Category: dynamite entertainment

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The Adventures of Red Sonja

This is a review of The Adventures of Red Sonja Volume 1-3, written by Clair Noto, Roy Thomas, and Bruce Jones with pencils by Frank Thorne and others. These comics were released in the 1970’s from Marvel, and are an offshoot of the Conan universe. This review will focus on the Clair Noto/Roy Thomas material, as I did not care for Mr. Jones’s interpretation of the character.

Does Red Sonja have a character? Yes, she does! She also has a metal bikini, which Mr. Thomas takes credit – or blame – for, depending on your viewpoint. She is a wandering mercenary. She’s depicted as a thief in an issue written by Mr. Jones, but seems mostly to make her living as a sellsword. In one issue, she takes a traveler’s cloak with the promise to return it at the tavern, which a thief wouldn’t do.

Red Sonja is depicted as fearless, competent with a sword, and smarter than your average mercenary. She wins a duel by leaping atop the carcass of a great mammoth. When her heavier foe follows, he sinks into the mammoth like a stone. 

The writers mention in passing that Red Sonja has vowed never to sleep with a man, but don’t go into details. She has two potential love interests. Both are heirs to thrones, and both want to make her their queen. She leaves them without looking back. My impression is that she is a born wanderer.

Red Sonja has a code. She’s not an unstoppable killing machine – which would be boring– but she takes no shit. She doesn’t want to kill you, but if you provoke her she will. Case in point: she becomes a wanderer when a king tries to make her his concubine and ends up with a knife in his throat. In another story, she kills three men who best her in a bar brawl – which she does not start – and steal her money.

Red Sonja is a sword & sorcery comic that alternates between one-shots and multi-part storylines. These issues contain loads of fantasy elements, many of which veer into surrealism. In one story, Sonja is tossed into an enormous clam, and fights her way out armed only with a handful of diamonds. Nothing bizarre about that, right?

In another, she fights a man wearing a mask made of poppies, which lull his victims to sleep. Poppy Man serves a trio of vampires who have transformed his father into an enormous carnivorous plant. We also have insect queens, rocs hatching from tiny eggs crafted by centaurs, and unicorns with regenerating horns. 

The multi-part storylines can be dense plot-wise, with lots of characters coming and going. Plot twists are thrust upon the reader without warning, but that’s part of the fun of reading these comics. Recommended, especially for lovers of fantasy and sword & sorcery comics.

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The Boys: Get Some

This is a review of The Boys: Get Some by Garth Ennis (writer) and Darick Robertson (artist). You can read my review of the first volume, here. Please be aware that this volume contains challenging material that may trigger readers. I would provide a detailed content warning, but this review is only around 500 words. The point of The Boys is to push boundaries, or to say that there are no boundaries. If you do not agree, my advice is to not engage. Also: SPOILER ALERT.

The Boys are CIA sponsored team led by the Butcher that consists of Wee Hughie, Mother’s Milk, The Woman, and The Frenchman. They exist to combat the growing superhuman problem. What’s the problem with superhumans? Well, they are written as real people with superhuman powers. Anyone older than ten can figure out why that would be a problem.

The first storyline, Get Some, opens with Butcher and Wee Hughie investigating the death of a young gay man who fell off a roof. They visit a gay bar, where the bartender tells them that the person in question had a crush on SwingWing, a superhero who embraces social justice issues and whom everyone assumes is gay.

Three-and-a-half issues later, SwingWing – who is not gay and who despises gay people – confesses, and Butcher tells him that he will let him go if SwingWing becomes his snitch. Except Butcher is lying. He removes a screw from SwingWing’s jetpack, which malfunctions a few days later, causing him to plummet to his death in a scene that is not even shown. Nobody knows what happened but Butcher and the reader, and readers not paying attention might miss it.

The second storyline, Glorious Five Year Plan, is set in Russia and introduces Love Sausage. The plot involves 150 rogue superhumans, exploding heads, and a coup backed by the Russian mob and an American corporation. Except it’s not a coup, it’s more like an elaborate sales pitch that fails when Butcher finds the remote (read: kill switch) and blows 150 superhuman heads off.

The most interesting thing about The Boys is trying to figure out what makes Butcher tick. Why does he kill SwingWing the way he does, instead of sending him to jail or just outright killing him? I don’t know. Butcher is hard to read. On the surface, Garth Ennis might not seem like a very subtle writer, but appearances can be deceiving. I had to read most of these issues twice to see what was really happening.

Do I enjoy reading The Boys? Yes, I do. I’ve been reading comics for a long time and I get the comic insider jokes, which there are lots of. I don’t endorse Ennis’ use of racist/sexist/homophobic language, although his message that a person’s actions should count more than their words comes through loud and clear. People who read this after seeing the Amazon Prime series might be in for a shock, but if you like Garth Ennis without an editor, this is the series for you.