Soon it is clear why the woman didn’t wait for Conan to catch up. She is actually Moira, human consort to Zha-Gorr, king of a tribe of beastmen. These man-beasts have made their home underground in an ancient city, where it is always daytime due to a luminescent phosphorus found only undergound. Here, humans serve them as slaves. Moira has successfully lured Conan into her trap!

Conan is taken unconscious into the city which the man-beasts call Brutheim. Here, Conan will join the pool of slave labor that all humans perform and there he will spend the rest of his days.

Upon regaining consciousness, Conan meets a small group of these slaves led by a man named Kiord. Good natured and welcoming to Conan, Kiord urges the barbarian not to act out or try to escape for fear of repercussions from the beastmen. Conan is not impressed and tries to escape anyway, despite his restraints.

As you would expect, Conan is not compliant and assaults a beastman captor who tries to take away his helmet. Conan is then sentenced to death in the arena – the rest of the human slaves will learn from his example to be more compliant and not resist their rulers.

But Kiord is inspired by Conan’s strength despite his own reservations. Will Conan meet his doom in the arena? And will Kiord lead his people to be more than slaves to the brutish beastmen?

CAPSULE REVIEW:  Of the first ten issues in the Conan the Barbarian series, Conan the Barbarian #2 is probably my least favorite issue, but that doesn’t mean it is bad in any way. The problem with many Conan comic books is that the plots are tremendously predictable – Conan meets bad guy, bad guy gets the best of Conan, and Conan wins in the end. To me, this issue was the most predictable of the first dozen issues.

The writing of Roy Thomas continues to channel the classic fantasy novels of the 1960s and is enjoyable, again accentuated by the quality art of Barry Windsor-Smith, which continues to get better with each issue. In some of the panels, Windsor-Smith’s work could almost be mistaken for that of Jack Kirby, especially the scenes showing the underground city of Brutheim.

A predictable yet good story earns this issue an 7.0 out of 10 rating.

It’s interesting to note that like many of the early Conan stories, this issue has been re-printed at numerous times in other special issues throughout Conan’s time at Marvel. In addition, an adaptation of the story was featured in the 1997-1998 Conan the Adventurer TV series in an episode called “Lair of the Beastmen.”

High grades of this issue are expensive, but not cost prohibitive. As of this review,  CGC 9.6 graded copies sold on eBay for between $399-440. Mid grade copies at CGC 5.0-7.0 generally sold for less than $100. Ungraded copies claiming to be in “F/VF” condition sold for less than $75 and as low as $35 in some instances.

This issue can also be found in Chronicles of Conan #1, from Dark Horse.