(W/A) Val Semeiks, Various (CA) Jim Lee. As CONAN THE BARBARIAN closed out the 1980s* it was a time of transition for the title with storytelling innovations coming from veteran creators and new talent alike! In Val Semeiks' climactic run on the title* Conan weighs pleasure and pain in a magical desert city* wrests the Blade of Zed from a mad cleric and runs a gantlet of fantastic beasts in a city of shadows. Larry Hama delivers the elegiac verse of "Drumsong*" while Don Perlin writes and draws the Western-styled "The Mask of Vengeance." Gerry Conway makes Conan a cat's paw to a cult of cat people* and Michael Higgins turns back the clock for an eight-issue storyline exploring Conan's formative years in Cimmeria! Collecting CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1970) #214-240 and WHAT IF? (1989) #16. Rated T+