When Wolverine met Freddy Mercury

January 4, 2013 1:07 PM

In 2010, Marvel Comics artist Steve Bunch posted an anonymous page to his blog that featured X-Men frontman Wolverine inexplicably encountering Queen frontman Freddy Mercury, an art submission originally sent to Darren Auck, then head of Marvel's art-correction team, in the 1990s. Portland-based comics artist Colleen Coover read Bunch's post, and in 2012 she decided to do something about it: she decided to recreate the page, adding color (both literal and metaphorical) to the meeting of these two (actual and arguable) mutants. Since then, other comic artists have decided to recreate the historic meeting depicted on that original, baffling/brilliant page: Some are magical; some are professional grade (pages one and two); some are prosaic; some are, frankly, adorable. Not all of them are on Coover's page. Do you hold the secret to this story? Coover would like to see your take: "I invite other artists to do the same, by which exercise we may one day come close to the fictional Truth of the matter."
posted by firstbest (39 comments total)

Well, Wolverine can belt it out and all you know...
posted by Artw at 1:13 PM on January 4, 2013

This DEMANDS a Cromartie High School crossover!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:15 PM on January 4, 2013 [5 favorites]

I will read 10,000 issues of Freddie Mercury saving the day by pulverizing Sentinels with his rock-god powers. If this makes me wrong, I don't want to be right.
posted by donquixote at 1:20 PM on January 4, 2013 [20 favorites]

But does he fight with KISS or against them?
posted by Artw at 1:23 PM on January 4, 2013 [4 favorites]

some are professional grade (pages one and two)

Holy shit that's the best thing ever.
posted by COBRA! at 1:23 PM on January 4, 2013 [6 favorites]

Colleen Coover eventually found the original artist.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:26 PM on January 4, 2013 [5 favorites]

This is the best first FPP I've seen.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:27 PM on January 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

The "They call me mr farenheit" gag is perfect.
posted by marienbad at 1:27 PM on January 4, 2013 [9 favorites]

Makes sense. Freddie Mercury and Wolverine share some common interests, like decapitation.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:35 PM on January 4, 2013

Oh fuck yes. This is outstandingly awesome.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:39 PM on January 4, 2013

How was Freddy Mercury a mutant in a literal sense? I'm dying to know.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:40 PM on January 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

Of course Freddie Mercury is king of the forest. It makes perfect sense. The trees would make his throne out of gently moss covered roots, silvery golden leaves would form his crown, and his raiment would be made of the sparkling dew of a brisk early spring morning. The animals would gather around him as he awoke, and his beatific smile would launch the sun on its journey across the azure vaulted sky. He would break his fast on honey and berries and a giant elk with majestic antlers would carry him through hill, valley and dale as he tended to the needs and problems of the little people. His timeless message of love, kindness, generosity and shameless hedonism would be shared through song, sometimes accompanied by his animal friends with their own voices and instruments, and sometimes in effortlessly soaring solo arias that would at times make the very sky shimmer with beauty, and sometimes make the thunder bow down with respect.

What place does he have in such a world as we have made, with its war and pain and greed and hatred? We could never truly understand him; we could never be legitimately worthy. And so he has passed from our realm, though his message of rock will forever reverberate in our souls like the heartbeat of the buddha.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:56 PM on January 4, 2013 [10 favorites]

Actually, Freddie was Zoroastrian.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:01 PM on January 4, 2013 [5 favorites]

Oh, man. That "DON'T...STOP...ME...NOW" frame in the "professional grade" strip made me guffaw.
posted by brundlefly at 2:02 PM on January 4, 2013 [4 favorites]

This made my day. In my headcanon, Freddie has always been a superhero.
posted by Space Kitty at 2:06 PM on January 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Ironmouth, maybe the mutant thing is about his four extra teeth.
posted by merelyglib at 2:08 PM on January 4, 2013

This is ridiculous. Mutants meeting lead singers of rock bands. Think about how this looks it's preposterous. Wolverine is a fictional character. Freddie Mercury is real.
If they meet each other in the woods there's going to be a massive battle with both of them defending their respective realities and the right to assert their existence.

They're not going to get along. It's going to be a terrific reality storm with multi-media crossovers connecting Marvel and EMI records with character overlap and guest fighters.

It could create a 'verse of massive, and considering Mercury's involvement epic, proportions. Potentially even spawning a videogame and a deconstruction rating of 9 on the Straszynski scale.
Maybe they'd team up in the end (perhaps based on appreciation for facial hair sculpture) but they'd fight first.
Of course, Mercury would win.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:15 PM on January 4, 2013 [3 favorites]

Well, if Freddie Mercury exists in the Marvel Universe, why couldn't he become Spider-Man instead of Doc Ock? Sigh.
posted by ben242 at 2:37 PM on January 4, 2013

Having spent large chunks of my teenage years with a chronic sketcher of scenes.. they can end up being discombobulated without much provocation.. drawing as they do, these artists aren't even really thinking that much. It's as much a mindless habit as someone who twirls a pen or drums their fingers. One stray thought, and an ornate drawing of a Warhammer-esque Space Marine can end up a scene of Willie Nelson And The Space Marine Hoedown.. an actual drawing I remember happening at one point. A full 8.5x11 of Space Marines with banjos and fiddles, and those wicked alien things from that same universe playing handbones..
posted by mediocre at 2:55 PM on January 4, 2013 [4 favorites]

If I ever got tired of these, I would be really, really surprised.

In fact, I pretty much want to revive sig lines, so I can append "Freddie Mercury?" to everything I send/write/post. Okay, just this once.

----

Freddie Mercury?
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:00 PM on January 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

In my head, all rock stars are superheroes. But I thought Wolverine was secretly Danzig.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 3:02 PM on January 4, 2013 [4 favorites]

Well, if Freddie Mercury exists in the Marvel Universe, why couldn't he become Spider-Man instead of Doc Ock? Sigh.

Doc Ock is Elton John.
posted by Artw at 3:05 PM on January 4, 2013 [3 favorites]

Smedleyman: crossovers connecting Marvel and EMI

Surely somewhere out there online a Fab Four vs. Galactus story must exist. The Beatles already are Marvel characters (DC too, for all your The Beatles vs. The Joker needs). Though, on second thought, maybe they're villains, as Paul McCartney wrote a song where he robs a bank with Magneto, Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo, so maybe it should be Fantastic Four vs. Fab Four or maybe Spiderman vs. The Mop-Tops. Either way, the crossover is canonical from both ends.
posted by Kattullus at 3:17 PM on January 4, 2013

Oh wait! Now that I've actually read the description to the YouTube video I just linked to, I see that I've always misinterpreted that song and that Magneto, Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo are trying to con McCartney into thinking his police officer girlfriend is gonna rob a bank. But why McCartney was hanging out with Magneto and two Soviet supervillains is unclear.

Wait! Clearly he'd been back to the USSR! This is all starting to make sense...
posted by Kattullus at 3:23 PM on January 4, 2013

Elton John wishes he had eyewear as cool as Doc Ock’s.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:36 PM on January 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

Okay, hold everything, Magneto vs. Paul McCartney and Wings as drawn by Jack Kirby! No, really, this is not a pastiche.
posted by Kattullus at 3:40 PM on January 4, 2013 [5 favorites]

Slight derail: No offense to you, Artw, whose contributions I've long admired, but "Doc Ock is Elton John" was so on-the-nose that I had to Google it. I was actually relieved that it was sort of a thing because I have that much faith in the Internet.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:17 PM on January 4, 2013

If Elton John is Doc Ock then Freddie Mercury is Kraven the Hunter.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 4:58 PM on January 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

We are the Xmen my friend
And we'll fight Magneto till the end
We are the Xmen
We are the Xmen
No time for Sentinels
cause we are the Xmen
of the world [Earth 616]
posted by Renoroc at 5:31 PM on January 4, 2013 [5 favorites]

This DEMANDS a Cromartie High School crossover!

As much as i love Queen, i have to admit that whenever i see Freddie in random situations, all i can think of is Cromartie. ;)
posted by usagizero at 5:49 PM on January 4, 2013

Drinky Die had the only conceivable reaction to this. it is, indeed, the best thing on the Internet.

Metafilter: Mission Accomplished!
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:55 PM on January 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

Seconding Freddie Mercury is one of those rare public figures who really should have been recognized as a kind of super hero. Other pop stars try, as do some actors, athletes, and politicians. But Freddie, well, Freddie makes it hard NOT to be believe that he is our Champion of the World™
posted by smirkette at 5:56 PM on January 4, 2013

it is, indeed, the best thing on the Internet.

It is also the first post by firstbest.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:16 PM on January 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

He's not at super-super villain level though, like Bowie.
posted by Artw at 6:47 PM on January 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Damn you, Wolverine. Now I've just spent most of the evening watching that video of Queen live at Wembley again.

I'm pretty sure that concert obliterated several dozen giant sentinel robots.
posted by straight at 11:44 PM on January 4, 2013

Colleen Coover is 50,000 individually wrapped flavours of awesome.

Of course, the "Freddie Mercury" Wolverine meets in the woods is Mystique. Over the course of the story, it is revealed that Freddie Mercury was always Mystique, who faked his "death" when she grew bored with rock stardom. This revelation prompts emotional crises in several of the X-Men: Dazzler retreats to her room and won't come out; Northstar, who learnt to fly while listening to "Spread Your Wings" on his Walkman over and over, suddenly can't leave the ground. Rockslide makes a disastrously crude comment which makes Anole stop speaking to him for days; eventually Loa and Pixie corner Rockslide for a tough-love talk which makes him weep in public for the first time ever. (Anole still beats the crap out of him next Danger Room session, though.) Cyclops says little, but is troubled; "I Want To Break Free" was Jean's favorite song. In his vast, echoing palace beneath the waters, Namor sits in silence, contemplating his air-sealed mint-condition original pressing of "Seven Seas Of Rhye."

Eventually Dazzler emerges, having made her peace with the situation by writing the best wryly angsty tribute ballad ever. Northstar and Kyle hug it out; Anole forgives Rockslide on condition that he punch himself in the face in front of the entire team. An eleventh-hour attack by Sebastian Shaw is thwarted when Emma drives him insane with a repetitive earworm of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." Scott unbends at last: "Heh. Always hated that song." "Yes, darling, I know." Dazzler then leads everyone in an emotional rendition of "We Will Rock You," with Rockslide on rocks.

Meanwhile, Rogue tracks down Mystique at last, and asks her the question that's been on everyone's mind: "Mom, if you wanted a singin' career so bad, why didn't you just do it as yourself?"

"Honestly, child. You try breaking into anything but metal or alt-goth with a name like Raven Darkhölme."
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:06 AM on January 5, 2013 [8 favorites]

In my head, all rock stars are superheroes. But I thought Wolverine was secretly Danzig.

Glen Danzig is a punk who starts shit and then turns out to have a glass jaw of unheroic proportions.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:21 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Now I want to read an all-caps 20-page Alan Moore script for this page, including random conversational asides to the illustrator and at least half of its length devoted to references to ancient British history and hermetic magic.
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:10 PM on January 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just shared the "Elton John is Doc Ock" hypothesis with my boyfriend and he gasped out loud with joy.
posted by firstbest at 4:14 PM on January 5, 2013