Savage Avengers, Vol. 1: City of Sickles

Savage Avengers (2019)

by Gerry Duggan, Mike Deodato Jr. (Illustrator), Gerry Duggan (Writer)

The most vicious team of antiheros in the Marvel Universe assembles! Wolverine! Venom! Elektra! Punisher! Doctor Voodoo! And in their midst — Conan the Barbarian! That’s right, the Cimmerian has arrived in the Marvel Universe — and his new adventures begin here! The deadly ninja army known as the Hand has teamed up with the evil wizards of the Hyborian Age to summon a death god from a celestial hell. The only thing standing between Earth and destruction is the Savage Avengers! Conan discovers a dark secret squirming in a genie bottle. Logan donates blood, changing one Avenger forever. Elektra tries to corral them all into an effective fighting force. And the Punisher desperately searches for his disinterred family! Plus: Conan hefts a deadly new savage sword! The Savage Avengers are fighting to save you!

Collects Savage Avengers #1-5 and material from Free Comic Book Day 2019 (Avengers/Savage Avengers) #1.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 26, 2019

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I heard they were starting a Savage Avengers book and Conan would be part of it, I assumed this would be about the prehistoric Avengers from Jason Aaron's run. Nope. It's all the heroes who kill people in the Marvel universe brought together by Kulan Gath. If there's any old school Marvel fans around, Kulan Gath is an immortal wizard who fought Conan back in the day when Marvel originally had the rights. (He also fought the X-Men and Spider-Man and turned New York into a Dungeons & Dragons 'burg.) This is better than it had any right to be, given how everything is shoe-horned together. Deodato is the perfect artist for this kind of book.

[Malum · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know there is a problem when Conan is your freaking comedy relief. Robert E. Howard is spinning so hard in his grave you could attach him to the front of a biplane and take off. Please, Marvel, kill this series in a fire.
So let's take a look at some of the problems in this abortion of an idea (some spoilers ahead):

If you are picking this book up for Venom, skip it. He is in it for about 10 seconds.

They trip a skyscraper-sized monster by tying a rope to a fire hydrant and having him trip on the rope. They literally show him picking up a bus, but a fire hydrant is so strong he doesn't just rip it out of the ground when he pulls on the rope? Ok....

Wolverine brings someone back from the dead by pouring his blood on their heart: Ok, are we seriously going to establish in canon that Wolverine can do this now? So if Iceman sneezes on me will I shit icicles? If Cyclops farts in my direction will I PEW PEW from my eyes? Give me a break. That would be like pouring bear blood on me and suddenly I grow claws and fur. So, yeah, Wolverine can raise the dead now, as if he didn't already have enough powers (although I'm sure he will forget he can do this when Marvel needs to kill off another character).

The Punisher has a claymore mine go off on his back and it doesn't hurt him at all. The back end of the claymore was against his back, but I'm fairly certain he would still have a broken spine and a back full of shrapnel regardless.

Lots of Conan problems here:
I don't think Duggan has read a Conan story in his entire life: Conan is suddenly an evangelical 'Cromtian". He can "hear Crom speaking to him" and Crom "gave him a magic sword" and "you don't want Crom to take notice of you!". NO. Just, no. Even after he is told that all of his "Crom is speaking to me" nonsense is caused by a symbiote, he still insists that it is Crom speaking directly to him. That's not how Conan works and that's not how Crom works.

As stated earlier, Conan is the comedy relief here. Wolverine tells Conan that he hails from "Pabst", and Conan spends the rest of the book saying shit like "Fight for Pabst!". Just put me out of my misery.

I don't have the book in front of me, but Conan calls the Punisher something like "psychopathic vigilante". Conan calls someone else a psychopathic vigilante? Does he not understand that he, too, kills people with wild abandon? What's next, is he going to call Ka-zar a "Filthy barbarian"? He also calls Wolverine something like "Dwarf champion". Is he a freaking D&D character now? Holy shit on a stick.

I usually hate flashbacks to previous comics, but this one desperately needed a recap of how Conan not only came to our time, but how he speaks flawless English.

The entire premise of bringing Conan to our times is flawed from the start if you know ANYTHING about the character. The Hyborian Age is as much a character in Conan stories as Conan himself is. Every Conan story ever written (as far as I know) is about Conan interacting with the Hyborian Age. Even the shittiest pastiches hold true to this ideal. To remove Conan from that is to lose what makes Conan different from any other sword & sorcery warrior. In fact, I would rather read a story taking place in the Hyborian Age without Conan than read a Conan story without the Hyborian Age. He is interesting because of the way he interacts with his world, not because he is strong and swings a sword. What's next, Gandalf and Frodo team up with Spider-Man? Just because you can, Marvel, doesn't mean you should.

There is probably a lot more that I hated about this, but writing about it is making me want to duct-tape ten cellphones to my head in the hope that I get a lethal brain tumor.

[Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

[Scott Rhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1964, a British pop band called the Savage Avengers made it to #1 on the Billboard charts with "I'm going to slice your heart into pieces and eat it". The band, fronted by Conan the Barbarian, went on to make three decent albums. Then, in 1982, drummer Elektra announced that lead bassist Venom had sexually assaulted her with a tentacle. Keyboardist Punisher was arrested on illegal weapons charges, and flutist Doctor Voodoo nearly overdosed on peyote. It led to an upsetting break-up. Only one member, lead guitarist Wolverine, had mediocre success with a solo blues album in 1986.

In March 2021, Gerry Duggan brought the band back together. Their reunion concert in mid-April of that year at Manchester Stadium was the best-sellingest concert in history.

Amazingly, only 239 concert-goers were killed.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been reading a ton of books starring these characters, so I was in the right mood to give this series a second go, but I still can't convince myself to give this more than two stars, Mike Deodato's art looks pretty awesome, at least for the first half, but the story is all style and no substance, if you listen to some metal music in the background, the experience is gonna be the equivalent of watching a metal music video, and that's because Gerry Duggan is always going for the obvious, characters act like action figures, which make some of them feel out of character, Frank Castle for example looks like a complete mental case, and Venom was reduced to a comedic relief character, it is what it is, a cheap excuse to see Marvel characters interact with Conan, and that's not a bad thing, but there's a lot of bad dialogue and stupid stuff happening in this book that killed the mood for me like Wolverine resurrecting people with his blood.

[Oscar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of action and violence!

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Savage Avengers ain't kidding about the savage part.

So a new asshole is in town and he's summoning creatures and being a evil dude. He goes after Voodoo first and Wolverine tries to stop his murder but it doesn't happen. This then brings together a band of unlikely heroes including Wolverine, Voodoo, Electra, and Conan the fucking Barbarian as well as Punisher and Venom. Together can this brutal team work together to stop a evil force from taking over the world? Well yeah. They're the Savage goddamn Avengers baby!

This is truly over the top and one of the most insane avengers titles I ever read. Wolverine is chopping ninja's arms and heads off left and right. Conan is putting a sword through an eye. Electra is stabbing people. I mean it's pure chaos yet it's all pretty fun. Conan is a highlight as a fish out of water type character with some lolz lines such as "The might Dwarf, will you fight along side me?" When talking to Logan. Great times.

On the flipside the plot is so paper thin you'd wonder if there is really one. Also, the inclusion of people like Punisher and Venom feel pretty forced.

Listen, it's not perfect, but it's damn entertaining. I couldn't help but smile reading most of this. A easy 3.5 out of 5.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sword and sorcery and superheroes.

Conan the barbarian and one of his old foes have been brought to the present day MCU, and the villain lures in a group of Marvel's most bloodthirsty antiheroes to bring about an apocalypse by way of a giant bowl of blood sacrifices. Many, many henchmen are killed by Wolverine, Elektra, Conan, Punisher, and Venom. And for some reason Doctor Voodoo is there too.

It all feels like a 1980s action movie, dumb but with a couple of chuckles.

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty wild and fun book. It starts off with Kulan Gath and his HAND ninjas targeting Brother Voodoo and then comes Wolverine and Conan in Savage Land and someone has taken Punisher's family here and Elektra and Venom are also sort of involved and then this group comes together for the HAND wants to use the blood of he mighty warriors to summon the Marrow God, Jhoatun Lau to earth and they do sort of do it and is upto the Savage Avengers to stop this insane god and protect humanity and the world at large.

This was a pretty wild and rambunctious title and had such great moments for Conan like him fighting Wolverine or using weird words or teaming up with the symbiote and fighting Kulan Gath and what not. Its fun to see a weird mix of characters fighting a villain who may have been there for 3 pages at most and the over arching theme of him going after Kulan Gath. He is a fish out of water for sure and him in the Marvel universe has him interacting with weird new characters to him and its fun to see.

There is not much plot but there is a lot of action and the art is a delight for the eyes and it allows MDJ to go and make it dark, broody, rainy and bloody and I love the way he draws Wolverine and they have some interesting lines. Next up: Conan and Punisher team up.

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun!

I've not read anything Conan before so it was great to meet him, especially as he interacts with characters I am familiar with.

I love how this brought such a random bunch together and somehow they make it work. I'd never met Doctor Voodoo before but I'll be keeping an eye out for him in the future because he is good fun!

This volume brings everyone together and throws them into some wild action and I just really loved it. The artwork is colourful and easy to follow, and there's already a meaty story to sink the teeth into.

Looking forward to see how the next volume progresses!

[Cail Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s really dumb, but also fun. It’s Conan fan-fiction crossed with “Bring On the Bad Guys.”

Conan of Cimmeria and Wolverine of Pabst — I had a chuckle at that.

[Dom Nuno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great art, ok story, no connection to... anything avengy!

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Initially I bought this comic for the solely character of Conan and Wolverine, them meeting was a kind of interesting Premise. This collection of comics are actually quite beautifully penciled and coloured, even if the story is somewhat weird and a bit lost on me. I missed the reason why Conan from the age before our time suddenly appears in the current Marvel timeline, that could have been more expanded upon .

The Character from our little drama are Conan the Cimmerian, Wolverine, Electra, Frank Castle aka the Punisher, Doctor Voodoo (never heard of him before) & Venom, all of them by now in possession of one or more movies and/or tv shows except for the Doctor Fella.

In the Savage lands hidden in the Antarctica Ice world these powerful and often more bloody hero's from the Marvel universe are coming into a bloody conflict with one of the powerful wizards from Conans era whose has a student from our times and they want the earth to be destroyed by some demon entity. Who is about to discover that the gentlemen that are part of the so-called Savage Avengers are a hellbent on his destruction as the demon would be on destruction of earth.
so little plot and a heck of lot bloody panels containing no-holds barred action.

The whole mini-series left me wondering why the Cimmerian is part of it, the original Savage Sword made a better effort of getting Conan to this modern era, he adds nothing really except being the funny one which is a bit odd as Conan is not very well known for his sense of humor. I guess the license to the character must be fully exploited. Even if Conan & Wolverines first meeting was clearly the highlight of the mini-series after that the story was just not as interesting as I expected and on many occasion a bit WTF, Wolverine's blood bringing a man from the dead was a tad too much of the trodden path for my liking. I understand the strong objections by the fanboys.

I have read it and shall consider reading the sequel which clearly is going ahead. Just out of curiosity of course.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stranded in the Marvel Universe after the events of Avengers: No Road Home, Conan The Barbarian is stalking his way through the Savage Land on a quest to get home. Across the globe, heroes are being tricked, kidnapped, and coerced into converging on the City Of Sickles, which is lead by none other than Conan's nemesis, evil sorcerer Kulan Gath. Together, these heroes will become the Savage Avengers, and the only thing standing between Earth and utter destruction.

The story here is clever enough - Gerry Duggan is good at balancing all of the characters he has going on, managing to make such a disparate group work pretty well together even when they really shouldn't on paper. I like that he kind of acknowledges Elektra and Punisher's history, and that even though Conan is clearly the star of the book, he doesn't drive the story entirely.

The Savage in the Savage Avengers isn't a boast either - this book is bloody from the word go, which is strange for a Marvel book but oddly apt given the characters assembled. No one's holding back, and nor should they be.

The real problem however, and the reason for my 2 star rating, is Mike Deodato's artwork. He used to be one of my favourite artists, truly, and now his name on a book strikes fear in my heart. His work here is sketchy and rough, to the point where I had to flip back through the book not once, not twice, but three times when I realised I'd missed something in the artwork that was relevant to the plot. How the mighty have fallen, and such.

Savage Avengers has a great idea, a good group of characters, and a solid plot in mind. It's just a shame that it's almost impossible to work out what's going on because the artwork's so dodgy.

[Trike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a throwback to the crazy team-up romps of yesteryear.

Wolverine, Conan, Elektra, Punisher, Voodoo and Venom doing bloody battle with an ancient wizard, his acolyte the former Nazi, and the evil ninjas known as The Hand, all while trying to prevent a gigantic demon from beyond space from eating Shanghai? And it takes place in the freakin’ Savage Land?

Come on. I’m in.

Look at this insanity:

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Never really achieves more than “dumb fun”, but it does have Conan battling Wolverine.

[RG · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid. Deodatos art is what makes this

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Know before you begin the Savage Avengers that the assembled team has nothing to do with the Avengers -- no affiliation -- and that they are not even remotely a team of Savage "Avengers." The comic could just as easily be called Conan's Bastards, or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Savage Land, or The Dirty Half-Dozen, but Marvel knows that if they throw Avengers in a title it's going to sell more comics, so Savage Avengers is the title they gave us.

False advertising aside there is really only one thing that doesn't work for me in Savage Avengers, and that is the same thing that fails to work for me whenever he appears -- the Punisher. Apologies to Gerry Duggan for my feelings since Duggan's motive for choosing Frank Castle as one of his Savages makes perfect sense and is upheld by his story's internal logic, but I simply can't stand the Punisher. I find him boring, overused, one note, a prime example in our comic book writers of what Ursula K. Leguin called "the treason of the artist":

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. (from The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas),

and the Punisher's presence in any comic, for me at least, diminishes whatever else is being done, which is particularly unfortunate in the Savage Avengers, considering how good everything else is.

We get Wolverine lopping off limbs left and right, while stretching his healing factor beyond anything we've ever seen before; we get Elektra as something of a chess master moving her pawns around and keeping them alive when she can; we get Doctor Voodoo (perhaps the least savage of the bunch) magicking his ass off; Venom doing what Venom does best -- cracking wise in a supporting role; and best of all, Conan of Cimmeria, hot off the pages of Savage Sword of Conan, ridiculously exiles from Hyboria and set loose in the Savage Land (what next? Kull as a member of the Fantastic Four?). I'm going to come right out and say that I came to Savage Avengers because of Conan. I'm a huge fan. I still play Conan RPG games and strategy games. I even love apocryphal Conan villains -- like the Savage Avengers' Kulan Gath -- even though they have no connection whatsoever to the original works of Robert E. Howard. All of these elements are worth the visit with Gerry Duggan's mad team of Savage Bad-Asses, and the art work is a slicing, dicing, bloody brilliant morass of gore, so that is good too.

Savage Avengers is pure O-Positive escapism, and very nearly perfect. If only Frank Castle would fuck off and die. Or even better ... I'd love a Mandela effect where only I can remember that the Punisher ever existed and the rest of the world has no idea what I am talking about. What a wonderful world that would be.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's going to be almost impossible for me not to like a story featuring The Punisher, Wolverine, Conan, and Venom, so I knew going in even if it was bad I'd still get some enjoyment out of it.

That being said, I did feel like we got dropped into the middle of the story and never quite got caught up. I knew what was happening, and even why, just not how we got to this point. And while the idea of seeing Punisher and Wolverine teaming up with Conan sounds cool, it really just doesn't work that well on anything but a "mindless action" superficial level.

I like Deodato's art even if at times it gets confusing. I think he was a good choice for this title as his style works well with these characters. I'd like to see him do more solo Conan work especially.

Bottom line on this is if the idea of The Punisher, Wolverine, Conan, Elektra, Doctor Voodoo and Venom all teaming up sounds cool to you, you'll probably enjoy this on some level. If it sounds like a confusing mess to you, then that's probably how it will read.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 3 out of 5]

SAVAGE AVENGERS is about a team of Marvel antiheroes gathered together to fight against Kulan Gath, the poor man's Thoth Amon, as he summons a giant monster to ravage New York. It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect but the fact we have Elektra, the Punisher, and Conan teamed up with Wolverine (of course) as well as Brother Voodo makes it worth the spetacle. Conan feels a trifle off as does Frank Castle who I don't believe would be NEARLY as chill as the book portrays him--certainly he'd try to take out Elektra as well as Venom--but it was still quite a bit fun.

Really, I'm just reading it for Conan in the modern day.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first 10 issues as the singles were coming out. Now that I have the first 4 trades, I figured I’d refresh and start from the beginning. The story still holds up with the reread. All these violent characters drawn to the same place for different reasons are now forced to fight together to stop Kulan Gath. The name says it all, this book is very savage. Lots of body parts being hacked off and a lot of bloodshed. The meeting of Wolverine and Conan was worth the price of admission. This series is a lot of fun. On to volume 2!!

[Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey the new Thunderbolts series is actually really good!! Lol but in all seriousness this was a blast to read. The story is simple: a wizard named Kulan Gath is using the Hand to kidnap and execute people as sacrifices to an HP Lovecraft god. Got to say that a big criticism I have with the comic was the plot holes. I still don’t really know why Elektra and Venom are here or why they’re in this comic. It’s a great concept though and the characters have lots of chemistry together. Really excited to see how this series pans out.

[Lucas Savio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na real mesmo isso é um prelúdio para oque virá. Uniu todos os cascas grossas da Marvel para uma batalha contra um mago aparentemente do universo do Conan. Gostei muito da interação Wolverine e Conan, n vou mentir que teve umas sacadas boas o Dugan que entrega um feijão com arroz gostoso e com uma arte linda que da uns tropeços no final do encadernado mas nada muito gritante

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fiquei bastante impactado positivamente com este novo título dos Vingadores, que apresenta a sua versão selvagem, ou seja, os principais e mais violentos heróis da aventura. E sim, a violência é um dos itens componentes desta história em quadrinhos. Pode ser um elemento principal para atrair alguns, mas o que me atraiu nela foi a aventura. A forma como Gerry Duggan trabalhou o encontro de Conan e sua interação com os demais personagens foi bastante bem elaborada, dando aquele gostinho de senso de maravilhamento. Isso porque essa aventura se passa em diversos lugares do mundo, com um ritual de feiticeiros, comandados pelo memorável Kulan Gath, lembrando as histórias, também memoráveis dos X-Men ao redor do mundo e do Excalibur perdido no tempo. Até personagens como Justiceiro e Elektra que não costumam serem muito carismáticos, encontram seu lugar na trama. Os desenhos de Deodato ficam num meio do caminho entre seus últimos e primeiros trabalhos na Marvel. Mas um ponto negativo da HQ foram as cores de Frank Martin, que costumam ser sensacionais, mas desta vez os tons muito escuros atrapalhar uma melhor degustação dos desenhos e da narrativa de Mike Deodato Jr. De qualquer forma, Vingadores Selvagens foi além das minhas expectativas, tanto que comecei a ler e não parei até chegar no final. Vale a pena, então, a sua leitura.

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected nothing and I'm still disappointed. This isn't egregiously bad in any ways and I definitely understand why someone would really enjoy this, but it did very little for me. It's basically just where a bunch of Marvel's anti-heroes end up in the Savage Lands and team up to fight an evil wizard.

The plot was more or less nonexistent and the characters ranged from fine to barely characters. Venom in particular spent basically the whole volume just being used as a prop to make sure other characters didn't die.

If it were just all of that then this would easily be a 2-star, but the art was really what pushed this up to a 3. As I said, this isn't an overly plotty comic and it focuses mostly on action, which Mike Deodato clearly excels at. I've never read anything with his art before but now I kind of want to because he's fantastic at drawing action and gore in a way that a lot of other comic artists think they are.

Unfortunately, other than the great art style, this really had nothing going for it. Nothing bad but not much good either.

[Papasmurfiiiviii · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a cool, fun book. I'd recommend to anyone who likes any of the major characters in the series: Conan, Wolverine, Punisher, Elektra, Doctor Voodoo. The exception being Venom. That's because Venom is hardly featured in it, and frankly, when he is, his role is a bit confusing and muddled. Furthermore, from a Marvel Universe story perspective, when did this even take place? Needless to say those criticisms accounted for the lower rating. Another problem is the rushed nature of the series. Now to be fair, this is a problem with multiple, I mean multiple, series, as well as the comic industry as a whole.

TL/DR: Not perfect; cool characters and should read if you like them.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bullets, blades and badasses. And some sorcery sprinkled in. If you’re in the market for these things, Savage Avengers is where it will be found. Since some of my all-time favorite Marvel characters are here in this rogues gallery, I couldn’t resist. And overall, it’s worth the read just to see Conan battle Wolverine again (also can be seen in What If...vol. 2 #16, 1990) and to see a bit of the old ultra violence that only Punisher, Elektra, Venom and Brother Voodoo can bring. A good little read for the fans.

[Nicole Westen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw super excited about this, because it has three of my favorite characters, Wolverine, Doctor Voodoo, and Venom. I think the one part that I loved the most, which also made me laugh the most, was Conan swinging around an unconscious Wolverine, using his claws to kill the hand, while yelling for him to wake up and 'fight for Pabst'.
If you need any more recommendation, I borrowed this from the library, and when I had finished reading it, went out and bought it.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great cast of characters, and one of Marvel's top authors, based on his work on the X-Men line, and we get this bit of mediocrity.

Pretty much no characterization. It's just a long fight with an ever-growing cast of characters. And, hey, it's an arc setup. *Maybe* we'll get more out of these characters on future outings, but this is not just prelude, it's dull prelude.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is better than it has any right to be. Conan does not belong in the current Marvel timeline. That being said, this is a fun, brutal story with some dynamite artwork and I'll be here for the next installment.