Five years after Star Wars, James Earl Jones played another incredible villain

The deceased James Earl Jones will always be closely associated with Darth Vaderwho dubbed in the original Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. David Prowse gave the character his commanding presence, but it was Jones who made that threat manifest: sinister, commanding, and with a pure, unbridled rage constantly bubbling beneath the surface. That's a fantastic legacy in itself, even without the decades of celebrated performances he's given in every kind of project spanning every conceivable genre. Indeed, it's a testament to the actor's range that he's managed to perfectly embody both Vader and Mufasa in The Lion King – the worst father and the best father in all of pop culture.

However, as looming as Vader's shadow may be, he is not the only great villain Jones has brought to life. Conan the Barbarian – John Milius's 1982 adaptation of the pulp novels by writer Robert E. Howard – owes much to Jones' portrayal of the sorcerer and cult leader Thulsa Doom. The film was successful thanks to the happy confluence of several elements, in particular the decision to entrust Arnold Schwarzenegger with the role that made him a star. Without Jones and Thulsa Doom, however, it might not have been successful.

Thulsa Doom started out as the villain of another hero

Thulsa Doom appears only once in Howard's original script and differs significantly from how he is portrayed on screen. It first appears at the end of the 1928 story “The Cat of Delcardes”, which was later, after some revisions, changed to “The Cat and the Skull”. He is apparently an invincible necromancer, with a head that is a living skull, complete with glowing eyes. He was originally an enemy of one of Howard's other heroes, Kull the Conqueror, and was later repackaged as “Kathulos of Atlantis” in the 1929 story Skull-Face“The Cat and the Skull” was never published during Howard's lifetime, but first appeared in the 1967 paperback anthology King Kull.

He made the transition to comics with relative ease, thanks to his small contribution to Howard's stories and the resulting room for creative growth. He first appeared in Marvel Monsters Lurking #16 in January 1972, once again as a foe of Kull the Conqueror. He moved over to Marvel's Conan line, where he became a periodic foe of the titular barbarian. This also made him part of Marvel canon, and the evil sorcerer battled the likes of Doctor Strange and Anti-Venom in the pages of the comics. Prior to Jones' run in Conan the Barbarian, Thulsa Doom is most important for the initial precedent it set.

Details on Thulsa Doom's Marvel Comics

Howard returned to the concept several times with different characters over the course of his writing. Despite Doom's confusing background, he served as the template for numerous evil sorcerers to come, including Marvel Comics' Red Skull and Skeletor in The Masters of the Universe franchising.Conan the Barbarian owes its existence to another film starring Jones: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hopethat whetted Hollywood's appetite for fantasy and swashbuckling. Conan was an attractive property in part because Marvel comics were selling, and Thomas, who was writing Marvel's Conan books at the time, had also scripted Marvel's comic book adaptation of Star Wars.

It has also attracted the attention of Hollywood talent, with John Milius directs and co-writes the screenplay with Oliver Stone. Thulsa Doom made an attractive choice for the villain, as he was a figure with canonical roots in Howard's writing, but with only a vaguely defined identity. This allowed the writers to develop his own character, while still remaining true to Howard's spirit, which maintains the film's ethos of telling an original Howard-style narrative rather than adapting a specific story.

Thulsa Doom Reimagined for Conan the Barbarian

Thulsa Doom has become an amalgamation of several concepts and charactersincluding Thoth-Amon who played a larger role in both Howard's work and later permutations of Kull and Conan. Snakes and reptiles have always been associated with the character, but the film leans into it much more, giving Thulsa Doon snake-related heraldry and power over reptiles. This includes a giant “pet” snake that serves as one of the film's big set pieces when Conan and his friends try to steal a priceless gem. Conan the Barbarian It also adds a tale of revenge when Thulsa Doom massacres Conan's tribe when he is still a boy, which doesn't happen in Howard's canon and gives him a very personal connection to the hero.

In many ways, Thulsa Doom remains a mystery in the film. Although he plans a genocide with his cult, his reasons for doing so remain murky and enigmatic. Far from being frustrating, the effect heightens his sense of power and danger, as well as the unforgiving reality of Howard's narrative. It doesn't matter why he does it, only that he can. Jones plays on the character's boredom in all this. His age is unknown, though Valeria suggests he's 1,000. That would explain his boredom, as if being a living god were old hat, and even the prospect of genocide seems as dull as dishwater. His confrontation with an imprisoned Conan smacks of inhuman detachment, marked by the casual order to a follower to leap to his death.

This is characterized by a slow atmospheric crescendo of the villain's carefully measured appearances. After an opening scene in which he doesn't say a word, he disappears for over an hour of the running time. The Towers of his cult can be seen in every town Conan visits, however, and rumors circulate on every street about the necromancer whose followers will die at his command. The audience, and Conan, can sense the power of Thulsa Doom creeping in from the shadows. He and his friends are the only ones who aren't afraid of him, a nod to Howard's work in which his hunky hero was often too ignorant to realize how dangerous his enemies are.

James Earl Jones embodies the hypnotic charisma of Thulsa Doom

In his performance, James Earl Jones has to deliver on the rest of the film's implicit promises, compressed into a few short scenes. The script helps him, offering him a couple of great monologues that tell a lot about the character in a few short lines. The actor's performance has been compared to real-life cult leader Jim Jones, whose followers committed mass suicide at their compound in Guyana in 1978. He has magical powers, as evidenced by his ability to transform into a snake, and tricks such as turning real snakes into poison arrows. That doesn't make him the threat he is, however. He is a threat because he controls a cult, which he intends to use in the nebulous “Day of Doom” to engage in what appears to be a gratuitous massacre. The most revealing moment comes in the finale, when Conan arrives to kill him as he is admonishing his followers to go forth and kill.

It comes at the end of an epic battle in which the heroes successfully repel an assault by the sorcerer and his forces. The intended move is to end the film with a duel between hero and villain, something people associated with Jones at the time thanks to the first two Star Wars film. Instead, Thulsa Doom tries to hypnotize Conan like a snake, speaking in sweet, honeyed words. and comparing himself to his enemy's entire world in true narcissistic fashion: “I am the source from which you flow. When I am gone, you will never have existed.” It comes very close to working before Conan recovers and cuts off the villain's head. There has never been a final battle quite like this, and it relies almost entirely on Jones delivering his lines with as much power as the character on screen.

According to Kenneth Von Gunden's book Flights of Fantasy: The Great Fantasy Films, Jones was impressed by Schwarzenegger's willingness to learn on set and offered advice to the future superstar during their scenes together. That generosity of spirit helped shape his legacy, as well as contributing to the success of ventures like Conan the Barbarian. It gives the film a villain unlike any other fantasy film before or since, inspired by Howard, but uniquely his own universe. Although very much of its time, Conan the Barbarian has become a classic because of such details. Jones has ensured that Schwarzenegger's memorable hero has a foe truly worthy of him, in both large and small ways. It's a performance worthy of celebration.