The arrival of summer means the mountain passes open, the trade ships start running, and every sorcerer who spent the winter whispering to something old and hungry finally has the warm weather to act on it. 

The bacchanal of Conan releases is arriving with a same vigor, with June pulling tight the threads that the beginning of the year began weaving. 

Crossovers are deepening, legacy runs are getting a premium treatment, and the serpent-god Set’s shadow stretches a little further across everything Titan and Heroic Signatures are building.

Steel up.

The Dragon Slayer and the Barbarian Face Round Two in  Conan x Dragonero #2 (June 10)

Issue #1 dropped Conan and his mercenaries into the ash plains of Varliendár through dark sorcery, watched his men get butchered by native Algents, and left the Cimmerian locked up behind the walls of the Erondarian Empire. Not exactly the diplomatic entrance Conan would have chosen.

Issue #2 picks up from that cliffhanger, with Conan’s first real, face-to-face encounter with Captain Ian Aranill, the Empire’s dragon slayer and the man whose name this crossover carries. Two warriors built by completely different worlds, both accustomed to being the most dangerous person in any room, are now forced to decide whether they’re allies or problems. 

The creative team of authors Stefano Vietti and Luca Enoch, supplemented by covers from Fernando Dagnino and Lorenzo Nuti, are eager to show you how they earn your adoration for this alliance. 

The Black Seers Are Waiting in Savage Sword of Conan Reforged #5 (June 17)

If you had to pick one Robert E. Howard story to hand someone who’s never read a word of Conan and say this is what the fuss is about, there’s a real argument for The People of the Black Circle.

Reforged #5 tackles parts one and two of the original adaptation from Savage Sword issues #16 and #17, with  Conan caught between a kidnapped princess, a cabal of dark sorcerers called the Black Seers of Yimsha, and a set of Himelian Mountain passes that would kill most men before the magic even got involved. It is the rescue arc distilled to its most potent form: one barbarian against an entire sorcerous order, with a woman’s life and a kingdom’s politics hanging on the outcome.

The Reforged line continues doing what it was designed to do: taking the visceral black-and-white art from the original 1970s/80s magazine and restoring it in full color without losing the edge that made those pages dangerous in the first place. 

A Bodyguard, a Forbidden Road, and the Wrong Kind of Reward Await in Conan the Barbarian #32 (June 17)

Jim Zub and Doug Braithwaite continue the ongoing run that’s been the backbone of Titan’s Conan line since its relaunch. 

Issue #31, which landed at the end of May, kicked off a high-stakes collision with the Black Stone cult and introduced the Son of the Tooth as the cult’s chosen weapon for hunting Conan’s spirit.

Issue #32 shifts gears into what reads like a self-contained arc: a mysterious woman hires Conan as her bodyguard for a sacred task across forbidden lands. The setup is pure Howard: a job that sounds simple, a client who isn’t telling Conan everything, and a reward that might not be worth the supernatural price of claiming it. 

Kull Hunts Thulsa Doom in The Heart of Piri’nach (June 30)

A citizen of Atlantis named Jolanta comes to King Kull with a problem that would make most rulers delegate to a subordinate. 

Her sister Nola has been ensorcelled into a fugue state and dragged into the dread cult of Piri’nach. 

Jolanta has one clue to the sorcerer responsible: Thulsa Doom.

That name is all Kull needs to hear.

George Mann’s The Heart of Piri’nach sends Kull and Brule the Spear-Slayer out to hunt their oldest enemy, and the Heroic Legends ePub format is the best vehicle to tell their story. 

The price point makes this read a non-decision.

Also on Shelves: The Summer Slate Builds

Several major drops from May are still available and directly feed the stories you’ll be reading this month.

Scourge of the Serpent Trade Paperback (Collects #0–4)

This is the narrative anchor for the entire interconnected Howardverse that Titan and Heroic have been building all year. 

In it, Jim Zub weaves three Robert E. Howard stories–The God in the Bowl, The Shadow Kingdom, and The Haunter of the Ring–across three timelines. 

If you want to understand why Set keeps showing up in everything, start here.

King Conan: The Original Comics Omnibus Vol. 3 (Direct Market Edition)

Over 900 pages collecting Conan the King #36–55 and the Conan of the Isles graphic novel. 

This is the definitive capstone to John Buscema’s legendary tenure, with an older Conan handing the crown to his son Conn for one final adventure. 

The Collector’s Cut Only Crom Could Dream of in Conan the Barbarian Vol. 7, the Conquering Crown

The mass-market edition of Vol. 7 landed in May, collecting issues #25–28 of Zub’s ongoing run. The Heroic Exclusive trade dress – with a Bart Sears cover – is the version built for the shelf you don’t let people touch.

Two arcs. Two very different kinds of Conan story. The Nomad is the landmark issue #25, fully painted by Alex Horley with Conan as King of Aquilonia, receiving a strange visitor with a stranger mission, forced to prove that the crown hasn’t dulled the barbarian underneath it. Then The Conquering Crown flips the timeline back: rumors of a mad tyrant on the throne of Aquilonia, a mercenary named Conan who wants nothing to do with royal politics, and a battlefield reputation that puts him directly in the path of a monarch who needs to be deposed. Zub and Dagnino trace the bloody line from sellsword to sovereign in this arc where Conan stops running from the crown and takes it by force.

The Savage Sword of Conan Vol. 4 (Collects #10–12)

Issue #10 ties directly into the Scourge of the Serpent event. 

Issue #11 marks Liam Sharp’s return to the Hyborian Age. 

Issue #12 brings in Chris Ryall and Gabriel Rodriguez. 

Plus short-form work featuring Cormac Mac Art, El Borak, Bran Mak Morn, and a bare-knuckle bout with Sailor Steve Costigan. 

The range in this volume is staggering.

While summer sears, the serpent stirs. Keep up.