One world to another.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Mirka Andolfo
What They Say:
Red Sonja is plunged through the Rift to Jana the Jungle Girl’s tropical island, just as paradise is besieged by a terrifying monster that rains down ice and snow with killing cold. Jana, terrified for her homeland, is determined to destroy the source of the magic and return balance to her world – even if that means combating the She-Devil herself! An official tie-in to the epic Swords of Sorrow crossover event, written by celebrated writer Marguerite Bennett (Batgirl, Earth 2).
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As the Swords of Sorrow event moves through its midway phase, a new miniseries has kicked off to expand exposure a bit featuring Red Sonja and Jungle Girl. Though I’ve not read the recent run of Red Sonja books, I’m certainly familiar with her. Jungle Girl is lesser known but I’ve read some of her books as well, so it’s easy enough to dig into this and get the gist of the characters. What helps with this book is that writer Marguerite Bennett makes the pairing work quite well on a number of levels while Andolfo’s artwork really makes the world engaging to check out a few times in order to soak in the details of what’s presented. The story is still just beginning though, so there’s not a lot to latch onto there.
This one picks up with Sonja on Barsoom after dealing with Dejah Thoris and is now intent on finding out more about the portals, once she gets back to her world. Unfortunately for her, she does go through one, with a Barsoomian beast no less, but she doesn’t end up in her world but rather the jungle island where Jana the jungle girl lives. Naturally, Sonja’s arrival is one that’s done with a fair bit of activity since she drops in with a beast at first before they separate in recovery and that has Jana attacking first and asking questions later. Thankfully, this is kept relatively short since they both realize they speak each other’s language and both are wielding particular swords after having similar encounters. The dialogue of how they go through this is what sells it, since Sonja is somewhat vulgar in a sense with her language. And that makes it a treat to read as she assess the situation.
The situation itself is fairly straightforward in that this land is under siege in a way that Jana can’t understand as it seems like it’s being sickened or poisoned. The two pair up for a bit to talk about the larger event at work and what little they know and it also serves to introduce how part of the island is in terrible shape with a freeze going through it. The exploration works well to let the two really talk a bit, and for Sonja to start teaching her some proper profanity, but it naturally leads towards a cliffhanger with the revelation of which of the bad guys is actually here causing trouble. It’s all setup and while I won’t say there’s no payoff, it’s a work where we get the standard there part act here with all of this doing the introductions and moving to the second phase. It’s fun and done well, but it has that predictable aspect to it.
In Summary:
Having liked what I read of both characters before and largely enjoying just about all of the supporting miniseries for what they’re doing, it’s little surprise that I enjoyed this book. What made me like it more though was that Bennett really does a good job of giving Sonja some great personality while Andolfo brings the words to life beautifully with the facial expressions she gives her. The world of Jana hits all the right notes in it’s design and how it’s presented, especially with the color design that Andolfo does for it where there’s a lot of great pop. It’s definitely a fun book overall for what it’s trying to do and it has two issues to go really big and fun with it ahead, which I suspect it will do. It’s straightforward first act material here overall though, but the narration and dialogue nudges it up to being worth it if you’re fans of the characters and the event itself.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: July 22nd, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
