Conan the Barbarian teams up with Wolverine, Venom, and the Punisher in Savage Avengers

Marvel Comics will kick off Savage Avengers in May, a series where some of the greatest heroes of the Marvel Universe will team up with the greatest conqueror to come out of the barbarian lands of Cimmeria: Conan.

Marvel Comics has a long history with the pulp fantasy hero, dating back to the very first Conan comic series, 1970’s Conan the Barbarian. Marvel recently reacquired the license to Conan from Dark Horse Comics, and the first two books to come from that bit of rights finagling — Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan — kicked off in early 2019.

Gerry Duggan, the writer behind Savage Sword, will also be taking the reins on Savage Avengers, where Conan will find himself teaming with Venom, the Punisher, Wolverine, Elektra, and Brother Voodoo. The series might have the “Avengers” name in the title, but that may not hold a lot of weight within the story.

“This is an unsanctioned team of heroes,” Duggan told Entertainment Weekly.

According to the writer, he and series artist Mike Deodato Jr. “envisioned a threat, a magical green zone where the evil wizards of Conan’s world are trading spells with the Hand in Japan. Conan is on a very Conan-like mission; he’s heard a tale of an amulet, so he’s chasing it, and the evil magic sorcerers are doing something that would be a Marvel Avengers problem. It feels like we have found some very fertile ground that is a Venn diagram between those two worlds.”

It won’t be the first time that the Barbarian has interacted with the Marvel Universe — or vice versa — but Conan’s past Marvel stories were largely What If? events. This seems to be something a little more. (He also recently adventured with Wonder Woman, back when Dark Horse Comics still had the rights.)

Savage Avengers #1 will hit shelves in May 2019. Here’s the full cover, drawn by David Finch, below.

David Finch/Marvel Comics