THE DARK GOD (1995)

Conan has never appealed to me in the slightest and I knew next-to-nothing about the Ultraverse 'til I started the Marvel Comics Guide, so I'll keep this one pretty basic. This little crossover event happened not long before Marvel lost or gave up the rights to publish Conan stories and right after they'd started messing up the Ultraverse, so maybe they thought combining the two would work? It probably has more to do with the fact that Marvel had a chance to bring Barry Windsor-Smith back to Conan (the series that made him famous) by having him cross paths with his most recent creation, Rune, in the one-shot comic.

This could easily have been passed off as taking place outside of continuity, but Conan was originally considered part of Earth-616's ancient history and Rune was seriously old, so it'd be revealed some time later that Rune hopped realities from Earth-93060 to Earth-616 hundreds of years ago and clashed with the world's most famous barbarian.

Related Events: These stories are set at different points in the lives of both Conan and Rune, but were released in quick succession to acknowledge their brief shared history.

• Conan #4[2/2]
• Conan vs Rune #1
• Conan the Savage #4[1/2]

Conan #4[2/2]

Rune has spent enough time on Earth-616 to blood-munch his way through just the right amount of humans to practically make himself a god. He opens some kind of scrying pool to see if anyone might pose a threat to his plan to rule the entire planet and is shown a sword-wielding barbarian on horseback. He figures this man can't possibly pose much of a threat...

Conan vs Rune #1

Conan rides into a city looking for food and rest, only to find mangled human bodies littering the streets and staining the walls. One near-dead survivor tells him of the man they discovered in the dessert with no footprints around him. They nursed him to health, then months later he began to consume them all. Conan gives the man a quick death and finds his way to the centre of the town where he fights the 'Dark God' among a sea of dead bodies. Rune's sheer power give him the upper hand, but Conan rips jewels from around his neck, causing Conan to violently hallucinate. When he recovers, Rune is gone. Conan burns the city and goes on his way...

Conan the Savage #4[1/2]

Ten years into his role as King of the Aquilonian Empire, a much older Conan leads his soldiers into the tower of the Brotherhood of the Spider where he aims to kill the Brotherhood for their own attempt on his life. The Brotherhood summon the demon called the All-Knowing B'eethra which announces itself by killing many of the Brotherhood themselves. Rune emerges from the shadows and attacks B'eethra, only to be consumed by it, too. Conan tries to fight the creature, but it's destroyed from within by Rune. Recognising each other from years before, Conan decapitates Rune immediately and hacks his body to pieces. Conan returns to his men outside the tower, leaving a very angry head behind him...

Ultraverse Unlimited #1 (1996)

Rune's reality-hopping is explained in a flashback sequence during KINDRED.

Freex #17 (1995)

Rune is revealed to have returned to Earth-93060 where he becomes the Priest of Amon-Ra and encounters the time-lost Freex during GODWHEEL.

These issues have not yet been collected.