sum1

No, Tolkien's Silmarillion was better. Howard was better at other things. Howard's history and mythology of the Hyborian Age was pathetic and unconvincing. His talent lay more in the area of creating vivid, emotionally charged adventures, which were brilliant in a very different way from Tolkien's work. Tolkien's Silmarillion was a genius work of creating a mythology and history for an invented setting. He perfectly adapted the style of ancient and medieval literature and brilliantly told a tale of glories and tragedies and time passing. The Silmarillion was by far his best work. It helped that it had almost no ewoks. I mean Hobbits.

Tolkien cared about Aragorn from the beginning. Aragorn represented a part of his saga that predated his invention of Hobbits. The reason he didn't "develop" Aragorn and Arwen well was because he came from a school of writing that didn't believe in developing such things. He was drawing on mediveal literary models, not modern ones.