Dynamite Entertainment 2019
Written by Mark Russell
Illustrated by Mirko Colak
Coloured by Bearbhla Kelly
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
THE SHE-DEVIL WITH A SWORD IS QUEEN OF HYRKANIA! LONG MAY SHE REIGN! Dragan The Magnificent marches his massive Zamoran army to do battle with Sonja’s puny Hyrkanian forces. Any other monarch would retreat in cowardly fear. But Sonja will rely on the lessons she learned at THE COURT OF THE KHITAI, and empty her nephew Kryon’s BROTHERS OF MISFORTUNE… The epic ongoing continues...
Mark does a stellar job keeping up with the powerful introduction he brought last issue. I am still thoroughly enjoying this and mainly because while she knows she has been duped but Sonja, the Red Queen of Hyrkania is still playing the role to the best of her ability. I am waiting to see if her cousin is indeed related to her by blood or just another ploy to keep her strung along. I know enough about Sonja to know she’s far from stupid, I mean she keeps this barely there chain-maille bikini on to keep men distracted and with her looks, skill and determination there isn’t another fighter alive who is her equal, other than perhaps Conan.
It is no secret that I am a fan of Mark’s work and lately I would say he’s got the Midas Touch if you will. There hasn’t been a project he’s written in comics that hasn’t found either critic’s favour or fan favour and the whole Hanna-Barbara angle worked wonders. The Flintstones was amazing and that Snagglepuss wow, well that one even today is well beyond it’s years which is kind of a shame heh. So I find the fact that Mark knows this character, knows how she’d react and perhaps I can even see the reasoning behind what she’s currently doing. God knows she owes her place of birth nothing but sentimentality sometimes gets even the best among us.
I don’t know what it is about this book that makes it so damn special, so much so that I do NOT mind the lack of BACKGROUNDS in panels. I think they should be utilised as often as humanly possible we all know I think that way and when we see them they are marvellous. I really do like the attention to detail that we see in the hair, clothing and such, hell you can see the lines in Sonja’s Chain Maille for crying out loud showing what this kind of level of work in the details can do. Seriously the varying weights of the linework that we see used here is sensational. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show off a great eye for storytelling. The colour work here is gorgeous, the way gradation and shading are used to highlight or lowlight areas is incredibly well done. There is a creativity and imagination in the work we see that just makes it all FEEL right.
The structure of the book, the way the ebb & flows been created out of the reveals and story & plot development make this such a fun and interesting read. Honestly that they thrust being Queen upon her and then to hear men complain about taking orders from her it really gives this a sense of levity at just the right moments. I also find it interesting that her reputation hasn’t garnered the least bit of respect or is this too early in her career I wonder. Regardless this is Red Sonja and she doesn’t back down from a fight and she knows the score, what’s coming and what tactics to use to keep her homeland free from his tyrannical rule. The real question is, CAN she do it?