A perfect ending.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jordie Bellaire
Art: Drew Moss
Colors: Rebecca Nalty
Letterer: Becca Carey
What They Say:
FINAL ISSUE! Fighting and crying and flying and friendship.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Vampirella / Red Sonja series draws to a close here though it’s more of a Red Sonja series with this issue. And that’s fine as we’ve had a good balance of both over the course of the run and I liked a lot what Jordie Bellaire brought to the tale here, giving it a sense of finality and hope. Drew Moss really overdelivered with this series, through and through, with so many wonderful details along the way and just a great sense of flow to it, the pacing of the story through the panel design, and so many “cinematic” moments where you just became lost in the visuals and the haunting words that floated by. This issue really cements things and is, quite frankly, one of the best Red Sonja issues ever made.
With the whole blue-eyed Vampirella story unfolding in the previous issue, and her taking flight from there, this one focuses on the fallout from it with Sonja handling the narration. It’s one that has her hopeful that her friend would come back at some point and that being the reason she wouldn’t really leave this village. She saw all that she could do, all that she could teach, all that she could learn and pass on in new ways here as the real thing to understand. We watch as she goes through teaching kids how to swordfight or build things and more. But we also see her fall in love with Keena, a young woman that just spoke to her heart. There’s a moment where she says she loves Vampirella and you know it’s true, but this is a romantic love here that allows the two to build a family and raise children together. And, for better or worse, for Sonja to watch Keena grow older.
But the time goes on and watching that unfold, however briefly, is beautiful. That Sonja grows old eventually as well is interesting and you do wonder which element of her being a vampire allows it, but it’s the arrival of Marzan that changes everything. The little rat is able to reach through to Sonja and we get the reveal, if you want to call it that, that this is all just magic and it was a gift that will allow her to be a far better person some day in her life when it’s truly needed than she would have been without the experience. It doesn’t negate anything that happened because it was transformative in what it did, down to her DNA, but she has a fresh new opportunity here now and one where, like Vampirella, the two have a bond that spans everything even if that aren’t quite aware of it.
In Summary:
Though the last few pages may be the make or break moment for folks in whether they like the ending or not, I think it worked well for me and has left me with a really good feeling. Bellaire’s story is one that really delivered throughout and while it could have been tightened up a touch here and there, it’s the rare twelve-issue series that really hits the right sweet spot and made me an even bigger fan of these two characters. The creative team here is the best as Nalty really worked some magic with the color design throughout to make it incredibly rich to this digital consumer while Moss’ artwork was incredibly inspired and looked fantastic throughout. Bellaire has an ambitious project here and I hope that it’s just as much fun to read as a collection as it was to read month after month. Great characters and a great creative team.
Grade: A
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: December 16th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
