World's Lamest: Tales from the Quarter Box #1

What if... Wolverine had battled...Conan the Barbarian? From the depths of bad early 90s Marvel Comics comes a tale no one really asked for. "What If Wolverine had duked it out with America' favorite grizzly bear-panties wearing barbarian, Conan?" That right Conan. One can only assume Wolvie had all ready fought G.I. Joe, the Madballs, Robocop or any other licensed characters Marvel had at the time for this cross-over to see the light of day. Or in this case, the darkness of the quarter box.

We open with the X-men fighting the Shi'Ar Guard from the classic "Dark Phoenix" story in #137. Behind the scenes is Marvel's resident thumb-up-his-ass voyeur, The Watcher. He looks like he probably smells a bit like milk and cat litter and his giant head makes you want to hit him in the mouth. But I digress; the Watcher is here to spin a fairly boring yarn where Wolverine is transported to Conan-Land during the Phoenix battle.

Wolverine strikes a pose for no apparent reason while dinosaurs eat people.

What follows is 32 pages of nodding-off action and fractured Middle Earth talk. Wolverine rescues folks from the noon-time dinosaur attack, fights Red Sonja and they almost knock loin cloths (Red has sworn to bed-down with whoever bests her in poorly drawn battle). Meanwhile Conan cuts a deal with Wizzo the Wizard; if he kills a rival priest, Wizzo will resurrect Conan's dead girlfriend.

Our lovable hatchet-face Logan beats up women.

Paths are crossed and Wolvie and Conan fight it out at the rival priest's temple. Conan nearly decapitates Wolverine and leaves him or dead. Wolverine comes back to life brain damaged and feral from the lack of oxygen. Conan and Wolvie fight yet again. This time, Wolvie hacks off Conan's bowling hand, they both battle a demon and Conan gets drop-kicked to X-Men land during the Dark Phoenix battle.

Conan's famous werewolf impersonation cracks up Wolverine.

Wolverine, trapped in Middle Earth, lives happily ever after as a king. With Red Sonja by his side, and a lack of Level +4 Dragon Scale Condoms, we can only assume that they will have numerous hairy, red-headed children that say "Bub" a lot.

Baby Huey has a headache "this big!"

But what of the one-handed Conan? What zany Marvel-esque adventures await him? None. The dunderhead thinks Jean Grey is Red Sonja, goes nuts and kills the Shi'Ar and X-Men. Thus the Phoenix goes ka-blooy and wipes out the entire Marvel Universe, including the Popples, Dakota North and Police Academy.

What if? Vol. 2 #16...ass-soup.

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DR.G