Spider-Man/Red Sonja #2
Two Hours Ago…
Eddie Brock is in the bathroom of his apartment complaining about the recent article about Venom in the Daily Bugle that labels him a villain. That’s when the symbiote speaks up and tells him that they need to make people see the truth. Brock is uncertain of this because sometimes the symbiote makes him do bad things. However, the alien creature assures Eddie that they always do the right thing, feed upon the weak and wicked. That’s when Kulan Gath’s magic spell begins transforming Manhattan into a Hyborian era city. The symbiote hears the ancient sorcerer calling out to them to fulfill their purpose. Transforming into Venom, they both vow to destroy Spider-Man.
Now
Spider-Man has just witnessed his Mary Jane transform into Red Sonja, the warrior woman from the Hyborian era. Proclaiming that no man can touch her, she slashed the web-slinger with her sword, sending him falling over the side of a temple that was once the Manhattan Metropolitan Art Museum.[1] Not understanding the transformation that has taken place, Spider-Man breaks his fall with a web-line and swings back up to try and talk sense into Mary Jane. However, hearing herself called by another name and referred to as the wall-crawler’s wife does nothing more than anger Red Sonja even further. With no other choice, Spider-Man is forced to fight Red Sonja. He is able to disarm her and evade her blows. As they fight Red Sonja reasserts who she is, saying that she is a warrior who is seeking to destroy Kulan Gath, who is responsible for murdering her family and stealing her innocence.[2] By this point, Spider-Man has decided to write this all off as a crazy dream and will keep trying to convince Red Sonja that she is actually Mary Jane or he’ll wake up and everything will be back to normal.
Their fight takes them off the roof and onto the street below. Separated from her sword for so long, Red Sonja suddenly has strong feelings for Spider-Man and begins reverting back into Mary Jane. That is until she picks up her sword which causes the Red Sonja personality come to the fore once more and dismisses these conflicting thoughts and emotions as some kind of twisted magic. That’s when Spider-Man’s spider-sense begins going off, signaling the arrival of Venom who vows to destroy both Spider-Man and Red Sonja for his new master, Kulan Gath. Spider-Man evades the initial attack, but Red Sonja leaps in, intending on slaying the creature, something that Spider-Man doesn’t think will go so well.
While inside the palace, Kulan Gath uses his magic to create a projection of the battle going on outside and orders J. Jonah Jameson to write down his words. He decrees that every redhead in the city is to be beheaded in order to prevent Red Sonja’s essence from possessing the body of any other woman, leaving her and Spider-Man at the mercy of Venom. An army of trolls are then sent through the city led by Vermin to round up all the redheads. Among those who are captured by Vermin include Joe Robertson, the city editor for the Daily Bugle, who was out looking for his family. Vermin tells them all that they are to be sacrificed in the blood pits as a tribute to his new master. Back at the scene of the battle, Red Sonja is holding her own against Venom, but Spider-Man gets between the pair for fear that Mary Jane might get injured. Unfortunately, Venom overpowers him and throws him into Central Park Lake. Red Sonja then breaks off her attacks and leaps into the water after the web-slinger. That’s when Vermin arrives and orders Venom to report back to their master, Kulan Gath.
Meanwhile, the locals are being herded into a fenced-off area of Sheep’s Meadow where executioners are decapitating red-haired women and putting their heads on pikes. Observing all of this is Kulan Gath, who gloats to his scribe, J. Jonah Jameson, that everything is going according to plan and soon his power will grow and he will be able to transform the entire planet. At that same moment, Red Sonja has recovered Spider-Man from the lake and decided that she can trust him due to a small voice in the back of his head. Spider-Man figures that this is whatever is left of Mary Jane’s personality Once on shore, Red Sonja decides that in order to defeat Kulan Gath they’ll need allies and leaves Spider-Man to recover, telling the web-slinger that she’ll be back. Unfortunately, 10 minutes later Spider-Man is found by the minions of Kulan Gath who decide to take him to their master. Seeing this, Red Sonja’s need for allies becomes a much larger priority. While at the same time, J. Jonah Jameson has explained the nature of Venom’s alien symbiote to Kulan Gath who intends to increase its power by draining the alien’s lifeforce.
Recurring Characters
Spider-Man, Red Sonja, Kulan Gath, Venom, J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson, Vermin
Continuity Notes
Peter and Mary Jane are referred to as a married couple in this story. However, not long after this, their marriage was erased from existence by Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. In the new timeline, the couple never got married as such Peter would refer to Mary Jane as his fiancee here.
This is a reference to Red Sonja #0-7 published by Dynamite Entertainment, which features Kulan Gath as the primary protagonist and the one responsible for murdering her family. See below for more details.
Cannonancy Of Red Sonja
For those not in the know, Red Sonja was a spin-off character of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories. In the 1970s until the early 2000s, Marvel had the rights to Conan and various other Robert E. Howard characters and adapted them into comic book form. As was the practice of the time, Conan, Kull, and Red Sonja’s adventures were all considered part of the Marvel Universe since their Hyborian era adventures wouldn’t interfere with what was going on in modern-day Marvel stories. Often, elements from Conan and it’s sister properties were incorporated into the mythos of Marvel continuity. This was primarily when dealing with the ancient Atlantis and Lemuria, and some demonic entities appearing in Marvel’s various mystical titles, such as Doctor Strange.
However, back in those days there was rarely any actual crossovers between the Robert E. Howard characters and Marvel’s heroes. Spider-Man met Red Sonja and King Kull in Marvel Team-Up #79 and 112 respectively. Conan on the other hand didn’t really interact with the Marvel Universe. He appeared in a few issues of What If? that featured Conan either being brought to the present or fighting a modern-day superhero like Thor and Wolverine. He did make a brief appearance in Fantastic Four #405, where he was among the various warriors from different eras brought forward in time by Zarrko the Tomorrow Man to fight the FF. The character with the most encounters with the modern-day Marvel Universe, however, was Kulan Gath. Who, other than appearing in issues of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian series, also appeared in Marvel Team-Up, Uncanny X-Men, and the third volume of the Avengers. That said, Marvel never published any stories where Kulan Gath fought Red Sonja. In fact, Red Sonja appears in about 130 Marvel books and most of them are in the pages of the various Conan titles.
Originally, Red Sonja was bundled up with the rest of Robert E. Howard’s characters until the release of the 1985 Red Sonja film. The Howard Estate then spun out Red Sonja into its own separate license. Later, Marvel allowed their licensing of Howard’s characters to elapse. The rights to Conan (and most everything else) went over to Dark Horse until 2018 when Marvel got the license back. Red Sonja on the other hand went to and continues (at the time of this writing) to be published by Dynamite Entertainment.
In the case of Conan, Marvel has been reprinting a number of the Dark Horse Comics and I’m assuming this means that the stories they have reprinted are being considered part of Conan’s Marvel continuity.
The situation with Red Sonja is a little pricklier. In the original Marvel stories, the only time Red Sonja faces Kulan Gath is in Marvel Team-Up #79. The inclusion of the character as Red Sonja’s primary antagonist was not something that happened until the license went over to Dynamite Entertainment.
This story references the previous Spider-Man/Red Sonja team-up as well as Kulan Gath’s other interactions with the Marvel Universe, yet at the same time, it also references plot elements that were only introduced when the license went over to Dynamite Entertainment. The suggestion being made is that the Dynamite Entertainment stories are also considered part of the history of the Marvel character. Yet at the same time, Red Sonja and Spider-Man both act like they have never met each other before.
It’s certainly possible since the Dynamite Entertainment material (at least prior to the Gail Simone reboot in 2013) fits with what was established in Marvel Continuity. It gets disruptive with the 2013 reboot. So I suppose that at the end of the day it’s really up to you if you want to consider the Dynamite stuff as part of the Marvel continuity or not. At least until Marvel gets the rights back (if they ever do) when something like that can be definitively answered.
