WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Savage Avengers #3 by Gerry Duggan, Mike Deodato Jr., Frank Martin, VC's Travis Lanham, David Finch and Frank D'Armata, on sale now!
The first time we meet Conan in Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato Jr.’s Savage Avengers, he’s been wandering the Savage Land for quite some time and has been besieged by a deluge of ninja. Some of the first spoken dialogue in the debut issue revolves around the wayward barbarian cracking a joke after disarming one of his assailants and returning their weapon to achieve fatal results.
It’s a moment that defines two key things about Conan being in the Savage Avengers. The first is that he’s probably going to fare pretty well for himself going forward. The second is that he might be the comic relief of the series. Conan further galvanizes this role by sinking his blade into Wolverine’s scalp, which, naturally, he was not too keen on.
Using Conan to comedic effect, however, may come as a shock to some readers, but it really shouldn’t. Conan has always been funny. Savage Avengers has just given him a world to really use those comedic chops in a way only the Cimmerian can. In Savage Avengers #3, Conan refers to Logan as a dwarven champion right before Logan passes out, and then proceeds to use the clawed X-Man as a weapon against their enemies. It’s a moment of ostentatious physical comedy that some readers may find goofy, but it’s all in Conan’s character.
Casually dropping Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian (or Barbarian if you nasty) into the present version of the Marvel Comics Universe is a choice as bold as it is perplexing. With Conan sharing the same publishing banner as the Avengers and the X-Men, we should have known that some sort of crossover would be inevitable. Characters from seemingly disconnected branches have a tendency to step into adjacent worlds, and comic readers have been mostly fine with this for the better part of a century.
Think of Conan as the Kenny Powers of the Marvel Universe. His inscrutable confidence has rendered him bulletproof to outside ridicule and judgment, which makes the Cimmerian perfect for comic relief. Conan doesn’t care he’s in a strange land in a strange time. Strange is all Conan knows. He is the kind of character who battles spiders the size of a Volkswagen and hordes of ravenous enemies before breakfast.
Conan, despite (or possibly because of) his hubris, is quite good at what he does, and he knows it. Much like the aforementioned fictional washed up Major League pitcher or the countless other comedy icons who are good at what they do and refuse to bend to a changing world around them (Will Ferrell's Ricky Bobby is another prime example of this). When they experience something new, they either guffaw at it or demand to obtain it. There is rarely a middle ground.
The fact Conan can acclimate to any sort of violent situation, and how open he is to the new wonders surrounding him, makes him not only one the most dangerous members of the Savage Avengers, but it also keeps him true to his character. Robert E. Howard made Conan a man of the world, one who has traveled far and wide, exploring all sorts of exotic environments that are completely alien to him. Through those journeys, he developed a deeper understanding of various opponents and, more importantly, how to dispatch them.
In the Howard novella "Beyond the Black River," Conan proclaims: 'There's nothing in the universe cold steel won't cut," and then proceeds to explain why said blade didn't kill a demon with an excuse that is as lame as the Cimmerian saying "there was something in my eye." It's this sort of unreasonable rationale for something fantastical that has always made Conan the archetype for future sword and fantasy heroes. Howard's work is littered with moments like this. Whether it's Conan calling his shots like Babe Ruth with a broadsword or just lamenting the fact he's out of wine, the character has always been surprisingly funny in his own stories.
With Conan riding alongside dour antiheroes like the Punisher and Elektra, his verbose and violent outlook on slaying enemies makes for some big laughs. It makes Savage Avengers sometimes read like a comedy, but with way more swordplay. The Conan in Savage Avengers is really no different from any written iteration of the character that came before, but with new surroundings and shaky alliances with well known Marvel Comics characters, the Cimmerian's personality traits are dialed to eleven.