The Savage Avengers’ first Marvel villain just returned, and he brought an entire city of corrupted followers to Marvel’s Manhattan.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Savage Avengers #23, available now from Marvel.
The Savage Avengers have crossed every corner of the globe in their hunt for evil sorcerer Kulan Gath, they have had no luck in actually finding their quarry. Doctor Strange has even taken to drastic measures in the hopes of finding someone or something that can actually help, but to no avail. Kulan Gath has become invisible, and no matter how many of his various smaller schemes the heroes undo, the villain behind it all has remained effortlessly elusive.
Unfortunately, the mad wizard has finally come to them, and he has brought something even bigger than an army with him, with all of it being announced by none other than the resurrected Sickle Priest himself in Savage Avengers #23, by Gerry Duggan, Patch Zircher, Java Tartaglia and Travis Lanham.
While Conan had been caught in an ever-changing nightmare alongside Johnny Blaze, Doctor Strange has been on a terrifying journey of his own to visit the Eldritch horror Shuma-Gorath. The Sorcerer Supreme had hoped that his longtime nemesis would be able to offer some amount of assistance in the battle against Kulan Gath, but their mutual enemy has already left Shuma-Gorath on death’s door. Shortly after the arrival of Conan at the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange takes his leave of Kulan Gath’s realm to return to his own and continue his search.
As soon as they reach the ground, Strange and Conan realize that something is amiss, and the poorly pieced together Sickle Priest reveals himself as the one who has breached Doctor Strange’s stronghold. The Sickle Priest knows well enough from his last encounter with the Savage Avengers that he alone isn’t enough to be a serious threat to them, which is exactly why he has brought some friends. In fact, he has brought an entire city’s worth of friends once the City of Sickles manifests high above the New York City skyline.
First introduced in 2019’s Savage Avengers #1 by Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato Jr., the City of Sickles was once a single massive structure dedicated to making human sacrifices in the name of the Jhoatun Lau, the Marrow God. When his worshippers succeeded over 100,000 years ago, the Marrow God found them to be less than pleasing and took their lives for himself before returning home. Over the years this former site of endless death would have the City of Sickles constructed above and around it, becoming a monument of the Hyborian Age from which Conan himself hails.
Thousands of years later, the cult of Jhoatun Lau returned to the City of Sickles located deep within the Savage Land. There Jhoatun Lau’s followers joined forces with the Hand and other mystical sects in the hopes of successfully summoning and sating their demonic master. Instead, these various supernatural threats only found the Savage Avengers, though both sides of the battle left heavy impressions on the other. The Sickle Priest was personally responsible for the gruesome murder of Doctor Voodoo, an act that the Savage Avengers would pay back with interest in their own way by running the villain through a woodchipper when they next met. If it were only the Sickle Priest who had returned, things might not be looking so grim, but the might of the airborne City of Sickles behind him, this oft-forgotten menace has officially become the Savage Avengers’ worst nightmare.
There is no telling what awaits the Savage Avengers inside the City of Sickles, or even if they will live to find out for themselves, considering how the odds are already stacked against them. This is all assuming that one city doesn’t get dropped on top of another as well, which is not out of the question with an unhinged lunatic such as Kulan Gath behind the wheel. If nothing else, Conan can at least say that he has traversed the City of Sickles before, which could prove to be of great use if he and Doctor Strange can stay alive long enough to reach it.
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