Red Sonja Volume 2 #1 cover image - main cover art by Nicola Scott

Rated T+

Red Sonja is a high-fantasy, sword and sorcery female character that writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith created while they were producing the Conan the Barbarian comic book series for Marvel Comics.  First appearing in Conan the Barbarian #23 (February 1973), Red Sonja was loosely based on “Red Sonya of Rogatino,” a female character that appeared in the short story, “The Shadow of the Vulture,” written by Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan.

Red Sonja has appeared in comic books for forty years, with the character spending the last decade at Dynamite Entertainment.  Dynamite Entertainment is re-launching their ongoing Red Sonja comic book series with Gail Simone as writer and Walter Geovani as artist on a new title, Red Sonja, Volume 2.

Red Sonja, Volume 2 #1 opens with a brief look into Red Sonja’s past.  Three years later, she is sleeping off a drunk, which is interrupted by thieves and by Nias and Ayla – her self-appointed bodyguards.  Now, a former benefactor (so to speak), King Dimath needs Sonja’s help.  Sonja agrees, and her reward is a ghost from her past.

THE LOWDOWN:  In interviews she has given for Red Sonja, Volume 2, writer Gail Simone has spoken of taking the character in a direction that is different from past interpretations.  Simone is one of the few female writers who have broken into the white boys’ club that is comic book writing for Marvel and DC Comics in a way that has allowed her to be prolific and influential.  And she is not really like her male colleagues.

Simone’s Red Sonja is fiery and aggressive, not icy and reserved – as the character has been in the past.  She is not really an alpha female.  It’s like this: because it is a penis or royal penis does not mean Sonja has to submit or bow to it.  Simone’s Red Sonja is truly liberated from having her life defined by men being in control.  Simone’s presentation of the character makes this book worth a look, because the plot is merely standard sword and sorcery material.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Fans of Red Sonja and of Gail Simone will want to try Red Sonja, Volume 2.