Savage Avengers

Current Roster

• Conan the Barbarian
• Agent Anti-Venom
• Elektra
• Cloak
• Dagger
• Weapon H
• Black Knight

Origin

When The Hand and Sickle Priest attempted to lure the most powerful warrior blood to the Savage Land, in order to fulfill a ritual that could teleport them to a planet beyond Pluto, a group of heroes banded together by chance, in true Avengers fashion, to fight them and avenge the dead.

Creation

The Savage Avengers where created by Gerry Dugan and Mike Deodato Jr. and first appeared in the Free Comic Book Day 2019 (Avengers/Savage Avengers) one-shot before appearing in their own title.

Major Story Arcs

The Savage Land

Kulan Gath and his student, Sickle Priest, teamed up with The Hand ninjas and sorcerers to complete a ritual with warrior blood. They had captured The Punisher and Doctor Voodoo, getting the attention of Wolverine and Elektra. The four would eventually team up with Conan (stranded in the Savage Land after his previous Avengers team up) and Venom (hearing the call of a wounded symbiote enslaved by Gath). The savage team was able to fight off the primordial being summoned by Gath, but not before Gath made his getaway with the Third Eye of Agamotto. With that new knowledge, Elektra sought the help of Dr. Strange.

Strange's War Party

The original team had split only to be replaced by a new war party gathered by Strange and Elektra. It included previous teammates Wolverine, Conan, and Voodoo, as well as a few new ones. Strange's plan involved them splitting up. to find the first and second Eyes of Agamotto

The first team was led by Magik and consisted of Conan, Juggernaut, and the Black Knight, and they went after Sadurang, the Asgardian dragon with the Second Eye of Agamotto. The second team consisted of Wolverine, Black Widow, Elektra, Punisher, and Hellstorm, who tracked the Priest of Sickles to a drug operation in Mexico.

The first team successfully retrieved Saurang's Eye of Agamotto, but the second team never found Kulan Gath. Instead, they killed the Priest of Sickles and ended his drug operation. Without leads to Kulan Gath, Strange puts the team on hold.

The End of Civilization

Unbeknownst to the first team assembled in the Savage Land, they had all been dosed with a magic poison. It would slowly work its way through their system until those warriors bent the knee for Gath. Strange uncovered this poison while searching for Gath. He was able to purge it from their system from afar with a spell that took years off the end of his life.

Meanwhile, Conan continued to be haunted by thoughts and dreams of Gath, who seemed to single Conan out. He settled into New York taking residency in the former home of the Hellfire Club. Upon learning that Gath had been under their noses the whole time, Conan went to the Sanctum Santorum to inform Strange. There, he witnessed Strange confronting Shuma-Gorath, nearly dead from all the energy siphoned by Gath, and mercy-killing the god. They were then confronted by re-animated Priest of Sickles, who was announcing the arrival of his master, Kulan Gath.

Gath had siphoned enough energy from Shuma-Gorath to finally strike at his enemies. Strange called upon the Avengers, the X-Men, as well as the previous Savage Avengers that aided them in the past, now including Dr. Doom. Unfortunately, Gath easily defeated them and quickly took over the world, ending civilization as we know it. Conan was able to escape with Doom's help, eventually inheriting his enchanted armor.

In the future, Conan continued to fight against Gath, but he needed a new strategy. He reached out to Kang the Conqueror and was able to make a deal with him to reassemble the Savage Avengers from the timestream. They fought hard against a powerful Gath, but when Magik stabbed Gath with the same knife that Strange used to kill Shuma-Gorath, Strange's blood deal with Shuma-Gorath was complete. Shuma used Gath as a gateway of rebirth and left Strange's dimension.

Victorious, the team returns to the present and celebrates with a feast at Doom's castle.

The Hyborian Hunt

Conan was hunting a cult that got their hands on a madbomb when he was confronted by a Deathlok, who was hunting Conan for breaking time travel laws. With Conan preoccupied with the Deathlok, a fatally wounded cultist was able to activate the madbomb. In addition to causing rage in the surrounding area, it attracted the attention of most "savage" heroes in the general vicinity that came to give Conan aid. Unfortunately, Deathlok's time circuits were broken in the fight and caused them all to time travel to the Hyborian Age.