Here’s a fact about me that you may not know – I was a huge fan of Robert E. Howard’s Conan The Barbarian series as a tween. Even had a Frazetta poster on my wall. My dad has first editions, which sadly did not survive to be handed down to me and I read those over and over.
It is a miracle of timing and joy that this year has two very decent human beings who I quite like as people as well as creators working on Conan properties. Jim Zub’s Conan the Barbarian and The Savage Sword of Conan both were on many best comics of 2024 lists. Jim is a genuinely nice guy,who gives advice freely to people in his #ComicsSchoolTutorials posts and online. He *gets* what I want from Conan and it is such a genuine pleasure to read his work.
In even more righteous news, today we are gathered together to discuss the miracle that is Gail Simone writing Red Sonja. If you follow American comics at all, you’ll probably have read a character she’s written for. Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, Deadpool, Secret Six, and currently, Uncanny X-Men, which along with Zub’s Conan, are dominating comic sales figures right now.
Simone is a pro-level troll of mediocre brains on social media and an incredibly pleasant person in real life and online. Here, she channels her red haired mischief, her trolling, adds a dollop of “fuck you” and gives us Red Sonja.
Red Sonja comes from a harsh country in Howard’s series. Hyrkania has little about it of interest except it’s horses and horsecraft. In his books, Sonja is a mercenary like Conan, from as harsh a life as he. They bang heads and other body parts in several novels, but they live parallel lives that only occasionally cross. Here Sonja has broken her lover’s heart to steal a precious item that catapults her into a cursed adventure of demons, gladiator matches, horror and death…just like Howard used to make. This Sonja is going home for the first time in years and will be forced to reckon with her past, as she deals with a new terror.
In Red Sonja: Consumed, Simone gives us the perfect Red Sonja. She is angry. Consumed with rage for losses she has endured, Sonja puts up with no one’s bullshit. Consumed with ill-timed curiosity, Sonja gets herself into and out of trouble constantly. Consumed with hunger – this Sonja has strong carnal appetites. Even reading Howard’s books I assumed Sonja was bisexual at the very least. This Sonja is bisexual and polyamorous and it is handled beautifully. Simone’s Sonja is a master of horsecraft and fighting, as one would expect and she’s fantastic at tactical thinking and kind of shitty at strategy, also as you might expect. Sonja likes meat and doesn’t want to have to decide what kind, just give her some meat to eat.
This last is an ongoing gag in the novel, one that is played just close enough that you might not notice, but it made me laugh every time.
Simone absolutely *gets* Red Sonja in a way that I have spent a lifetime hoping for. Sure, the 1985 movie with Arnold Schwarzanegger and Brigitte Nielsen tried, but it was pretty standard b-movie stuff. What I wanted from Red Sonja was exceptional b-movie stuff! This is the Red Sonja I have been waiting my whole life for.
Ratings:
Overall – 10
Grotesque monsters, hardcore action, and beer maids asking confusion questions about what kind of ale. Red Sonja: Consumed is a fantastic read and the queer as fuck Sonja we knew was in there. The link above goes to Amazon, but I read this through my local library on Libby for free. Libraries are amazing – use your local library!
