Even in the world of comics, where crossovers happen all the time involving heroes blundering into each other's books and causing all kinds of trouble, it's rare for a character to team up with their own parody. I mean, I've seen Superman hang out with Bugs Bunny before, but seeing someone in pitched battle against a character created pretty directly to make fun of them? It doesn't happen often.

And yet, next month, that's exactly what's going to happen in Conan vs. Groo, where the world's most famous barbarian ends up battling against the world's most obliviously destructive barbarian, in a crossover Dark Horse bills as featuring "three swords, two barbarians, one brain.

Originally created way back in 1982 by legendary MAD Magazine artist Sergio Aragones, with Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth, Groo was originally intended to parody Conan by replacing his canny intelligence and awareness with an oblivious knack for accidentally wiping out entire civilizations. In the years since, though, it's grown to become one of the longest-running and most highly-regarded creator-owned books of all time. This particular crossover with Conan, which seems pretty natural and features Conan artist Thomas Yeates, has actually been brewing for quite a while, too -- it was announced in 2007, and during that announcement, it was revealed that it had been in the works since at 2005. Now, it's finally set to be released on July 23.

 

Groo vs. Conan, Dark Horse Comics
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Groo vs. Conan, Dark Horse Comics
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Groo vs. Conan, Dark Horse Comics
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Groo vs. Conan, Dark Horse Comics
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Groo vs. Conan, Dark Horse Comics
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Groo vs. Conan, Dark Horse Comics
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