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Conan The Barbarian is Joining Marvel's Avengers
Conan the Barbarian's reintroduction into the Marvel Universe is starting off with a bang, as the Cimmerian warrior is headed for a team-up with The Avengers. Conan will meet Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the upcoming crossover event, Avengers: No Road Home.
Created in 1932 as the star of a series of fantasy novels, Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian is several years older than all characters owned by Marvel, including Captain America and Namor the Sub-Mariner. The character has been at the forefront of comic books since the 1970s, and headlined several Marvel comics and magazines from the 1970s until 2000. It was announced at the beginning of 2018 that Marvel had required the rights to Conan for a comic book series that would launch in January 2019.
Marvel Comics has revealed plans to include Conan in Avengers: No Road Home, beginning with the sixth issue in March 2019. Conan will enter the story when Scarlet Witch finds herself in the Hyborean Age. Conan will end up helping the Avengers fight against the Queen of the Night, but there will be some question over whether or not he's truly on their side.
In 2018, Marvel Comics merged all three Avengers titles for Avengers: No Surrender, a 16-part weekly event starring a cast of 26 heroes. The creative team for No Surrender (Al Ewing, Mark Waid, and Jim Zub) is coming back for another weekly series, Avengers: No Road Home, which will focus on a much smaller group of characters, including Hercules, Hawkeye, Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Spectrum, Rocket Raccoon, and Voyager. This team of Avengers will face off against a threat capable of destroying gods.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Conan joins the fight. Conan has battled Marvel characters like Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, in issues of What If?, but No Road Home will see Conan interact with the Avengers in-canon. Though typically portrayed as a good guy, Conan may not fit the Avengers' definition of a hero. In his books, Conan has a penchant for bloodshed that makes Wolverine look like Captain America. Also, Conan has a reputation as a mercenary, so his "heroic" activities are often motivated by personal gain.
It should go without saying that any long-term team-up between the Cimmerian and the Avengers will bring out extreme ideological differences. It will be fun to see how the Avengers' journey into the Hyborean Age will play out.
Avengers: No Road Home #6 goes on sale March 20, 2019.
