The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 2

Comic Info

Red Sonja (1) #1

Reprints Red Sonja (1) #1-7 (January 1977-January 1978).  Red Sonja doesn’t only find trouble…she seeks it out.  On her quest for adventures, Red Sonja finds herself in battle with all sorts of evil beings and guides her actions not only with her heart but with her sword.  Finding herself with a riding companion named Mikal, Red Sonja explores the city of Athos fighting for the rights of the people and seeking to complete a dying promise to an alien race.

Written by Roy Thomas, Clara Noto, Wendy Pini, and Ed Summer, The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 2 continues Dynamite Entertainment’s reprints of the original Marvel Comics Red Sonja comic.  Following The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 1, the collection features art by Frank Thorne.

Red Sonja has a strange backstory.  She was created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith and loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino from the short story “The Shadow of the Vulture” by Robert E. Howard.  Through a convoluted turn of events, Marvel lost the rights to the character (though they kind of created her vs. Conan who they adapted), and Dynamite gained the rights.  Continuing from her stint in Marvel Feature, the reprints of Marvel’s original Red Sonja comics are worth checking out if you are a fan of sword and sorcery and the Red Sonja character, and they provide a nice flipside to Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comics.

Red Sonja (1) #6

Both Conan and Red Sonja aren’t too careful about the paths they take in life.  Most of the stories in this collection have Red Sonja learning of an injustice or a chance at riches and diving headlong into a dangerous battle.  Both Conan and Red Sonja are shown to have weaknesses (which is good since essentially they just have muscles and a sword), but Red Sonja has the added factor of being underestimated because she’s a female.  There are a few instances where Red Sonja is aided out of scrapes in this collection, but in general her ingenuity and skill as a fighter keeps her alive.

The collection itself is somewhat problematic.  It feels rather forced out.  With such good omnibus collections and cleaned up art, Red Sonja feels like a natural for a great looking transfer of the original comics.  It feels like in this collection that the colors are too much and the art needs to be a more muted to fit the style and the tone of the comics.  I only read a few individual issues of this series, but I don’t recall them looking as garish as this collection.

The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 2 is a worthy addition to fans of the character. I do think she was rather unique for her time and unlike a lot of Marvel’s other female heroes.  I may not like how the collection looks, but it does read well and should be sought out.  The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 2 is followed by the final volume of the series The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 3.

Related Links:

The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 1

The Adventures of Red Sonja—Volume 3

Red Sonja (1985)