(W) Val Semeiks; Marvel Various (A) Val Semeiks; Marvel 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? (19 9781302947255