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There's a lot of Red Sonja titles on the go just now, and I don't really care for any of them.

However, the Red Sonja Fairy Tales One Shot was tempting, and was actually an alright read.

This is largely because it's as much a Witcher story as it is a Red Sonja story.

Now, the Witcher doesn't appear in this. At all. But the tone is the same, and can be summarised thus

People: Hey, Witcher, will you help us with this fucked-up situation?

Geralt: That is a fucked-up situation indeed. Would you consider applying some ethics?

People: No.

Geralt: :(

People: Anyway, Witchers are emotionless monsters.

( Read more... )

Written by Jordan Clark (you know, from Aquaman), with pencils from Andres Labrada

Mirko Andolfo's new Red Sonja series has Sonja looking after a girl left orphaned by an attack on her village and that's a premise visited in Red Sonja: Black, White, Red #3. In the story Small Tales, regular series colourist Dearbhla Kelly and Soo Lee tell a story of Sonja finding a girl alone in the woods. Sonja won't take her on as an apprentice, but vows to give her safe passage to the next sign of civilisation she can find.


And so begins ( Red Sonja: In loco parentis )

I love the expressions on Sonja's face. Lee does a great job at telling a whole story in just one picture

I alludedlast month to the idea that Red Sonja often finds herself drawn by artists who just like to go wild on the idea of a busty powerhouse wearing next to nothing. Sometimes you get a Sonja with no internal organs (or bones, it seems), who absolutely couldn't exist in the real world, let alone swing a shield.


That gets pushed to the extreme in Mars Attacks Red Sonja as we see a Sonja that no amount of glutes workouts and HIIT training can make possible.

6 pages from Mars Attacks Red Sonja and 4 pages from Mars Attacks Red Sonja #5
( Red Sonja vs. the Red Planet )

Launched nearly two years ago, Mark Russell's Red Sonja was something a little bit different.

It was solicited as
No man knows the place of her birth, nor where she learned to wield a sword to shame many a male. They know only that she is called The She-Devil of The Hyrkanian Steppes. That, and RED SONJA. MARK RUSSELL (The Flintstones) and MIRKO COLAK (Conan) bring a savage tale of metal and blood. A world conqueror possesses a massive army and a fatal prophecy. A bastard sorceress craves revenge. And a fearsome red-haired warrior is made wartime ruler of a homeland set for decimation

The series is about politics, about society and about how people respond to each other. It's about how the wealthy and the powerful can afford patience and can absorb disasters that would ruin others. It's about war, but a war of lines of communication, food supplies and what happens when you don't have enough blacksmiths. There is no glory in anything here.

Like the rest of Russell's stuff, it's very contemporary and full of universal truths. It's not a form of story that is often told in Red Sonja, apart from in Marguerite Bennett's The Falcon Throne (which I might post later, as it's an excellent story about propaganda and a slow descent into fascism).

Alessandro Miracolo took over from Bob Quinn on art duties on #19 and returned to a style that was more in keeping with Red Sonja's history. That is to say "chainmail bikini and tits out." When the series opened, Sonja wore a shirt, then switched to the chainmail, but with a cloak. Then under Quinn she was usually properly covered up. Miracolo really pushed the tittiness to the max.

As the climax of the story nears, Sonja is trapped by the young son of the Emperor who declared war on Hyrkania in #1. The new Emperor might be a child, but he is also wise beyond his years with two super powers: the ability to draw the air from your lungs, and patience. Those are combined with a cruelty and callousness often seen in men who rise to power through no work of their own.

And with Sonja trapped, it is time for fighting.

( You can have little a bloodbath, as a treat. )

After the excitement of Wonder Woman 750, the team have set up a new status quo (Diana lives in Boston now. she has weird new bracers, which the artist forgot to draw in 752, and there is a cabal of women villains gunning for Diana. and Devastation is back!)

( The final page of 751 )
I do enjoy a good time displaced character. I liked it when ( Thor killed his grandfather by mistake )

I liked it when Amy Chu wrote ( Red Sonja's nonsense adventures in NYC )

so, yes, I am interested in Wonder Woman fighting/helping a confused warrior woman out of time.

And for the record, ( women in medieval armour is a good aesthetic )

( Don't raise your hand at all until you've extended it* )

I quite like Red Sonja. She's a character who can tolerate a high amount of nonsense and fits as the straight woman to a mad, mad world (Red Sonja has to collect a chef, an erotic dancer and others so that to a mad emperor can host a party, Red Sonja gets involved in gentrification, Red Sonja is a chainmail bikini-clad fish out of water in NYC because of magic)

And now Mark Russell is writing her. Mark Russell who wrote the most intriguing comic I've not read all the way through - The Flintstones.

I'm on board for #1 at least.

No man knows the place of her birth, nor where she learned to wield a sword to shame many a male. They know only that she is called The She-Devil of The Hyrkanian Steppes. That, and RED SONJA. MARK RUSSELL (The Flintstones) and MIRKO COLAK (Conan) bring a savage tale of metal and blood. A world conqueror possesses a massive army and a fatal prophecy. A bastard sorceress craves revenge. And a fearsome red-haired warrior is made wartime ruler of a homeland set for decimation

( And so... )