Up next...Conan The Barbarian!

It's new comic book day and I had initially intended to thumb through my new acquisitions with a little light-hearted banter for your entertainment, but there was some interesting comic book news that I wanted to sound off on instead.

DC finally got around to announcing what the deal was with the one month skip of the Blackest Night story in January. Don't get me wrong, I can deal with a missed month here and there, especially if it means that we get a full eight issues with Ivan Reis on art. But I do think that it's kind of smart thinking for the publishers to be anticipating these delays and working them into the story. DC really outdid themselves with this one, as it fits perfectly into the overarching story and themes of Blackest Night.

For those of you who haven't heard yet (or come here first for their comic news...and in that case, you really need to get out on the internet more), DC is bringing back 8 cancelled titles for one more issue in January. The books will pick up with the original numbering and will be set in current continuity. The full list of titles can be found here, but I thought it might be fun to think of some other titles that they could've brought back.

• Hitman #61: Who do I need to kill to make this one happen?
• Aztek The Ultimate Man #11: Grant Morrison's still on staff, seems like it should've been a no-brainer.
• Challengers of the Unknown #88: For character's who have cheated death and are living on borrowed time, this seems like a natural fit.
• Chase #10: Or would that be #1,000,001?
• Green Arrow #76: If only to come back and rip the heart out of Green Arrow and Black Canary. Someone has gotta put that title out of it's misery. Speaking of mercy killings, maybe we can have the last Geoff Johns' penned title of Teen Titans come back as well!
• All Star Batman & Robin #11: This title's dead, right?

I'm sure there are a million others, so let me know what titles you'd like to see come back for one more month. Meanwhile, lets get the Randomizer up and running to give us the next book to review.

...and that book is Conan The Barbarian #256 from May 1992, published by Marvel Comics!

So the last pick put to rest the Marvel/DC dominance, and this issue puts the twelve issue run of superhero books out of it's misery.

The sword and sorcery genre is always one that I've had some affinity for. If you need proof, I can show you my original set of dice that I received with my Basic D & D boxed set that I bought when I was in seventh grade. These were the old school dice, where you had to color in the grooves that made up the numbers with a crayon.

Conan has had a bit of resurgence in the comic book world lately, with the Dark Horse relaunch, so it should be interesting to see how the old Marvel stuff holds up. It's written by Roy Thomas, who has a bit of history with the character, so chances are it's going to be good. See you in a day or two for the review.