The death count continues to grow.
Creative Staff:
Story: Christopher Hastings
Art: Pasquale Qualano
Colors: Kike J. Diaz
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
In the far-flung sci-fi future, PURPLE SONJA and her mech act as scouts for a space pilgrimage of the remaining members of humanity fleeing Earth. This scouting is made difficult by the return of Purple Sonja’s greatest enemy Kaiju descending upon her. Her demise is all but assured, until she receives help from…HELL SONJA!? By CHRISTOPHER HASTINGS (Deadpool) and PASQUALE QUALANO (Dejah Thoris)!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Sonajversal with its main story drew to a close with the fifth issue and has been working exploring the various realities and other Sonja’s since, this time focusing on the Purple Sonja. With it getting a couple of issues in and having a better establishing of the intent, Hastings is able to get into the story quicker and better than before and we’re getting the fleshing out that we had hoped for before. Qualano has long been a favorite in the Dynamite stable of artists and this series has been strong under his hand with Diaz coloring it as we’ve had so many neat designs and takes that had me wanting individual stories to let each of these incarnations flourish.
The premise for this one brings us the space-faring Purple Sonja as she and a small band of humanity that escaped the demon-infested Earth are all that are left. The creatures won and they’re now out looking for a new world to settle on while facing the various demons that are even worse in space because of how radiation from there twists and warps them. Sonja thankfully has her seemingly sentient S.O.N.J.A. mecha to work with and the two of them combined are able to hold off and eliminate the majority of what attack the ship. And Sonja likes it this way as it gives her a sense of purpose as the journey just goes on and on. What changes things up is when the devil from hell shows up and tells her and the captain that a world nearby is ideal for them, and the devil then convinces the navigator to go for it in the middle of the night even though it’s infested with demons.
There are a lot of moving parts in this episode as it’s trying to get a lot done in a small space with more concepts introduced and the new character and it does it pretty well. There are no slow areas, though you might qualify the couple of near-intimate moments as that. What we get here is a good bit of fighting that’s manipulated by the devil that orchestrated the original storyline as she’s trying to create more and more dead to reclaim and fill hell with. But she does, in her own way, give Purple Sonja and this set of humanity’s survivors what they need in a chance to start anew. The question will come down to being whether it’s some strange new world out there or that they head back to Earth and retake the world.
In Summary:
While I’m still trying to get a handle on the whole series itself and some of the variants we’ve seen of Red Sonja, this is the issue that feels the most cohesive and coherent in its ability to really tell a story that makes sense. It has all the right pieces to bring it together Hastings has a better handle on this particular iteration as well as she has an almost kind of 80s science fiction rogue aspect to her personality while mixing with some fun anime-inspired mecha elements. Qualano’s artwork is strong as always and I love his take on Sonja herself, but also the way our devilish character looks too. Definitely something that has me encouraged for more of the run.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: September 29th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
