THIS IS THE RIGHT BOOK -- Buy if u want to read Red Sonja at her BEST Excellent!!! Amazon IS shipping the right product and its a good one. Fantastic artwork. Sonja is expertly drawn and not so much as the pin-up model (although she is attractive as always) but looks very much a believable warrior and the action scenes are well choreographed, facial expressions sincere. Some of the most powerful pages are those with no text-- proof of the artwork's high quality. The story is your basic Conan/fantasy tale and Sonja's character is well but subtly developed. Story finishes with a series of Red Sonja cover art. I HIGHLY recommend this graphic novel for any fan of Red Sonja, Conan, or general admirers of the fantasy genre.
Say What??? "Red Sonya, She Devil with a Sword" marks the triumphant return of Robert E. Howard's heroine to the comic book medium. And what a glorious return it is. The writers, Oeming and Carey, have woven a wonderful story for the first six issues (including issue 0) which are represented in this collection. The artwork by artist Mel Rubi is breathtaking. Red Sonja has never looked sexier, nor more lethal. The various guest artists who contribute the numerous covers are all impressive, but in my opinion Rubi's Sonja is the best. Just having finished this collection, I would not be exagerrating to say that I was blown away by it, and I plan to read it again, cover to cover. I think Robert E. Howard would be proud to see what they've done with his creation. 5 stars is not enough.
Unfortunately, the above entitled product was not the product I received from Amazon. Like just about everyone else whose contributed a review, I received, "The Adventures of Red Sonja Vol 1" which collects the first few issues of the thirty year old Marvel comic. Lame! Unlike Barry Smith or John Buscema, who drew for Conan at the same time, and whose work still looks as good today as it did then, the artwork in the old Red Sonja looks mostly amatuerish by today's standards, especially compared to the new Red Sonja. But that's beside the point. This wasn't the item that I ordered and its not the item that I want to keep. I tried to do an exchange with Amazon, but they just sent me the same incorrect product a second time!!! Having returned both copies, I'm now waiting on my refund.
So how did I get "Red Sonja, She Devil with a Sword", you ask? I bought it somewhere else.
Some of the other reviews on this page are for the wrong book! For some reason some of the other reviews on this page are for the wrong book. Apparently there was some confusion in the past and no one has ever updated this page. The artwork in the Carey/Oeming/Rubi book looks better than the artwork in the Thomas/Jones/Thorne book, which was recolored but not very skillfully.
Unlike that book, there is no Conan appearance in this one. I think Dynamite publishing bought the rights to the Red Sonja character only, though I suppose an exception was made that allowed them to reprint the story featuring Conan in the Thomas/Jones/Thorne book, which reprinted the original Marvel Comics.
Sometimes the story is a bit hard to follow, but this link provides a summary of the first three or four volumes: [...] Note that the online summary begins with the events of Red Sonja #0, which actually belongs chronologically after #1-6 as it is reprinted in the book. The summary also includes #7 which is not reprinted in either Volume #1 or Volume #2.
I, too, received the wrong item from Amazon. I don't know if Amazon is listing this book incorrectly or what, but I'm returning my copy, as many others have apparently done.
What book am I reviewing? I don't know if Amazon has worked out the confusion between the Red Sonja reprints and the new series, but I'm reviewing the book that this page is supposed to solicit -- the one containing issues 0-6 of the new series written by Michael Avon Oeming with Mike Carey with art by Mel Rubi.
The book itself is a nice product. Nice paper, nice reproduction values -- none of the ugliness that marred the Roy Thomas/Bruce Jones "Adventures of Red Sonja, Vol. 1" TPB. At the back it's got what I was hoping for -- a nice cover gallery of all 36 covers for the 6 issues of this series, plus the cover for issue 0, all full-sized and looking great. Plus there's a bit of interview with the writers, and a few Mel Rubi sketches. As I said, quality product. But not without its problems. Two pages from issue three are missing all dialogue. The art is there, but there are no word bubbles. This is a pretty unforgivable misstep.
As for the comic -- I really wanted to like this. I love what Kurt Busiek's been doing for Conan over at Dark Horse, and I had hopes for something similar here, especially when I got wind of Mike Carey's involvement. And, to be fair, it tries. There's a story here about the price of peace, the cost of freedom, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, it's mostly handled in a fairly trite, puerile way. (And someone involved really doesn't like commas, which is unfortunate, because a lot of the dialogue (when it's not missing!) reads in an oddly rushed fashion.) The story and the writing both are also without wit, without charm. Simply not much fun. That said, the art is mostly solid, occasionally very good, but also occasionally not to my liking. Sonja is at times a bit too manga-ish, a bit too cutesy. I also still don't like her chainmail bikini, but I understand why the licensors wanted her to keep that costume and I guess I'm resigned to it by now. I guess the biggest problem with the story is that I never really got sucked into it, never really came to know or care enough about most of the characters to really be all that invested in their fates.
In the end, this is an average/mediocre start to the series. Because I'm a sucker for this genre and for Red Sonja, I'll stick with the book for another arc or two and see if it improves, but while this book generally isn't awful, it's also not in any way outstanding and there are far better books to spend your money on -- like Dark Horse's Conan line, for starters.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
