated Conan into the Marvel Universe, as a whole, with the Cimmerian appearing as a member of the Savage Avengers and, hey, guess who happened to do a cover for that series? Why, it is none other than the great Simone Bianchi!

Time has come full circle! Bianchi actually did a Savage Sword of Conan cover, as well, interestingly, it was used for a collection of old Roy Thomas/John Buscema Conan stories (no offense to Bianchi, who is excellent, but you'd think that a collection of Buscema comics would use, you know, Buscema artwork on the cover).

Thanks to Antoine V. for the suggestion for this one! And I will freely admit that there are some pieces here that aren't QUITE fitting for me, so if people know even MORE details about this interesting period in Conan's comic book career, feel free to drop me a line at the e-mail addresses listed below and I'll amend as necessary!

CHECK OUT A TV LEGENDS REVEALED!

In the latest TV Legends Revealed - Find out whether a title caption for the animated TV series, Futurama, actually warned time travels from traveling to the year 2020.

PART THREE SOON!

Check back soon for part 3 of this installment's legends!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com