In addition to rights for other possible adaptations of the writer's work, Netflix is creating a new live-action series based on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. A huge part of Netflix's task is finding the right tone for a contemporary era that often feels bleak and an audience growing tired of manly men with no time for kindness. While it might seem impossible for a franchise so well known for its punchy brutality to instead become something fun, Netflix would do well to take a cue from the the '90s Conan the Adventurer series.
In Conan the Adventurer, the titular barbarian is a kindlier figure. Instead of being a child slave with gladiator roots, Conan is a hero searching for a deeply personal villain. Wrath-Amon, evil priest and ruler of a race of serpent men, turned Conan's blacksmith family to stone over hidden shards of Star Metal, a precious meteoric steel that they refused to hand over. Conan is already an adult when tragedy strikes, and sets about his quest with a sense of honor and naïveté that was jarring to those who only knew the grim-jawed faces made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Frank Frazetta.
His allies are also unlikely fits for the franchise. Each of them, from freed Prince Zula to love interest and warrior Jezmine, carries another Star Metal weapon in defiance of Wrath-Amon's dastardly desires, and each of them plays on tropes and conveniences familiar to that era of cartoons. And, of course, there is the requisite mascot character -- Needle, a consistently startled-looking fledgling phoenix with a slate of bad nicknames and a big mouth.
Meanwhile, Wrath-Amon, sometimes appearing as a man, and sometimes recalling the lizard he once was, draws what inspiration he can from the better-known film incarnation of Thulsa Doom. While Howard's Lovecraftian cults are too much for a kid's show, the series does its best to riff on similar Egyptian/Atlantean cues. For example, Wrath-Amon's patron, Set, is a huge, demonic snake seeking to free himself from centuries within an abyssal prison. To be unleashed upon the world once more, Set demands the Star Metal his underling is willing to destroy families to acquire.
It's easy to assume that Conan the Adventurer is just usual '90s cartoon fare -- a diverse but safe lineup of marketable characters, cool weapons and acceptably inhuman lizard villains to fight. But there's a core of rightness to Conan the Adventurer, an upbeat, irrepressibly '90s tone that reminds kids that strength alone doesn't make someone a good person, but that kindness, honor and loyalty are just as powerful. Here, the answer isn't about accepting or dealing out pain, but bravely reaching out for new friendships.
Netflix has the chance to look at a different kind of Conan, one made for a generation that's long since begun to embrace the idea of reworking sometimes problematic tales into something uplifting and hopeful. There's no reason to lose the blood-thumping action and the wild landscapes Conan is famed for, but hope in the heart of the Hyborian Age should play a central role. A Conan known as an adventurer, a loyal friend and a mighty warrior would be the best possible version of the beloved hero.