This issue, and so far this arc, have just not worked for me. I personally didn't care art for the art at all. Conan looked great, as @jasonhart said in this review, a nice mix of the young and more traditional versions. But Belit looked very oversexualized to me. In a series where she has been practically to actually naked for pretty much the entire thing, this is the first issue where that felt exploitative. Some of the angles she was drawn from seemed to accentuate purely her psychical attributes while having none of the feminine strength and self-confident sexuality other artists have injected into her character. As I said in my comment, this story device just feels old to me. The "what your life could have been" sequence. It's been done so many times and, so far at least, this iteration doesn't seem to do anything new. The character insights are mildly interesting but I feel this is just yet another issue of Conan's (with a sprinkling of Belit's) internal doubt over their relationship. Conan has been doing this, and Wood writing this, exact kind of internal hand wringing since the second issue of "The Death" arc and I am just tired of it. The relationship doesn't seem to have evolved at all since that point. Prior to The Death each new arc showed us something new about both Belit and Conan and provided new insights into their relationship together. Since The Death both characters and their relationship have seemed stagnant. And I don't mean it as if Wood is trying to write it that way and show us they are stagnating and drifting apart. It seems like these arcs are supposed to develop their relationship when, to me, it seems like it hasn't changed at all. Anyone who knows the Conan story knows he and Belit don't end up married with a castle and 10 kids. And Wood has clearly been alluding to that from almost the second issue, but I just don't feel yet that these two have really connected on more than a superficial level. Sure the sex is great and the adventure creates a bond but anytime things get tough they find a reason to separate from each other. They push each other away rather than pulling each other closer. That's not love. That's barely even lust. When this relationship inevitably falls apart for good I really doubt I'll feel any true sorrow. More like pure catharsis for making it through the series.