GRIMJACK

Real Name: John Gaunt, James Edgar Twilley, Grimcat, others 

Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Cynosure) human

Occupation: Mercenary;
    former soldier, demon hunter, special ops, gladiator, temporal bounty hunter, police officer

Group Membership: Formerly Cadre, Grey Wolves, Lawkillers, T.D.P. (Trans-Dimensional Police), Demonknights (Johnny Alpha, Sister Joann Cable, Tom "Feetus" Feester, Hammerstein, Rogue (Trooper), Mitch Sockett, others), Wolfpac

Affiliations: Badger (Norbert Sykes), Binary (Carol Danvers), Bob the Watchlizard, Blackjac Mac, Corsair (Christopher Summers), Vanth Dreadstar, Molly Knight, Judah the Hammer (Judah Maccabee), Maethe Mathonwy, Rhian Mathonwy, Meta4 (Emily Cayce, Craig Fallow, Allis Krafe, Dirk Penderwhistle), Gordon Munden, Nexus (Horatio Hellpop), Roscoe Schumacher, Squalor (Harry Keller), William "Turk" Turkel, Zhang-Ji, others;
    formerly Mayfair, Jericho Noleski 

Enemies: Dancer, Dys, Ghouligans, Ghouligans' victims/clients (Airboy, Nightcrawler, Whisper, Wolverine, others), Justice Drokk, Justice Peece, Kalibos, Major Lash, Mayfair, Jericho Noleski, others;
   formerly Nexus 

Known Relatives: (Gaunt) Katar (son, deceased), Anya Laughton Gaunt (mother, deceased), Nick Gaunt ("Old Nick", father, deceased), Nick Gaunt Jr ("Young Nick", brother, deceased), Jake Gaunt (brother, deceased), Maite Laughton Gaunt ("Mouse", aunt/step-mother, presumed deceased), Joe Gaunt (half-brother, deceased), Jack Gaunt (uncle/alleged father, deceased), Blackjacg Mac (adoptive father);
   (Twilley) Robert Twilley Sr. (father, deceased), Deborah Twilley (mother), Robert J. Twilley Jr. (brother, deceased), Michael Twilley (brother), Barbara Twilley (sister, deceased)

Aliases: Joe Chaney, "Futurejack", Grimm, Grinner, Haggard, Jackknife, John of the Dead, Old John, Prisoner 24601

Base of Operations: Munden's Bar, Cynosure 

First Appearance: (Unidentified, in shadows) Warp#5/2 (First Comics, August 1983);
    (identified) Starslayer#10 (First Comics, November 1983);
    (Marvel) New Mutants#50 (April 1987) 

Powers/Abilities: Grimjack is a very experienced and exceptionally lethal combatant, expert with numerous weapons, but most commonly handguns and swords (since the latter work in any realm, unlike more technological or magical weapons). Used to adapting to the unpredictable natural laws of different worlds, Grimjack will tailor his weapon choices to suit the situation, and usually has something appropriate for any given occasion, reality or foe, so long as he has some forewarning. He has strong magical potential, and knows a few minor spells, but lacks the calm state of mind required to work any major feats. He is able to resist psychic attacks thanks to his magical training.

Height: (Gaunt/Twilley)  6' (both by approximation)
Weight: (Gaunt/Twilley) 190 lbs. (both by approximation)
Eyes: (Gaunt/Twilley) Blue  
Hair: (Gaunt) Black, gray streaks; (Twilley) red

History:
(Starslayer, Grimjack) - "Call me mercenary. Call me assassin. Call me a villain. I am all that and more." John Gaunt was a native of Cynosure, a pan-dimensional city where realities fade in and out of sync, and the laws of physics and magic vary from block to block and moment to moment. Born in the Pit, the city's most depraved slum where poverty and violence are a way of life, he was raised by an abusive drunken father, "Old" Nick, and brutish, bullying elder brothers, "Young" Nick and Jake, after his mother died in childbirth. The only family members who showed John kindness were his uncle Jack, his step-mother Mouse, and younger half-brother Joe; Nick murdered Jack when John was five, and Mouse vanished soon afterwards under suspicious circumstances. When John was eight, Old Nick attacked John with a broken bottle, leaving him with a long vertical scar down his face across his left eye. John killed him in self-defense.

    The brothers survived thereafter by stealing, until Young Nick murdered a merchant during a burglary, then knocked John out and left him to take the blame. Sentenced to the gladiatorial Arena, John was placed in a gang of child warriors dubbed the Wolfpac, and pitted against wild animals and past-their-prime gladiators for the crowd's pleasure. Despite the odds, John survived, and gained the fighting name Grinner because of the involuntary rictus death's head grin he wore while fighting; it was the only time he ever smiled. By the time he was sixteen, most of his Wolfpac were dead, some by John's own hand. He and the other survivors, including John's best friend Blackjac Mac, graduated to being full gladiators, and John was soon acknowledged as the Arena's second greatest fighter after the legendary Dancer (though, in truth, he was better; Dancer was just more popular because John lacked showmanship and finished his opponents too swiftly). When John was twenty-two, he finally won his freedom, but thirteen years of constant battle had left him hardened and swift to violence.

    While hunting for his brothers, John was attacked and badly wounded in a street fight. Stumbling away, he chanced across the hidden entrance to the dimension of Pdwyr, an idyllic realm that had come into sync with Cynosure. There, for the first time in his entire life, he found genuine peace, taken in and cared for by the locals. The wizard Maethe Mathonwy sought to help heal his soul, teaching him that he had great magical potential but that the rage within him prevented him from accessing it. Under Maethe's tutelage, John learned to channel his mind and begin to control that potential. And John also found true love with Maethe's daughter, Rhian. However, his peace was not to last. Another resident of Cynosure, Major Lash, found his way to Pdwyr, and informed them that the city had literally phased into sync with Hell. Demons had flooded the city, slaying everything in their path, and if not stopped, would inevitably find their way to hidden Pdywr too. John reluctantly left his mentor and his love, promising to return once the war was over, little knowing that the Major was not to be trusted. John joined the Demonknights and fought for the next few years in the Demon Wars until Hell was finally shifted out of phase with the city, but just before the conflict's end, the Major betrayed Pdwyr to the demons. John returned home to find everyone had been recently and brutally tortured and slaughtered.

   In the war's aftermath, John was at his lowest ebb, overcome with a nihilistic mood he would come to term "the Dark." When he finally found his brothers, Nick shot at him, prompting Joe to come to John's defense; only John walked away from the ensuing firefight. Lost to himself, John rode for a time with Major Lash's Lawkillers, becoming a Hard-Timer (temporal bounty hunter). Eventually, he realized that he was becoming too much like the cruel and black-souled Major, so he left the Lawkillers before it was too late. He joined the TDP (Trans-Dimensional Police), where he was partnered with Roscoe Schumacher, one of the few honest cops on the force, and they became good friends. However, John was ill-fitted to work under the weight of so many regulations, and after the Dancer made a failed coup attempt using an army of former gladiators, John quit the TDP to join the newly founded Cadre, a spy agency formed in response to Dancer's rebellion and run by the conniving Mayfair, dedicated to protecting Cynosure through any means necessary; John was one of Cadre's initially small group of operatives, dubbed the Grey Wolves,..

(Grimjack#45 (fb) - BTS) - one of whom was Zhang-Ji, a Shang-Chi counterpart, a Master of Kung-Fu who always bitched about being forced to play games of deceit and death,...

(Grimjack) - but the organization grew and the Wolves died or quit until John was the last of the originals remaining. When Mayfair attempted to have him killed as part of a fake assassination plot against a politician intended to ultimately give Mayfair control over all Cynosure's law-enforcement agencies, John quit, using the evidence he had of Mayfair's machinations to arrange a fragile truce with his former employer, a mutual agreement to leave one another alone. John then set himself up as a mercenary and private detective, buying Munden's Bar to use as his home and office.

   For a time John's life stabilized, as much as it could in a city where literally anything can happen at any time, just solving cases, occasionally working with his old friend Blackjac, now a mercenary, sometimes assisted by or assisting Roscoe, and otherwise hanging out at Munden's Bar, which was run for him by his friend Gordon Munden and Bob the Watchlizard.

(Redfox#2) - In Mortimer's Tavern in the city of Targa on a world replete with magic and monsters, Grimjack stood waiting at the bar counter to be served alongside the Hyborian barbarian Conan and warrior maiden Redfox, while Cerebus the Aardvark played cards in the corner. Minutes later Redfox and her friend Lyssa the Axe became the spark that kicked off a barroom brawl, dragging in other patrons including the superstrong Gaul Obelix and a Dalek (see comments). 

(Grimjack) - With John now in his late forties, the Dancer tried to make Cynosure ripe for another attempt at conquest by tricking John into triggering a Trade War that engulfed the city. John ultimately managed to stop him, but it cost John his left hand, which he replaced with a simple prosthetic (as more complex devices might fail in certain parts of Cynosure).

(Grimjack#24/4) - Gaunt's fiftieth birthday sent the already brooding mercenary into the depths of the Dark as he recalled those he had lost over the years, but as he envisioned his dead the inebriated Gaunt unwittingly tapped into his magical potential, giving his memories substance. Recalling his dead siblings, Nick, Joe and Jake, his intoxicated mind conflated them with other acquaintances of the same names, respectively Nick Fury, Judge Joe Dredd and Jack "Scorpio" Fury. Brought back to his senses by his ghost friend Spook, Gaunt dismissed the manifestations before they could do any real harm.

(Grimjack) - Grimjack replaced his prosthetic with a hand claimed from the murderous robot Kalibos, capable of working in any reality.

(New Mutants I#50 (fb) - BTS) - The part of Cynosure where Munden's Bar was located phased into sync with a bazaar on a fringeworld in Reality-616, apparently taking along for the ride beings usually resident in other dimensions such as the Herculoids (Zandor, Dorno, Tara, Gleep, Gloop, Igoo and Tundro), the Micronauts (Arcturus Rann, Marionette, Fireflyte, Acroyear and Bug) and interstellar killer of mass murderers Nexus (Horatio Hellpop).

    Blending in with the new locale, Munden's became M'nden's, while John, his surname deemed by the translation devices of the aliens present to be the synonymous "Haggard," soon established a reputation as the man to deal with if you wanted anything (see comments).

(New Mutants I#50) - The Starjammers, their numbers recently expanded with the addition of Binary, Professor Charles Xavier and deposed Shi'ar empress Lilandra Neramani, were forced to stop at the fringeworld, desperately in need for parts to repair their damaged ship. Starjammer leader Corsair soon heard that Haggard was the man to talk to, so he, Binary, Lilandra and Xavier visited M'nden's Bar. After the telepathic Xavier confirmed the bar was clear of both the law and bounty hunters, Corsair and Binary met with "Haggard."

    Either failing to spot them or trying to keep a low profile, Xavier seemingly failed to recognize Commander Arcturus Rann and Marionette of the Micronauts, who were sitting at an adjacent table with Fireflyte buzzing around them. Haggard, however, immediately recognized his guests and informed them that the Shi'ar Imperium had placed the biggest bounty anyone had ever heard of on their heads. To their relief, he confirmed he wasn't interested in trying to collect...at least, not today.

    However, before they could complete the deal, Xavier sensed the presence of one of his New Mutant students, Magik (Illyana Rasputin), in distress nearby, and raced out the bar, past several  of the Herculoids (Zandor, Dorno, Tara, Igoo and Tundro) and Acroyear and Bug, to a slave market attended by (among many others) Gleep, Gloop and Nexus, where an insensate Magik was being sold. Forced to blow their cover to come to her rescue, the Starjammers departed without concluding their business with "Haggard." 

(New Mutants I#50 - BTS) - In time, Munden's neighborhood phased out of sync with Reality-616 and back into sync with the rest of Cynosure.

(Uncanny X-Men I#245 (fb) - BTS) - Munden's Bar came into sync with Earth-616's Sydney, Australia.

(Uncanny X-Men I#245) - John was sitting on a stool by the counter drinking when Logan, Peter Rasputin, Longshot and Alex Summers of the X-Men visited the establishment, but paid them no more heed than he did when members of the extraterrestrial army, the Conquest, entered the premises during an attempted invasion of Earth (see comments). 

(Grimjack) - Forced to slay his latest lover, John fell under the sway of "the Dark" again, making him easy prey when Major Lash returned. Confronted in the cemetery where his brothers were buried, John was killed by the Major. Gordon avenged him, killing the Major, unaware that Lash was cursed and would inevitably rise from the grave.

   An associate of John attempted to resurrect him via cloning, unwittingly nearly capturing John's departing soul.

   To his surprise given his violent life, John found himself in Heaven, surrounded by most, though not all, of his dead loved ones. Despite his dark deeds, John had always tried to do the right thing, and thus had been spared damnation. Allowed to view events back on Cynosure, John learned to his horror that Dancer had reanimated John's corpse as a weapon to kill Blackjac, and that if his friend died at this juncture, he would be condemned to Hell.

    Unwilling to stand by and let this happen, John quit Heaven and animated the clone body he had previously spurned, enabling him to destroy his old body, though not before his new body received a scar identical to the one he used to have. John now possessed a slightly younger body, but as clones had no rights in Cynosure, he adopted the alias Cheney.

  

(What The..?!#2/4) - Tired of the constant demands others made of his because he was his reality's Sorcerer Supreme, Reality-665's Doctor Deranged left his multiverse to visit the dimensional crossroads of Cen*sure (Cynosure) where he believed no one would know him. His sudden appearance was noted without comment by Grimjack as he waded through a crowd whose numbers included Gaulish warriors Asterix and Obelix, the anthrotoonmorphic rabbit Freelance Police officer Max (partner of Sam), Beanworld hero Mr. Spook, dimension-hopping artist Phil Foglio and his plush dragon Winslow, and Zatananana (an alternate reality counterpart of Earth-1's Zatanna).

  

(Grimjack#45) - Thor, Batman and a Dalek were among the crowd who watched as Grimjack's friend Blackjacmac (actually an imposter, Rastus, working for Grimjack's enemy Mayfair) announced his intention to run for office in Cynosure. Grimjack teamed up with the elderly martial artist Zhang-J and other old allies who were determined to stop Mayfair; however Zhang-J died during the attempt.

  

(Crossroads#5) - The arrival of Reality-8116's Vanth Dreadstar in Cynosure was sensed by the Merk, an immensely powerful but insane alien who could detect mass murderers and was fixated on executing them via his often-unwilling assassin Nexus.

    Since Dreadstar had destroyed the entire Milky Way in his own reality, he instantly moved to the top of Merk's hit list, and Nexus was dispatched to Cynosure. Trying to evade Nexus, Dreadstar encountered Grimjack, who advised him to seek refuge in a section of Cynosure where the different laws of physics would negate Nexus' immense powers. Tracking Dreadstar's trail to Munden's Bar, Nexus blew it up, but missed his target. Following Grimjack's advise, Dreadstar lured Nexus to a dimension where his powers didn't work, and Grimjack took the opportunity to violently express his displeasure at Munden's destruction. Luckily for Nexus, he and Grimjack proved to share a mutual friend, Judah Maccabee, whose intervention ended the fight while he was still in one piece. Learning the circumstances behind Dreadstar's "crime," Nexus deemed the Merk wrong to want him dead, promised to see to Munden's restoration, and the group parted on semi-amicable terms.

  

(Grimjack) - Grimjack encountered a man who claimed to be his reincarnation from 3,000 years in the future. Heaven had been offended by his departure and would not readmit him, but he had already been judged and could not be sent to Hell. Thus he was doomed to perpetual reincarnation, each life remembering all the previous ones, for as long as Cynosure existed. "Futurejack" had come back in time to set in motion events he hoped would hasten the city's ultimate destruction, and managed to do so before John shot him. John was left unsure whether "Futurejack" had been telling the truth, or was just insane, and eventually died under unrevealed circumstances without knowing the answer.

  

("The Shroudling and the Guisel," Amberzine#8) - Gaunt's corpse was buried alongside Remo Williams and Denny Colt, a.k.a. the Spirit. (see comments)

  

(Grimjack) - Two centuries later he was reborn as Jim Twilley. As part of regaining his past life's memories in his late teens, Twilley deliberately reinflicted his facial scar, and adopted his old alias of Grimjack once more. He resumed his detective career, facing foes new and old.

  

(Grimjack#75) - Learning that Major Lash was attempting to corrupt his friend Mara (the latest and final reincarnation of an even earlier friend, Spook), which would if successful condemn her to Hell when next she died, and so determined to end Lash's unholy existence permanently, Grimjack used time travel to investigate how Lash kept resurrecting. He discovered that whenever Lash's body died demonic Ghouligans collected his corpse in order to harvest his soul for eventual resurrection. Slaying Lash again, Grimjack waited for the Ghouligans to arrive and slipped aboard their wagon, finding it housed a pocket dimension containing hundreds of soul jars full of other victims of the Ghouligans. His presence triggered a defense that unleashed many of the trapped souls against him, including Wolverine, a red-costumed Nightcrawler, the ninja Whisper, the aviator Airboy, and others (including perhaps Colossus). Grimjack shattered some of the jars, triggering a chain explosion that destroyed the wagon and released the trapped souls, finally ending Lash's cycle of resurrections.

  

(The Gift) - Grimjack was hired to retrieve the multiple souls of Zak Bainbridge, which had been cast out of his body by Dys, the entity responsible for Cynosure's creation. The mercenary learned that Dys was trying to decide whether to destroy the multiverse, and had dispersed Zak's souls across different realities as part of his decision-making process. In each reality, Zak's souls encountered local heroes - Vanth Dreadstar, Nexus, mentally-disturbed martial artist the Badger, temporal-visionary Squalor, the elementally powered members of Meta4, Nexus and his friend Judah the Hammer, and hard-core law enforcement partnership Molly Knight and "William Turk" Turkel of the Zero Tolerance agency - and ultimately brought them back to Cynosure, where they had to work together to save Zak and convince Dys that all reality deserved another chance.

  

(Grimjack) - Eventually Twilley also died, sacrificing himself when the enemies he had accumulated went after his new life's friends and loved ones. He knew he was doomed to be reborn, but he had something else to do first. Some of his friends had died and gone to Hell, and Twilley intended to storm the gates of perdition and get them out.

   Grimjack was later reborn as twins, and at least once as a woman, and subsequently entered a thus far mostly unchronicled cycle of death and rebirth.

     

(Legands of Indie Worlds, "Grimcat") - After a number of additional human incarnations he was reborn as a cat, finding his mind a mix of both human and feline thoughts. While a kitten (and presumably prior to recalling his past lives) and out exploring he wandered into a dimension that then phased out of sync with Cynosure, trapping him in that mostly mundane reality. Naming himself Grimcat, he lived a long life there, by cat standards at least, shunned by other cats as they sensed he was somehow different. Over time he accumulated battlescars, including losing one eye. After nearly losing his life fighting a feline gang, the Feral Claws, and their leader Notch-Ear, he was saved by a human child, Anna, who named him Grimm based on his grim appearance. When Anna was targeted by verpyres, ectoplasmic vermin that fed off a victim's lifeforce and soul, Grimcat used the magic he'd learned in past lives to defend her, even manifesting that parts of his soul that had been Gaunt and Twilley as ectoplasmic warriors to defend the girl. Grimcat ultimately sacrificed his life to save Anna, but as he died he had a vision of a path leading to Cynosure, and realized he would be reincarnated back in his beloved home city.

  

(Grimjack) - The reincarnation cycle continued for 3,000 years until he reached his blond, bearded incarnation later dubbed "Futurejack," who went back in time to set in motion Cynosure's ultimate destruction.

  

Comments: Created by John Ostrander and Tim Truman.

    "Cynosure. Sweet, cynical Cynosure - where the dimensions meet. Magic works here, science works there, swords work everywhere." The saga of Grimjack is a series well worth checking out, a tour de force in fantasy and science-fiction detective noir. While it's not all gold, there's a load of good stuff in it, and it ranks as John Ostrander's best work in my opinion. After debuting as an unidentified cameo in First Comic's Warp#4, Grimjack got his own series as a back-up strip in First's Starslayer series, and then moved on to his own title, which lasted 81 issues, and only ended because First was planning to publish their series as strings of miniseries, until said plan was scuppered when they ran into financial troubles, not because the series itself was doing poorly. Grimjack has returned for a few miniseries since then, both published by IDW.

   Obviously Haggard isn't explicitly acknowledged to be Grimjack when he appears in New Mutants I#50, though there's no question the appearance is a homage to the character and Munden's Bar. So in theory it could be that Haggard is 616's counterpart to Grimjack. However, Grimjack lives in an extradimensional city, so he shouldn't have counterparts in normal realities, and that city's whole shtick is that it phases in and out of sync with other dimensions and realities so seamlessly that the people who stumble into Cynosure that way usually don't even realize it. Grimjack's resident back-up strip, Munden's Bar (see below), has had more crossover character visits than virtually any other series. Heck, the New Mutants issue had the Micronauts in the bar, full size (decades before Bug did so in order to work with Star-Lord); either they managed to figure a way to leave the Microverse without ending up titchy for the first and (for several years) only time, or M'nden's was also in phase with the Microverse. Throw in the presence of the Herculoids and Nexus for good measure, and the evidence supporting the theory that all these extradimensional types ended up on the planet by way of Cynosure only grows. Plus Grimjack uses aliases, and Haggard is a synonym of Gaunt, just the sort of mild mistranslation you might get when his name in English is translated into an alien tongue by the residents of the fringeworld and then back into English by Corsair's translator. So, since it is feasible for Haggard to be the "real" Grimjack, I've treated him as such for the purpose of this profile. Anyone reading this who disagrees is free to ignore everything in the entry except for the New Mutants history.

   As to where in Grimjack's history the New Mutants appearance would go? The issue came out around the same time as Grimjack#33, which was when Grimjack had his cyborg hand and just before Major Lash killed him. We don't see Haggard's hands, but even if we had, Grimjack's prosthesis wasn't overly obvious and he usually wore gloves. So I see no reason not to place the New Mutants appearance at around the same time in his life as events happening concurrently in his own title.

   I almost missed the cameo of Grimjack in Uncanny X-Men I#245. I admit, since he's only seen with his back to the reader and somewhat indistinct, I'm not totally sure it is Grimjack, BUT it is set in Munden's Bar, and the guy at the bar on the far left is wearing what looks like it could be a beret and a long coat similar to the one worn by Grimjack in the top lefthand image on this page. Edited to add - after writing the original version of this profile I noticed another panel containing the man at the bar, and am more certain that it is meant to be Grimjack.

   Xavier met Rann and Marionette in the X-Men and the Micronauts crossover miniseries, but fails to acknowledge their presence in M'nden's. There's a lot of reasons why this might be the case: When he met them, they were only inches tall, so he'd be forgiven for neither associating them with full-sized people, nor recognize faces that he'd only previously seen action figure size (and Rann had grown a beard since, which also wouldn't help); Xavier was trying to keep a low profile and didn't know them all that well, so it's not unreasonable that even if he had recognized them he might not want to interact with them; Xavier had been possessed by his evil side for much of that miniseries, which meant he'd hardly interacted with the Micronauts during that crossover.  

   Grimjack had a large number of characters cross over into either his own strip or Munden's Bar. In the former case, they were usually other characters published by First: Starslayer (Torin Mac Quillon), Dynamo Joe, the aforementioned Nexus and his friend Judah Maccabee, to name but a few. The number who have visited Munden's is ridiculously long, and comes from all over the comics' sections of the Omniverse, with a few novel and movie characters thrown in for good measure. The Shadow and Batman can be seen hanging out in a few issues, both in Munden's and at a bowling alley with the Flash. 2000AD's Johnny Alpha (Strontium Dog), Hammerstein (Ro-Busters and ABC Warriors) and Rogue Trooper were all members of Gaunt's Demonknights unit during the Demon Wars, and Alpha and Hammerstein both show up again at the Merc Exchange in #77, alongside the A-Team. Grimjack himself has made cameos and appearances in other comics and even on the Roger Zelazny's Amber novels. For the purpose of this profile however, I've tried to stick to covering only those where Marvel and Marvel-adjacent characters were present. Thus the issue of Redfox gets included because Conan showed up; Crossroads and The Gift for the presence of Dreadstar; the Amberzine story (reprinted in the anthology Manna from Heaven, for those who might wish to track it down) because of Remo Williams (who had a number of comics published by Marvel, which are arguably set in 616). If I've missed any Marvel characters interacting with Grimjack or the world of Cynosure, please let me know! There's almost certainly a couple of sneaky cameos I've overlooked of Marvel characters wandering round the background of Cynosure.

   In terms of the Redfox story, it is set on her world; Grimjack, being able to travel to other realities, is considered the real deal, but the Conan seen in the bar might native to Redfox's reality and so a counterpart to the Marvel and novel versions. However, the incongruous presence of Obelix, Cerebus and, bizarrely, a Dalek, suggests the possibility that Mortimer's Tavern in Tagra had merged with Munden's Bar, thus enabling all these characters from different times and realities to mingle, in which case the Conan seen could conceivably be the 616 version. Or I'm just reading way too much into a sight gag. 

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Grimjack, a.k.a. Grinner, a.k.a. John Gaunt, a.k.a. Haggard, has no known connections to:

Munden's Bar has no known connection to:

Nexus has no known connections to:

The Herculoids have no known connections to:

M'nden's Bar/Munden's Bar

(Grimjack, Munden's Bar Annuals) Munden's Bar was originally owned by Gordon Munden until he lost it in his divorce. John Gaunt bought it from Munden's ex-wife and re-hired Gordon to run the place while he used it as his drinking haunt come office.

    By the nature of Cynosure, it was a place where literally anyone or anything could, and usually did, wander in.

(Grimjack#18/2) - Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer, stood outside Munden's lighting a smoke just as John Gaunt's sometimes lover Spook arrived at the bar.

  

(Grimjack#27/2) - Dying while at the bar counter of a drinking establishment in a pan-dimensional city proved problematic for Munden's regular T.M. Murray, because it meant his soul had a plethora of Heavens to visit.

    The DC multiverse's had a lengthy queue of Crisis victims waiting outside to be processed, including Kole, Supergirl, Earth-2's Robin, Dove (Don Hall), the Flash (Barry Allen) and Lori Lemaris, while the nearby Marvel multiverse Heaven had a revolving door whirling around like a hurricane as individuals such as Phoenix, Dark Phoenix, Wolverine and Elektra flew in and out.

    Murray was taken to a tribunal to learn his final fate, Heaven or Hell, with his case being heard just after the Demon Etrigan's. Realizing Murray was going to Hell not for being bad but simply for having wasted his life, Murray's counsel got a continuance, during which time Murray was remanded to Limbo, keeping company with cancelled heroes from First's multiverse, including adventurer Zot, boy detective Blaze Barlow, energy beings E-Man and Nova Kane and their koala pal Teddy Q, space privateers Torin Mac Quillon (Starslayer) and Tamara, and Martian terraformers Morgana and Winston.

    As Deadman and the Phantom Stranger flew past, a desperate man wearing a noose tried to tell Murray he'd been framed by someone called Peter but was hauled away by a pair of angels; when Murray asked the other Limbo residents who the man was, he was told they couldn't remember exactly: "Jude. Judd. Jughead. Something." Recalled to his tribunal, Murray was told he was going to be given probation, which meant he'd have to go through reincarnation fifty times.

  

(New Mutants I#50) - Munden's Bar synched up with a fringeworld in Reality-616 Earth dimension as M'nden's Bar, resulting in an increase in extraterrestrial clientele.

    It also apparently synched up at the same time with the 616 Microverse (see comments), allowing Commander Arcturus Rann and Marionette to retain their "normal" size while enjoying a drink, rather than being inches tall in comparison to the other patrons.

    The Starjammers visited the bar hoping to buy vitally needed spare parts for their spaceship from Grimjack, but had to cut short and abandon the deal in order to rescue Magik from interstellar slavers.

  

(Grimjack#38/2) - A group of alternate Iron Men from across the multiverse congregated in Munden's, at the same time as it was being visited by Selina, a catwoman who may have been an alternate reality Tigra/Catwoman. Then Magnus (an alternate reality counterpart of the Technarch Magus) entered, complaining that his son Wartop (alternate Warlock) had run away from home and joined Ford Fairmont's Nude Mutants (Chris Clairmont's New Mutants).

  

   Even as he said this, the Nude Mutants - Wartop, Corona, Squawguard, Zoid, Starflirt, Wuffy and Rainbow Brighter (counterparts to Warlock, Sunspot, Moonstar, Cypher, Starfire, Wolfsbane and Rainbow Brite/DNAgents' Rainbow respectively) - teleported into the bar. Wartop attacked his father and a general brawl broke out, during which Fairmont was sent flying through a portal into another dimension, but eventually the barkeep Gordon broke up the fight, forced Wartop to leave with Magnus and got rid of the rest of the Nude Mutants by giving them passes to the Disney Dimension.

 

(Grimjack#39/2) - Dr Strange visited Munden's Bar, where he argued with fellow wizard Zatara over cards.

 

(Grimjack#44/2) - Another group of Iron Man counterparts hung out in Munden's, playing cards.

(Grimjack#45/2) - The Iron Men were either partially transformed by Cynosure's shifting nature, or replaced by other alternate reality counterparts with similar armor but a spherical, cuboid and cone-shaped heads.

(Grimjack#46/2) - and then another Iron Man whose helmet lacked a mask, leaving his human face visible.

  

(Uncanny X-Men I#245 (fb) - BTS) - Wolverine had visited Munden's Bar, and knew it as a good place as any to blow off steam.

  

(Uncanny X-Men I#245) - While the X-Men were hiding out in Australia and believed dead by most of the world, the male members decided to alleviate their cabin fever with a night out in their civilian identities. Wolverine took Colossus, Longshot and Havok to Munden's, then in sync and blending in with Sydney, Australia. While they were there, the extraterrestrial alliance known as the Conquest invaded; when some of the Conquest forces detected that Munden's was a nexus of "significant enhanced bioforms" they entered to investigate, focusing on Longshot. Colossus came to his teammate's rescue, and a fight ensued, which ended with the alien warrior cadre defeated. Meanwhile the flying female aliens See-Cubed targeted Longshot, but he won them over with his charming personality, while Wolverine roped the Conquest's Lord Autarch into a poker game. The Conquest's Strike Force Commander was shocked at his force's failings when he arrived on the scene, but was convinced by Havok to take any further combat outside of the bar to be settled.  

 

("Insomniac," Munden's Bar digital comic) - Suffering from insomnia, Morpheus the Lord of Dreams visited Munden's, accompanied by his raven familiar Matthew. To help him, Gordon mixed a Munden's nightcap, which knocked Morpheus out within a second of downing it. Unfortunately, the now dreaming Sandman suffered from night terrors, causing him to morph into an African-American "butt kicking philosopher" in a leather trenchcoat, who then wandered round the bar telling the confused patrons that no one could be told "what the Matrix is." Returning to the counter, he asked the disinterested Gordon to choose between a blue pill and a red pill. Before Gordon could respond, a group of identical men wearing sunglasses and ties popped into existence behind Morpheus and identified themselves as Agent Smith. Ignoring Neo sitting at another table, Agent Smith(s) attacked.

    Seeing that everybody was kung-fu fighting, a confused Gordon asked Matthew for an explanation, and the raven explained that Morpheus' field of dreams was expanding and had now sucked in some of the other patrons. Moments later, Matthew realized the field had now encompassed him too, and transformed into another kind of crow, Eric Draven. Watching Draven join the battle, the now annoyed Gordon told Bob the Watchlizard to get the blowgun. On the bar room floor, Morpheus and Draven suddenly changed into Nightmare and Dreamstalker, the first of whom told the "foolish mortals" present to tremble before the Lord of Nightmares. Before he could act on his threats, a dart laced with the distilled dregs from last month's coffee pot struck him on the back of the neck. Nightmare instantly transformed back into Morpheus and collapsed, out cold, while everything around him reverted to normal (as measured by Munden's scale of normal). Waking up refreshed moments later, Morpheus announced to Matthew that it was time to go, prompting Gordon to remind Morpheus there was a bill to pay. To Gordon's disbelief, Morpheus told him to put it on his tab, as he didn't carry cash, but before Gordon could explode, Matthew literally coughed up a mucous-covered coin. As he walked out the door, Morpheus asked Matthew if he should recommend the bar to his sister Death, thinking she might enjoy it. Hearing this, Gordon told Bob the bar was becoming trendy, and asked the room in general to "shoot me now."

("100 Years of Puberty," Munden's Bar digital comic) - At Cynosure's North by Northwest High School's prom, students including a Dalek, an Andorian, the robots R2-D2, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Maximillian, the Herculoids Gloop and Gleep, a Ferengi, M-113 Salt Vampire, Gorn, Mugatu, Cheron, Talosian, Nausicaan, Balok and Melotian danced while a version of Spider-Man watched Harry Osborn spike the punch (see comments).

    However the prom had to be abandoned when zombies overran it. While Buffy Summers, Spike, Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris and Chris Griffin dealt with the intruders, other students headed to Munden's to hold an afterparty attended by eternal teenager Andy Archins and his boyfriend Jiggs, Andy's ex-girlfriends Betty Jean and Verotika and Andy's former love rival Remy, as well as Sailor Moon, Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, Jeremy Duncan, Beast Man and Orko, Captain California, Glorious Gal and Weatherman, E.T., a Jawa, Dengar the Executioner and Zuckuss, Cassie Hack and her partner Vlad, and Gravity (Greg Willis).

  

Comments: Commander Rann and Marionette are normal human size in the New Mutants I#50 bar scene, the only time this is the case for any Micronaut until Bug turns up in the Annihilation Conquest spin-offs.
    The simplest explanation for this would be that Munden's has synced both with 616's Earth dimension and the Microverse.

    How do I know it was Zatara arguing with Doctor Strange and not Mandrake the Magician, who also wears a top hat and tuxedo? I don't for sure, but Mandrake normally also wears a short cape and no visible tie, while Zatara wears no cape and a bow tie. The lack of cape also rules out Timely's Monako.

    "100 Years of Puberty" parodies Archie characters, in case you haven't already spotted that. At first I thought the Spider-Man in 100 Years of Puberty was just a kid in fancy dress for the prom, and presumed that was the case for all the other cameos from other fictions...

    Then I (a) realized that the "normal" characters like Betty Jean and co. were in tuxedos and prom dresses, so it wasn't a fancy dress party; and (b) remembered that this is Cynosure, where literally anyone can show up. So while it might not be 616 Spidey, it was presumably at least an alternate reality Spider-Man.

    The Gravity seen in Munden's is another story; while some of the people there were students from the prom, there's no reason to believe everyone was. Given Munden's history of walk-ins from other realities, I'm happy to run with the assumption that this was 616 Gravity.

  

Nexus

(Nexus) - Horatio Valdemar Hellpop was the son of Theodore Hellpop, once the dictator of the planet Vradic until a popular uprising had overthrown him.

    Fleeing Vradic with his wife, Theodore blew the planet up, killing over ten million of his former subjects. The Hellpop's ship was sucked through a black hole and stranded in a remote sector of space, where their son Horatio was born.

    Raised in isolation without any knowledge of his father's crimes, Horatio was covertly influenced and modified as he grew up by the Merk, the last of an ancient alien species, who had stayed in Horatio's reality when the rest of his species transcended beyond corporeal form. Having chosen to sit in judgment of humanity, the Merk wanted to create an executioner who would eliminate mankind's worst mass murderers, so he began haunting Horatio's dreams with increasingly intense nightmares of those murderers' crimes, beginning with Theodore.

    The Merk then then granted Horatio superhuman powers - the ability to survive unaided in space and fly at interstellar speeds, a protective forcefield, and lethal energy bolts that could twist and bend round obstacles to hit their chosen target - to facilitate the executions of his targets, the first of whom was Theodore Hellpop himself.

    Ever a reluctant assassin, Nexus, as he became known, nevertheless had little choice but to do as the Merk directed.

(New Mutants I#50) - Nexus was present on a fringeworld in Reality-616, where he watched Charles Xavier intervening in a slave auction that was trying to sell Magik of the New Mutants.

(Uncanny X-Men I#245) - In Reality-616 once again, Nexus and his friend Judah Maccabee were present among a smorgasbord of aliens on board the flagship of the Conquest as its leader announced they planned to invade Earth.

(Crossroads#5) - When Vanth Dreadstar visited Cynosure and so came into range of the Merk's telepathic senses, Nexus was sent to slay him, blowing up Munden's Bar during the pursuit.

    Unimpressed, Grimjack assisted Dreadstar in luring Nexus to a zone of Cynosure where his superpowers were negated, then proceeded to pummel him. Luckily for Nexus, their mutual friend Judah Maccabee intervened, and once Nexus was informed of the circumstances behind Dreadstar's "crimes" he chose to disregard the Merk's orders and made amends with Dreadstar and Grimjack.

(The Gift) - The powerful entity Dys lured Nexus and others including Dreadstar to Cynosure, where they encountered Grimjack again and worked together to convince Dys not to destroy the multiverse.

(Sleeze Brothers#6) - On Earth-89547, Nexus and Judah attended a crowded conference where the Dharmalama was scheduled to reveal a message from the Messiah, squeezed into the venue alongside a Thanagarian Hawkman, mutant bounty hunter Middenface McNulty, Bugs Bunny, a Dalek, Zippy, Bungle and George, Gilbert the Alien, Captain Britain (or another, similar looking, Corps member), Judge Dredd, Spock, the Spirit (Denny Colt), the ghost Slimer, an alien Xenomorph Queen, and the two-headed "Mad" John Carnell/Andy "Fingers" Lanning, among many others.

Comments: Created by Mike Baron and Steve "the Dude" Rude, Nexus debuted in Capital Comics' Nexus I#1 on January 1981.

    After three issues, later gathered as a graphic novel, he transferred to a new series with new #1 published by First Comics.

    Like Grimjack, Nexus isn't a stranger to reality hopping, having done so to encounter Dreadstar, Grimjack, the Badger, Madman and Magnus, Robot Fighter, in full on crossovers. Additionally, his own series had cameos from characters belonging to other realities, including (relevant considering the next subprofile) the Herculoids - so it's far from a stretch that Nexus could have ended up in Munden's Bar when it phased into Reality-616, nor that the Herculoids could have also been present when this occurred.

    Nexus isn't the only character from his reality to visit Marvel and Marvel-related titles; his friend Judah Maccabee is not only present in Sleeze Brothers#6 and Uncanny X-Men I#245, as noted above, but also has an additional cameo in Sleeze Brothers: Some Like It Fresh at the interstellar shuttleport. Nexus' associate Amphigory of Headworld is also at the shuttleport that same issue, and has another cameo in Sleeze Brothers#5. Others present at the aforementioned shuttleport include Spider-Man, Namor, the Thing, the Hulk, Judge Dredd, the robot from Lost in Space, and someone who might be Spock from Star Trek.

Herculoids

(Herculoids cartoon and related comics) - Zandor, Tara, their son Dorno, the malleable blob-like Gleep and Gloop, rock ape Igoo, space dragon Zok and dinosaur-like Tundro are the defenders of the planet Amzot (a.k.a. Quasar), taking on various threats to their homeworld and occasionally teaming up with other heroes such as Space Ghost, Birdman, Moby Dick, the Mighty Mightor and the Galaxy Trio.

(Hanna Barbera TV Stars#3) - The Herculoids stopped a warrior of the Abyx race from using rapidly multiplying maggot-like creatures to destroy all life on Amzot.

(New Mutants I#50) - Zandor, Tara, Dorno, Gleep, Gloop, Igoo and Tundro all visited a fringeworld in Reality-616. They were outside M'nden's Bar when Charles Xavier raced out and bumped passed them, having telepathically sensed his student Magik was in danger nearby. Gleep and Gloop then watched as he interrupted a slave auction that was attempting to sell her.

Comments: Created by Alex Toth, the Herculoids debuted in the Hanna Barbera cartoon of the same name on September 9th 1967.

    They later enjoyed new episodes as part of the Space Stars anthology cartoon in the early 1980s.

   In comics, they've had various licensed stories, notably appearing in Marvel's Hanna Barbera's TV Stars in 1978. Having encountered other Hanna Barbera superheroes back in the 1960s cartoons, in recent years they've been teamed up more frequently with said heroes as part of DC's Future Quest comics. 

    I really enjoyed the Herculoids cartoons. I used to annoy my parents and brothers my mimicking the sounds made by Gleep and Gloop, and I loved Igoo and Zok...what do you do when you're eyebeams aren't enough? Fire another beam from your tail!
--Snood

images: (without ads)
New Mutants I#50, p4, pan 5 (main "Haggard" image)
Grimjack Omnibus#1 (main Grimjack image)
Grimjack: Killer Instinct#6 (second Grimjack image)
Grimjack#24/4, p4, pan 3 (Grimjack remembering his siblings as Nick Fury, Joe Dredd and Jake Fury)
New Mutants I#50, p5, pan 1 (negotiating with Corsair and Binary)
Uncanny X-Men I#245, p9, pan3 (Grimjack on the left, X-Men on the right)
Grimjack#40 cover ("Chaney"/clone body)
What The--?!#2/4, p2, pan 5 (Grimjack walks by Doctor Deranged)
Grimjack#55 cover (Jim Twilley)
Grimjack#75, p29, pan 2 (in the Ghouligans' wagon, fighting Wolverine, Nightcrawler and others)
Grimjack#75, p36, pan 2 (female Grimjack)
Legends of Indie Worlds: Words Only, p37, pan1 (Grimcat)
Grimjack#53, p18-19 (Grimjack's many lives)
New Mutants I#50, p3, pan 3 (M'nden's Bar, exterior)
Grimjack#27/2, p4, pan 1 (entrance to Marvel's Heaven)
Grimjack#38/2, p1, pan 1 (Iron Men in Munden's)
Grimjack#38/2, p2, pan 1 (Nude Mutants)
Grimjack#39/2, p1, pan 1 (Dr Strange in Munden's)
Uncanny X-Men I#245, p9, pan1 (Munden's in Australia)
Munden Bar's Annual#1 cover (Munden's interior, with Gordon, Grimjack and varied clientele)
Grimjack on ComicMix, p52, pan 3 (High School afterparty at Munden's)
New Mutants I#50, p6, pan3 (Nexus)
New Mutants I#50, p6, pan1 (Herculoids)
Future Quest#11 variant cover (Herculoids)

Appearances:
New Mutants I#50 (April 1987) - Chris Claremont (writer), Jackson Guice (pencils), John Beatty (inks), Ann Nocenti (editor)
What The--?!#2 (September 1988) - Peter B. Gillis (writer), Phil Foglio (artist), Carl Potts (editor)
 Uncanny X-Men I#245 (June 1989) - Chris Claremont (writer), Rob Liefeld (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Bob Harras (editor)

First Posted: 03/23/2019
Last updated: 04/17/2021

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
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