Things aren’t going quite as the Traveller had hoped.
Creative Staff:
Story: Gail Simone
Art: Sergio Davila
What They Say:
Gail Simone (Batgirl, Red Sonja) and rising star Sergio Davila (Legenderry) team to bring you this epic tale, featuring the most amazing, most beloved, and fiercest pulp heroines of all time! All the great Women of Dynamite are united against an unbeatable horror, and this historic issue features, for the first time ever, characters from the worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard as Dejah Thoris and Red Sonja clash!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of Swords of Sorrows did a solid enough job of hitting all the right things it had to in order to set up the basics of the event and introduce most of the characters on some level. Since then, we’ve had a one-shot that showed things building up from the villains side and a couple of additional books for the main heroines and the way they’re dealing with the situation with the acquisition of their swords and with dealing with each other. Small steps, but nicely expansive and it worked to expand on the characters so you had a better idea of who was who when you hit the main book. The main book, as we see here, is still largely working with the well known characters though, in addition to the ones created to get the event underway. And that works fairly well.
It is amusing to get the thread throughout the book with the Traveller and her courier as they talk about the need to do what must be done and the frustration that comes from the fact that the women with the Swords don’t seem to understand their importance (no surprise, considering how little has been said to them) and they’re more likely to fight with each other than anyone else. It’s an understandable problem considering the layout of things, but it is fun to see a little more of the Traveller and her place, and the way she views the flow of events at this point considering her opponent is gaining more position now that he’s put together his own little army. Establishing that group that came together in the Chaos special, and had its introduction in the first issue of this series, even giving it a little lip service here helps to solidify it.
What this book wants to largely deal with is the ongoing tussle between Red Sonja and Deja Thoris as she’s ended up on Barsoom and dealing with some really surprising beasts, at least from her point of view. She doesn’t react too much to the world, but I liked that Thoris is the one to put things together a bit that she’s from Jarsoom like John Carter, helping to establish and link things more in her own mind. The pair have a lot of back and forth that really lets them showcase their physical abilities as they face off against each other, especially with the way Thoris goes over the edge when she sees Sonja attacking Woola. That’s a nice moment of intensity. While it is fun, the book does take the predictable turn of having one of the opposition set up things to go worse for them, which is Catherine Bell commanding the dark prince’s army of shard men, and that has Thoris and Sonja working together, putting them on the same page at long last. Predictable to be sure, but very well executed with the pacing, dialogue and the artwork itself since both women really get into the fight.
In Summary:
The second installment of this essentially brings the two power players onto the same page, with a nod towards Vampirella as well as she continues to figure out what’s going on. The pairing of Thoris and Sonja works well since Sonja’s otherworldly adventures are always fun and taking her to Barsoom feels like it takes her out of her element, but not in a huge way. The two showcase well in the action department here as they play to traditional roles of fight first and ask questions later and the artwork brings it to life beautifully, particularly as the coloring really takes it up a few notches since it’s not mired in darker colors. The bits we get with the Traveller and her courier are interesting as you want to know more of what they’re doing, and we get some decent reinforcement from the darker side of the equation as well with the kind of incentive that was put into play for them by their new master. A solid second issue that has me looking forward to a lot more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: June 3rd, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
