Fantasy nerd fight

November 8, 2010 3:58 PM

Does anyone remember this incredibly nerdy magazine article about various characters from fantasy novels fighting one another?

Details: sometime in the early-to-mid '90s (say, 1992 to no later than 1995) I read an article in a magazine(?) about various famous fantasy characters, paired off and pitted one on one against each other. I specifically recall one of the pairings wasElric of Melnibone fighting King Arthur (and that Elric was the victor, if that helps.)

Other specific characters I remember being mentioned in this article were Garet Jax, and Thomas Covenant (though not battling each other.)

I just remember being incredibly stoked at seeing all these classic characters in one article. There were illustrations of the characters in question, but the article was not a comic - there were definitely explanations in text laying out the various skills/weaponry each character brought to bear on the fight, and then explaining the reason the author(s) chose for the outcome.
(As I recall, in the Elric v. Arthur fight, they were pitted against each other specifically because of their magic swords - but that Elric finally won because Arthur dropped Excalibur's sheath and was no longer invincible as a result.) And I recall that Garet Jax lost, which I didn't agree with.

Anyone remember this?

Sorry this is so incredibly vague, but we are talking about an article I read once 15 years ago or more.

posted by namewithoutwords to grab bag (5 answers total)

This is a bit more modern so it may not be the one you're thinking of but there's a SciFi cage match series over at suvudu.com.
posted by talkingmuffin at 4:32 PM on November 8, 2010

I'm almost positive this was a feature in InQuest Magazine, which focused on CCGs but often had articles like this. Having trouble finding any evidence of that, though.
posted by longtime_lurker at 6:53 PM on November 8, 2010

A search of "Inquest Magazine" and "Garet Jax" yields this: Legends of Lore Playing Cards. Apparently they're alternative cards for Magic the Gathering.
posted by talkingmuffin at 7:24 PM on November 8, 2010

I was gonna say, Wizard Magazine does this shit all of the time with comic book characters. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they or Inquest did it for fantasy characters.
posted by graventy at 8:01 PM on November 8, 2010

Close: have you read the "Jesus versus Spiderman" thread from rec.arts.comics a long time ageo?
http://danny.sadinoff.com/fun/quotes/xvy.txt

Not quite what you asked for, but still a fine example of the genre.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:06 AM on November 9, 2010