Published Jan 27, 2026, 12:00 PM EST
CBR senior staff writer Brian Cronin has been writing professionally about comic books for over fifteen years now at CBR (primarily with his “Comics Should Be Good” series of columns, including Comic Book Legends Revealed). He has written two books about comics for Penguin-Random House – Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? And Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia! and one book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books. His writing has been featured at ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, About.com, the Huffington Post, Vulture and Gizmodo. He features legends about entertainment and sports at his website, Legends Revealed and other pop culture features at Pop Culture References. Follow him on Twitter at @Brian_Cronin and feel free to e-mail him suggestions for stories about comic books that you'd like to see featured at brianc@cbr.com!
It's fascinating how much of an impact a relatively small number of stories can have on popular culture. Howard Phillips "H.P." Lovecraft, for instance, only lived until he was 46 years old (he died in 1937), and during his career as a professional writer (which was roughly 11 years), he "only" wrote about seventy short stories. However, those seventy short stories have become some of the most influential pieces of fiction in the entire 20th Century.
Similarly, Robert E. Howard's writing career was even SHORTER, really only writing regularly from the age of 23 until his untimely death in 1936 at the age of 30. However, the 21 Conan stories that Howard wrote (17 of them were published by the time he passed away) left an impressive landscape for future Conan stories.
Often, people just go back to the original Conan stories for characters, but occasionally, people introduce NEW characters in the world of Conan, and that's precisely what is about to happen in next month's Conan the Barbarian #29, the start of a new storyline, where Jim Zub and Doug Braithwaite will introduce a new villain, The Son of Tooth, and CBR has an exclusive preview at the introduction of this new villain that Conan will have to face (so soon after his epic 25th issue).
CONAN THE BARBARIAN #29 Format: Comic book W: Jim Zub A: Doug Braithwaite Publisher: Heroic Signatures & Titan Comics FC, 32pp, $4.99, On sale: 25th Feb 2026 New pulp-tastic tales In the tradition of Robert E. Howard. A deadly new foe hunts Conan the Barbarian, tracking his spirit wherever he travels - a killer with keen blade in hand and teeth from old prey strung ‘round his neck. The cult of the Black Stone wants revenge against the Cimmerian and the Son of the Tooth is their weapon of choice. COVER A: ROB DE LA TORRE COVER B: DOUG BRAITHWAITE COVER C: MARTIN SIMMONDS COVER D: JESUS MARINO COVER E: TOBY WILSMER COVER F: ROB DE LA TORRE FOIL TRADE COVER G: MARTIN SIMMONDS CARDSTOCK VIRGIN VARIANT
COVER H: ROB DE LA TORRE VIRGIN VARIANT In the preview pages, we see the tragic origin of the Son of Tooth. As we have seen with a number of major Conan characters (like Red Sonja), their pasts are often overflowing with tragedy. Here, it appears that the Son of Tooth, as a young boy, began being visited by voices in his sleep telling him to commit murder. That's the sort of thing that a mentally unwell person would say, but since this IS a world of supernatural beings, it is very possible that a legit supernatural voice made him do things. He awakens to find that he has slaughtered some of his family members. He can see their deaths in his visions, even though he doesn't recall the murders occurring. His father tries to kill him, and he has a brutal battle with his own dad over the murders that he committed. Presumably, he wins, and that's how he started on his path to become the Son of Tooth, but I guess you'll have to pick up a copy of Conan the Barbarian #29 next month to find out for sure! Conan the Barbarian #29 is on sale on February 25th. Source: Titan Comics
English (US) · 