The world of Conan is a simplistic ‘underlay’ of Europe, Africa and Asia. Howard not only avoided tedious world building on one hand and the research required to do historical fiction on the other, but also adapted a common mythology and social sensibilities in one low-commitment stroke. The story we are examining here Howard’s Awful View Of Life is set on what would be the Eastern Atlantic Coast from Portugal down to the Congo.

The aspect of the Conan setting that is most telling is that it—along with Howard’s other fantasy settings—is largely a metaphor for his own time, The Great Depression. Howard wrote the bulk of his work after the Stock Market Crash and before the country began recovering from its effects. In Howard’s fantasy there is nothing good about nobility, royalty or wealth. Howard looked out upon a nation that had been raped by politicians, bankers and corporate leaders, from a portion of the country where Old West pioneers still lived on out of a seemingly forgotten age.

Kings, princes and nobles in Conan and Kull stories are weak and corrupt reflections of Howard’s contempt for politicians of his own time. The sorcerers of Howard’s fantasy, raising, ruling and bringing low nations from behind the scenes, reflect Howard’s hatred of bankers and stock market jockeys. In many of the Conan stories set in civilized settings, Conan is essentially a Liver-Eating Johnson type mountain man character lost in 1930s New York City.

The Conan character is essentially Howard’s ideal primal American. Conan is not a universal protagonist, being too selfish and dismissive of authority to have much appeal to European sensibilities. The closest example of another leading male character from the same period is Tarzan. Tarzan reflected the duality of masculine psychology of the period; the obsession with class status on one hand and the self-knowledge that the modern man was in many ways less than his predecessor. Edgar Rice Burroughs built a superman by taking a Brit of noble blood and incubating him in a savage setting. Part of Tarzan appealed to everyone. Conan was and remains too bitter and lawless for the average American to stomach given our societies latent yearning for a British style monarchial figure to worship. This is why, I believe, Conan has had such a singular appeal to a certain slice of the American male fiction market—he’s the original politically incorrect antisocial commentator, a commentator whose acts vastly outweigh and support his words.

Howard’s superman is a reactionary frontiersman. Some of Howard’s Conan stories were obviously converted westerns and pirate yarns. The glaring parallel with Queen of the Black Coast, published in May 1934, was with the career of Bonnie and Clyde who were killed not far from Howard’s home state in May of 1934. Conan as a character exhibits an elemental hatred for the corrupt institutions of the state, landed gentry, and wealthy political and corporate class.

The reader should keep in mind that all of the Conan stories after the first one: Phoenix on the Sword, are essentially back-story for a regicide. The first Conan story begins with a palace coup attempt against King Conan, a usurper who strangled his sniveling predecessor on the throne, and successfully defends his throne with an antique axe yanked from the palace wall. Queen of the Black Coast is perhaps the most crucial tale in the young Conan’s life. This story is the incubus of his haunting, and the beginning of his reputation among men.

Howard admitted in his own letters that Conan was a composite of oil-town roughnecks, brawlers, boxers and loners he had known. Conan is one man’s ideal, elemental, unapologetic, authority-hating, unilaterally-insensitive American man. How does he stack up to other super-male characters of legend and fiction?

Achilles would envy him for his invulnerability to the demands made upon him by weaker men higher on the social ladder.

Beowulf would think him rude and disrespectful of gods and men.

Author would fear him and Lancelot hate him.

Tarzan would find his complete lack of tact endearing and probably attempt to mentor him, largely in an attempt to cure Conan’s alcoholism.

Superman would see in Conan his polar opposite, a moral—not just mortal—enemy more deeply at odds with him than any villain.

Howard was a Depression Era author of horror stores and adventure yarns. Conan is his idea of a medieval American.