A fight spanning the millennia.
Creative Staff:
Story: Amy Chu
Art: Eric Blake
Colors: Adriano Augusto
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
A mysterious killer android from the future hunts the legendary mercenary from the past. A.I. meets magic in a story that takes us — where else? — Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the City of Angels! Amy Chu returns to pen this gnarly one and done action-filled issue that will totally take you back to the Summer of 1982…It’s an epic struggle between good and evil, mohawks and perms, New Wave and Heavy Metal!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With these various one-shots that are placing our characters at different points in time, you get to have some fun with it if you execute it right. Red Sonja in 1982 isn’t exactly revolutionary after some of the miniseries we’ve had the last few years but it’s still a fun project overall as a one-shot. Amy Chu delivers a pretty fun piece here that doesn’t try to adhere too hard to reality when you get down to it and it feels like an early 80s movie in all the right ways. Eric Blake captures this fun well whether it’s in the distant past of Sonja’s time, the aliens from the future, or giving us a look at early 80s Los Angeles and running Sonja through its machinations.
The premise here is that we’re introduced to a couple of grey aliens that are looking for their next thing to bet over and they’ve picked Sonja in the distant past as their target. What they do is send their robotic killer to where she is, it takes over the appearance of someone from that time period, and a fight ensues. The two aliens make their bet over who will win and it’s all very simple. For Sonja, it turns darkly dangerous as it’s her comrade that has been killed and appearance taken over by the robot that’s now trying to kill her. But the time period is what provides the wild card in the fight as one of her friends she was there with is also a sorcerer and is able to use magic in the fight, which messes over the whole thing and results in things ending in a kind of draw with no real resolution.
But it also leaps to 1982 when the sword that the robot was using was discovered and it’s been bought by a wealthy movie producer who is working through a sword and sandal fantasy film at the time. Sonja literally appears out of nowhere in the midst of this and is quickly taken through a fun montage of being brought into the picture, clothed, entertained, and so forth. You could see this project as a film easily made right in the 80s with all the right beats hit, including the return of the robot to continue following its programming through time. Sonja gets help from a PA named Pinky and it’s a delightful whirlwind that ensues with lots of references to other films as the fight gets underway and Sonja basically executes her own Kobayashi Maru maneuver.
In Summary:
I had a lot of fun with this one-shot as it kept Sonja exactly who she is and just ran her through a weird situation. The gods have messed with her before so it’s easy to imagine she knows how to roll with weirdness as long as there’s a good fight to be had and good drink as well. Chu’s story moves smoothly with just the time leap not feeling like it worked for me but that’s easy to just gloss over for the fun of the story itself. Blake’s artwork is a delight and I can imagine a few more panels or pages of montage material with outfit changes or visiting various locations for the time and place. Add in the fun with Pinky and all her references and it’s a silly good time.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: June 9th, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
