The horror of tradition.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Russell
Art: Bob Q
Colors: Dearbhla Kelly
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
Sonja The Red, the Master of War, goes to the domicile of the Master Of Souls. There, she learns the horrible truth of the army she is meant to lead into battle…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Mark Russell’s run on Red Sonja has been a lot of fun so far, especially as we get a few specials and miniseries that work sidestories that come back to the main book, allowing this run to deal with Sonja more specifically. Bob Q returns on the artwork as well and it’s definitely another solid issue as we get him showing more of what Khitai is like and the reactions of Sonja as she begins to realize just how bad things are here now that she’s older and more experienced. The combination of this creative team gives us a solid tale that prepares us for the next stage of events and puts characters in interesting places, especially those that were almost a non-factor for so long, such as the former emperor’s wife.
For Sonja, she’s made sure to protect herself here with Zo’ran as her bodyguard but learns quickly that the her lord doesn’t like that as only kings have had bodyguards before. But with what he went through to acquire her he’s letting it slide, though she gets a talking-to about it. Her exposure to tradition comes in a few different ways here, such as learning the story of Idra, the daughter of a former ruler hundreds of years ago that died and whose body is trotted out in a wooden horse everyone for the population to mourn. It’s a story that’s made up of the recognized fact of the state but also the reality of the servants that passed down the truth of how she killed herself as opposed to died because of how her father was abusing her. It’s not an unsurprising tale but one that’s useful for Sonja to acquaint herself with to understand that nothing in Khitai is what it seems.
With her being assigned her first mission of taking out the low-hanging fruit of a nearby former empire that’s nothing more than goat herders on a mountain, she gets to see the academies and how they work here with girls taken to be concubines in training at a young age to the latest class of soldiers that’s graduating into her service at merely twelve years old. It’s the harsh reality of Khitai that she’s now been bonded to and has to serve, which is horrifying her more and more. We see other shades of this kind of thing back in Zamora where one of Cyril’s guards has come back to tell the Empress what happened as seen in the other miniseries and how her son is now off to do his perceived duty. But this plays into the ravages of a post-war world in how so many that come back are kept separate and simply left to die rather than to be a burden on the system, keeping the truth from his mother just a bit longer.
In Summary:
Red Sonja has been firing on all cylinders for the longest time now and this installment, which mostly just moves the players around the board a bit with setup for what’s to come, hits a lot of strong points just in dealing with tradition within a kingdom and how corrosive it is. As someone said recently, tradition is peer pressure from the dead. While some of it is useful and helpful, much of it is problematic and should be reworked or discarded entirely. Russell’s moving well to provide new challenges for Sonja with her new position and I’m excited to see just how far all of this goes.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: July 1st, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
