Book 28 for my 2025 goal of 30 books for the year! As is now default for me, my link to the book is through my bookshop dot org affiliate account.

Not long ago, Titan comics sent me a review copy of a recent compilation of Conan the Barbarian stories, which I was delighted to read and discuss on the blog. Not long afterward, they offered to send a copy of the new Solomon Kane comic series, Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring, with art and writing by Patrick Zercher, and I jumped at the chance. Not only did I start my blog in part to talk about the stories of Robert E. Howard and related authors, but the title of the blog — Skulls in the Stars — is the title of one of Howard’s best Solomon Kane stories.

So who is Solomon Kane? Most people I would venture are familiar with Robert E. Howard’s Conan, a strong, passionate and clever barbarian, but I suspect that Solomon Kane is much less known. The character is a late 16th-century Puritan who is devoted to fighting injustice and has the strength, skill, and willpower to track down wrongdoers literally across the globe. The best way of describing him is perhaps to simply quote from Howard’s first story on the character, “Red Shadows,” first published in 1928:

THE moonlight shimmered hazily, making silvery mists of illusion among the shadowy trees. A faint breeze whispered down the valley, bearing a shadow that was not of the moon-mist. A faint scent of smoke was apparent.

The man whose long, swinging strides, unhurried yet unswerving, had carried him for many a mile since sunrise, stopped suddenly. A movement in the trees had caught his attention, and he moved silently toward the shadows, a hand resting lightly on the hilt of his long, slim rapier.

Warily he advanced, his eyes striving to pierce the darkness that brooded under the trees. This was a wild and menacing country; death might be lurking under those trees. Then his hand fell away from the hilt and he leaned forward. Death indeed was there, but not in such shape as might cause him fear.

“The fires of Hades!” he murmured. “A girl! What has harmed you, child? Be not afraid of me.”

The girl looked up at him, her face like a dim white rose in the dark.

“You—who are—you?” her words came in gasps.

“Naught but a wanderer, a landless man, but a friend to all in need.” The gentle voice sounded somehow incongruous, coming from the man.

The girl sought to prop herself up on her elbow, and instantly he knelt and raised her to a sitting position, her head resting against his shoulder. His hand touched her breast and came away red and wet.

“Tell me.” His voice was soft, soothing, as one speaks to a babe.

“Le Loup,” she gasped, her voice swiftly growing weaker. “He and his men—descended upon our village—a mile up the valley. They robbed—slew—burned—”

“That, then, was the smoke I scented,” muttered the man. “Go on, child.”

“I ran. He, the Wolf, pursued me—and—caught me—” The words died away in a shuddering silence.

“I understand, child. Then—?”

“Then—he—he—stabbed me—with his dagger—oh, blessed saints!—mercy—”

Suddenly the slim form went limp. The man eased her to the earth, and touched her brow lightly.

“Dead!” he muttered.

Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.

“Men shall die for this,” he said coldly.

In “Red Shadows,” Kane pursues Le Loup all the way to the darkest jungles of Africa, and the Solomon Kane stories often feature Kane exploring Africa and grappling with the fact that “un-Christian” magic, such as that used by his African ally N’Longa, can itself often be used for good.

There have been comic adaptations of Kane before, and even a movie that came out in 2009 that I personally felt didn’t quite capture the primal essence of the character. In fiction, Kane is very much an unstoppable weapon of justice and part of the thrill of the story to me is seeing him as becoming an almost supernatural force once he sets his sights on a target. So reading the new comics by Zercher, I was curious to see if they would capture the feeling of the original tales, and I am happy to say that they do.

The story follows Kane and a group of uneasy allies as they travel to Africa to search for the ancient serpent ring, which is said to provide unfathomable power to its wearer. The ring ties back to Howard’s Conan stories in that it is described as having once belonged to the Stygian wizard Thoth-Amon, Conan’s main rival. Kane finds himself on the mission to protect a Jewish scholar and daughter, as a way to repent for a wrong he did to the family. They cross paths with and join forces with a pair of scoundrels out of necessity, though this leaves everyone watching their back as they enter the African wilderness. The real threat, however, comes from the serpent cultists who will kill all of them to protect the ring — cultists who are both more and less than human.

The story starts a little disjointed, jumping around between characters as it introduces them and sets the stage but once everyone is together it really kicks into gear and becomes a delightful tale of adventure. Zercher admirably captures Kane’s spirit — a fanatic who nevertheless is intelligent and moral enough to feel doubts and conflicts about his actions. Once he springs into action, however, nobody can stand in his way.

One particular challenge for modern adaptations of Solomon Kane is that the stories are often set in tribal Africa and it can be difficult to write stories like this without falling into racist stereotypes. Personally, I think Howard himself managed to do not bad for the time — the African magician N’Longa becomes his friend and even “brother” and is very much an equal to Kane in the stories where they meet, and Kane himself does not hesitate to protect Black people from danger even at risk of his own life. Zercher follows the same trajectory, in having Black characters who are strong, independent and complex, even though some are allies and some are enemies. Furthermore, the story addresses antisemitism in taking a hard look at how Jewish people were discriminated against in Europe at the time. I didn’t ever really get uncomfortable reading the depictions of Black and Jewish people in the story, who I felt were shown as full fledged characters and genuine humans (something I can’t say about a lot of the literature written in Robert E. Howard’s era, even by Howard himself).

As this is a comic book, I can’t end my review without talking about the art, which is gorgeous. I was particularly impressed with the style for the High Priestess of the Serpent Cult, whose design is just amazing and colorful!

The volume includes a couple of essays at its end, including some background by the author about how he came to write Solomon Kane and a discussion of the fictional history of the character. The book also includes variant covers for each of the original issues and depictions of how several pages were drawn, from line art to coloring to lettering. The story is the main thing for me, of course, but I really enjoy the essays and the context they give.

I really enjoyed Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring! Zercher does a great job capturing the spirit — and appearance — of the wonderful character of Kane. It looks like he may have the opportunity to write more stories set in Kane’s world, and I look forward to reading them.