Jason Aaron & Mahmud Asrar Bring Conan the Barbarian Back to Marvel in January

Friday, Marvel announced that Conan the Barbarian will be returning to shelves in January of 2019 in a new series from creative team Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Esad Ribic and Matt Wilson.

After making a name for himself in Marvel’s Thor, it makes sense for Aaron to be writing this book. Fans are excited, and apparently he’s been looking forward to this for quite awhile himself.

I may have threatened to fight any other writer Marvel might’ve tried to put on Conan. Thankfully it didn’t come to that. I’ve been preparing for this gig for a very long time. This shelf of Conan paperbacks I read as a kid has always been sitting right next to my desk. pic.twitter.com/0JLlpdIXu7

— Jason Aaron (@jasonaaron) August 24, 2018

Asrar will head up pencils and inks on Conan. He most recently illustrated the acclaimed X-Men Red, and is slated to contribute to the forthcoming Uncanny X-Men relaunch. Ribic, who’ll be doing covers for the series, can be found in the just-released Fantastic Four, as well as Image’s VS. Rounding out the team on coloring is Wilson, who works on Paper Girls and The Wicked + The Divine.

The team had the chance to tell readers a little about what to expect from this new series. Aaron says he wants to focus on the epic scale that he fell in love with as a kid, adding, “I loved the grand and epic scope of Conan’s overall journey, and so for this new series, instead of picking just one period from Conan’s life and doing stories set only within that, our opening 12-issue arc will thread together many different periods and aspects of Conan’s journey, from Cimmeria to Aquilonia and beyond.”

The chance to work on the series is especially impactful for Asrar, who says that his career was largely inspired by the artists working on Conan. Wilson took to Twitter after the announcement to voice his excitement.

Ahhhhhh yeah. New gig! I love the writer and artist, a legend of a cover painter, I love coloring the kind of stuff bound to come up in Conan stories, this is gonna be great… https://t.co/zxN3MQtsFM

— Matt Wilson (@COLORnMATT) August 24, 2018

New readers in particular will likely appreciate the fresh start for the character. Conan’s grandeur is right in Marvel’s wheelhouse, and especially in Aaron’s, who made a living forcing burly male characters to embrace their emotional nuance. Conan is shaping up to be a highly anticipated comic in early 2019.