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Notable Sci-Fi author Samuel Delaney was hired by DC Comics to write Wonder Woman. It is reported that his initially-conceived 6-parter would have Wonder Woman, still in her Diana Prince - Secret Agent persona, defend an abortion clinic. That tale may be for a different day.

DC ultimately published two issues scripted by Delaney. The first was Wonder Woman #202. (actually including the final panel of #201).

Published Sept. 10, 1972, the cover advertises:

Dangers never cease… As Diana battles friend and foe alike in a land beyond time! Introducing Fafhrd the Barbarian and the Gray Mouser!

DC would then debut its new Sword and Sorcery fantasy comic anthology series starring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser soon after in in March, 1973. That series ran five issues, The first issue featured an adaptation of Fritz Leiber's story, "The Price of Pain Ease" by writer Dennis O'Neil and artists Howard Chaykin. The same creative team adapted Leiber's story, "Thieves' House" in issue #2. O'Neil wrote an original story in #3 and then adapted "The Cloud of Hate" and "The Sunken Land" in issues #4 and #5 respectively.

Are the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories created and published by DC Comics, particularly Samuel Delaney’s story in Wonder Woman #202, as well as Sword and Sorcery #3, considered to be an official part of the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser lore? Looking for an authoritative answer.

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    According to the DC Database, DC licensed the rights from the Fritz Leiber Estate. It is a fan-run site and offers no source for the statement, so it might not be authoritative enough for you. dc.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Licensed_properties Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 9:52
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    Having licensed a product, however, does not mean that anything published will be part of the official continuity. Marvel's Conan comics are for instance not considered part of the official Conan continuity administered by the Howard Estate, and neither are the Conan movies of TV series. So Wonder Woman is not part of either the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser or Conan continuities, even though she has partnered up with them on different occasions. Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 10:02
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    @KlausÆ.Mogensen The original Sword and Sorcery would not have been licensed from Lieber’s estate, since he did not die until 1992.
    – Buzz
    Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 15:44
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    As to the question itself, I am pretty sure I remember an interview with Lieber from the 1970s or 1980s in which he said, more or less, that he and Harry Fischer (the original creator of the Gray Mouser) could do whatever they wanted with the characters, but that anything else was just cruft. However, I don’t know where to find the interview.
    – Buzz
    Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 15:46

1 Answer 1

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Probably not

Piecing the various comments to the question together, we can reasonably conclude the DC Comics stories, including Delany’s Wonder Woman story, are not part of Lieber’s canon.

From the initial question research, it was generally established that Delany’s story was used as a pre-event advertisement for DC’s Sword and Sorcery monthly fantasy comic anthology, utilizing one of DC’s most well-known characters and long-running books. The Sword and Sorcery tales were mostly adaptations of existing Lieber stories, but for one-off fillers which Lieber probably has no regard for at all.

As @KlausAEMogensen reminds us, merely being an officially licensed product does not necessarily mean a given story is canon or exists within a larger continuity. @Buzz notes that it would even have been Lieber himself and not his estate which inked the DC deal.

But in any case. @Buzz also suggests that Lieber could probably not have cared less about others’ tales of his created characters, and would have given such stories little, if any, consideration in his own characters fictional lives and canon.

Although it may not matter anyway, or be an intended feature of Lieber’s canon in perpetuity

@Buzz also observes that:

“It also occurred to me that, with the publication of Swords in the Mist in 1968, Lieber provided (by way of explaining how ‘Adept's Gambit,’ one of the earliest Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, took place in the Hellenistic Near East) an in-universe explanation for how the pair could have adventures in other worlds, which they would not necessarily even remember after returning to Nehwon:

‘It is rumored by the wise-brained rats which burrow the citied earth and by the knowledgeable cats that stalk its shadows and by the sagacious bats that wing its night and by the sapient zats which soar through airless space, slanting their metal wings to winds of light, that those two swordsmen and blood-brothers, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have adventured not only in the World of Nehwon with its great empire of Lankhmar, but also in many other worlds and times and dimensions, arriving at these through certain secret doors far inside the mazy caverns of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes whose great cave, in this sense, exists simultaneously in many worlds and times. It is a Door, while Ningauble glibly speaks the languages of many worlds and universes, loving the gossip of all times and places. In each new world, the rumor goes, the Mouser and Fafhrd awaken with knowledge and speaking skills and personal memories suitable to it, and Nehwon then seems to them only a dream and they know not its languages, though it is ever their primal homeland."

In this way, Lieber established a powerful in-universe canon device to address nearly any appearance of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in any form, in any media, at any time, and in perpetuity — perhaps even serving to include even unofficial appearances; it no longer really matters about the nature of their adventure, because they won’t remember it anyway and it has no impact on their continuous adventures whether it happened or not.

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    It also occurred to me that, with the publication of Swords in the Mist in 1968, Lieber provided (by way of explaining how "Adept's Gambit," one of the earliest Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, took place in the Hellenistic Near East) an in-universe explanation for how the pair could have adventures in other worlds, which they would not necessarily even remember after returning to Nehwon:
    – Buzz
    Commented Dec 2, 2021 at 17:16
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    "It is rumored by the wise-brained rats which burrow the citied earth and by the knowledgeable cats that stalk its shadows and by the sagacious bats that wing its night and by the sapient zats which soar through airless space, slanting their metal wings to winds of light, that those two swordsmen and blood-brothers, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have adventured not only in the World of Nehwon with its great empire of Lankhmar, but also in many other worlds and times and dimensions, arriving at these through certain secret doors far inside the mazy caverns of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes ― ...
    – Buzz
    Commented Dec 2, 2021 at 17:17
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    ... whose great cave, in this sense, exists simultaneously in many worlds and times. It is a Door, while Ningauble glibly speaks the languages of many worlds and universes, loving the gossip of all times and places." "In each new world, the rumor goes, the Mouser and Fafhrd awaken with knowledge and speaking skills and personal memories suitable to it, and Nehwon then seems to them only a dream and they know not its languages, though it is ever their primal homeland."
    – Buzz
    Commented Dec 2, 2021 at 17:17

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