The Devil Born.
What They Say:
Completely isolated and near the brink of death, Red Sonja reflects on her lifetime of blood and pain, where she questions even her right to survive. But even in these last moments of life, enemies from her past return to make sure her death is not a peaceful one!
Creators:
Writer: Gail Simone
Art: Walter Geovani
Colorist: Adriano Lucas
Letterer: Simon Bowland
The Review:
Infected by the plague, Red Sonja has wandered off into the wilderness to die. Galled by the knowledge that she surrendered to Annisia and failed King Dimath—the only good man she ever knew—she succumbs to fever after sparing the life of a white stag. The fever brings dreams of her childhood and the story of how she became known as “The Devil.”
Once again Simone, Geovani, Lucas, and Bowland craft a fun, compelling issue, adding depth and layers to everyone’s favorite She-Devil with a Sword. While on paper the plot is pretty standard sword and sorcery affair—reminiscent of many stories, not the least of which the first Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan film. However, Simone takes this standard plot and turns it into her own. The scene where her village is overrun by marauders while she is forced to watch is horrible, and it’s made even worse by the very real threat of rape—which itself is multiplied by a thousand in this situation because Sonja (here called Sonjita) is only twelve. The slaughter is red and awful, but it makes Sonja’s vengeance all the sweeter to witness.
One of the reasons why the issue works so well are the bits of repetition. As always, it’s difficult to tell in collaborative art forms such as this who decided to do what, but there are two moments of narrative repetition that work very well. The first is the phrase “He may have misjudged me to some small degree” which appears in the same panel when Sonja takes her revenge against the reavers that destroyed her people. It’s a deliberate callback to a previous scene where she witnesses her father fighting. Sonja had thought that her father was “a bit of a pushover” but after seeing him fight, she thinks, “I may have misjudged him to some small degree.” It’s a nice moment for two reasons: one, it’s a funny line: understated and positioned just right in the panel. Second, it highlights Sonja’s character and how she is perceived by others because of her gender. Much in the same way she misjudged her father, many people misjudge Sonja because she’s a woman (or a girl, in this particular case). And like her father, Sonja is no pushover.
The other moment of repetition that works very well is visual. When she was exiled because of the plague, the outline of a bird was drawn on Sonja’s face just over the eyes. In the flashback, when Sonja attacks the marauders, her eyes are similarly shaded with a smear of dirt from the graves she dug for her people. This smear over her eyes serves as a nice visual connection between past and present Sonja and illustrates her strength both as a child and as a woman.
A great deal of the emphasis in the flashback is Sonja’s ability as a hunter, and even though the issue ends with Sonja supposedly dead—having passed away the moment that Ayla and Nias find her—any comic fan will tell you that she’ll be back next issue, and I imagine that once she’s recovered, she’s a-goin’ huntin’.
In Summary:
Under Gail Simone, Red Sonja is a title that just keeps picking up speed. It keeps adding layers to a character that is too often portrayed as one-dimensional and veers off in unexpected directions. The character work is top-notch, the plot exciting, and the action expertly depicted by Geovani. It’s a great title and the best that Dynamite is putting on the stands. Highly recommended.
Grade: A+
