One of the most uncanny tales from Marvel Comics’ Age of Conan features not only Red Sonja and the legendary Conan the Barbarian, but also the X-Men’s own savage, the Wolverine. Cast out of time in and into the mythical past, the mutant Wolverine falls for the ravishing She-Devil with a Sword and crosses claws with sorcerers and sellswords, as a spellbound Conan seeks to resurrect his love, the late Queen of the Black Coast. In Marvel’s paradoxical, yet astonishing, What If… Wolverine Battled Conan the Barbarian?, there is an age undreamed off … and thither came Logan!
In the summer of 1990, Marvel’s continuity-warping What If? series brought together the misfit Children of the Atom and the swords-and-sorcery of Robert E. Howard’s Hyborean Age with a clever twist on the Dark Phoenix saga. When the battle for Jean Grey’s soul brings the X-Men to the Blue Area of the Moon and into a life-and-death struggle with Shi’ar Empress Lilandra’s Imperial Guard, Wolverine finds himself separated from his fellow mutants and inadvertently flung into Uatu, the Watcher’s domicile. Taking a scene from the seminal Claremont/Byrne Uncanny X-Men #137, “Phoenix Must Die,” What If Vol. 2, Issue 16, presents an alternate tale in which Wolverine is trapped by the wizardry of the Watcher’s realm and abandoned in the myriad of temporal realities within. Instead of returning the clash with the Imperial Guard, Wolverine tumbles into a forgotten world of unknown peril.
Cast into the savage, primeval world of Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, Wolverine saves the life of Karanthes, a priest of Isis recruiting soldiers for the Akkharran army, but can’t understand the pleas spoken in the language of the strange land. Instead, the time-traveler relieves a drunken soldier of his uniform, as well as his coin purse, only to be confronted by Red Sonja, a warrior clad in scale mail with flowing crimson hair — an extraordinary reflection of his unrequited love, Jean Grey. Conflict turns to curiosity, as the two intrigued combatants trade swords for barstools at a tavern where, as circumstance would have it, a doleful Conan drinks to wash away the memory his lost love, Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast. The three rogues are beguiled by the evil Zukala, Master of Mages in his schemes of revenge against the Isis priest, Karanthes, and, by his hand, Wolverine and Red Sonja are forced into battle with an ensorcelled Conan, driven by the misgiven hope that his dead love might be returned to the flesh.
Zukala’s deception is short-lived, but in that time Red Sonja is rendered unconscious by the mage’s spells and Conan’s attempt to decapitate Wolverine in their vicious skirmish leaves the mutant dead to the world. Revived by his incomparable healing factor, but his mind shattered by the lack of oxygen to his brain, a feral Wolverine rises. His suppressed animal-nature brought to the fore. In a climactic battle, Wolverine cuts the hand from Conan’s swordarm as the enthralled barbarian attempts to sacrifice Red Sonja to a demon of the Lost Land — while a portal meant for Wolverine sends Conan back to the Blue Area of the Moon in his stead. Taking Zukala’s head in a last burst of rage, Wolverine banishes the demon back to the Lost Land and escapes with Red Sonja as the mage’s arcane temple collapses without its master magic to sustain it. Trapped in the Hyborean Age, the Wolverine joins paths with Red Sonja and the two ride off toward the realm of Aquilonia, where the land is “ripe with activity for spirited warriors.”
In the wake of these exceptional events, the Nemedian Chronicles, the ancient record of Hyborean Age, were thus revised to read; “Know ye, O Prince, that in the years following the passage of Conan the Cimmerian, there emerged Logan, the Wolverine, wild-haired, bestial-eyed, magically clawed, an outlaw, a philosopher, a noble savage. He trod the earth with his bride, Red Sonja, warrior-woman out of majestic Hyrkania, unto the mists of legendry.”
While in the epilogue, Conan “pops” out of the Watcher’s domicile in place of Wolverine and into the battle yet raging between the Imperial Guard and the remaining X-Men. Conan mistakes the attack on the Dark Phoenix — who appears remarkably similar to Red Sonja to the confused barbarian — as hordes of demons attacking a damsel in distress. Taking out Cyclops with a well-aimed stone, Conan mistakenly shatters Scott Summer’s psychic rapport with Phoenix, and disaster strikes. With nothing to restrain the fiery goddess-within, Dark Phoenix takes complete control of Jean Grey’s persona, and “the full fury of the Phoenix is unleashed on an unsuspecting” universe. And, as quickly as it began, the legend of Conan reaches it untimely end — at least in light of the Age of the Phoenix.