CONEHEAD THE BARBITUATE

CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)
dir: John Milius

Based on the comic based on the books collecting the pulp stories.

CONEHEAD THE BARBITUATE
MAD #235, December 1982
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Don Martin

They almost never had Don Martin do movie parodies, but I guess they figured he would be best at gore and sound effects. I also heard they needed him in every issue.

The movie is narrated by a wizard, Mako, who we see in the movie, but for this it's narrated by Conan.

As a small boy, Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is given a sword and his parents (William Smith, Nadiuska) who are killed by a neighboring gang of barbarians, led by Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones).

Thulsa's horde captures him, forcing him into slavery. As an adult, he fights like a gladiator for their entertainment. And as he's older, he learns life lessons.

He eventually is freed, and wanders about, discovering the skeleton of his father and the sword he had been bequeathed. He also meets a woman who lives in a hut (Cassandra Gaviola).

They have sex and she turns into a witch. It scares him and he grabs her off him and throws her into the fireplace. She turns into light and flies away laughing, because she is a witch. He meets Subotai (Gerry Lopez), who shows him around and takes him to a market, where he punches a camel.

They meet Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) and become a trio of thieves. They crash a local virgin sacrifice and he steals a the eye of a serpent for her (it's a jewel in the movie). Conan then kills the actual serpent because it's in the way.

Conan and Valeria become a couple (the consummation isn't shown in MAD because, well, they're MAD). The next day they're summoned by King Osrick (Max Von Sydow) who wants them to rescue his daughter (Valerie Quinessen) who has been captured by Thulsa Doom. He sees a religious ceremony happening on his way there, knocks out a priest (Jack Taylor), and steals his uniform to get into Thulsa Doom's castle. There he's caught and Thulsa Doom has Rexor crucify him.

Subotai and Valeria find Conan and rescue him. He's revived by a wizard with some kind of tattooing ritual that attracts floating spirits that try to take him away (the spirits are similar to the ones at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. They even make a joke about that.)

The big climax involves Thulsa Doom's army attacking the three of them. Thulsa himself uses arrows made from snakes. Valeria is killed with one of the arrows.

Conan prays to the god Crom that he'll win the battle (Subatoi prays here and it's now only two on the journey, but whatever) and goes ballistic. Then he finally does what he wanted to do all along and slays Thulsa Doom and becomes ruler of the land.

The German edition had their own cover.

So did Sweden, using art from the article.

KILJOY THE NASTY
Crazy #90, September 1982
w: Paul Kupperberg
a: Bob Camp & Marie Severin

Marvel, publishers of Crazy, also did several Conan the Barbarian series and Marie Severin was sometimes an artist on some of the issues of some of them.

Not much about the plot I didn't already explain with the MAD parody.

Note the punning of 'Crom' changes with each mention.

James Earl Jones was also the voice of Darth Vader.

From Movie Sequels We'll Soon Be Seeing by Jovial Bob Stine and Sam Viviano in Bananas #59 in 1982.

And Little Annie Fanny had a take on it as well in the September 1985 issue of Playboy.

UPDATE:
From their Brazilian edition. The use of Boris Vallejo as cover artist for was an in-joke for Americans, maybe that was the case for this artist too. Both artists would probably have been popular in Iraq.