The Adventures Of Red Sonja Omnibus Review
Red Sonja has been around for almost as long as Conan the Barbarian (in comic book format, that is). When Marvel Comics published the first Red Sonja adventure in the pages of Conan the Barbarian #22, a new Hyborian hero was born. Her arrival was welcomed by fans, who simply didn’t get enough sword & sorcery adventures from the many Conan books published by Marvel Comics.
Marvel Comics published several Red Sonja series before Dynamite took over the IP in 2005. Dynamite has successfully kept the character alive for the past 20 years.While I enjoyed the various Red Sonja stories published By Marvel, I am not as generally pleased with Dynamite’s Red Sonja. Dynamite’s various Red Sonja series are hit-or-miss. (To be fair, Marvel published some stinkers too.) There is also the issue of how Dynamite “rebooted” Red Sonja… Worse. Reboot. Ever!
When Dynamite put out Red Sonja #0, I was totally stoked. The story was good.The art was fine. At first, you wouldn’t know that Big Red had moved over to another publishing house. But then Dynamite did the unthinkable by killing her off. That’s right: They killed Red Sonja! I have seen some hard reboots, but this one was really harsh! I understand (I guess!) that Red Sonja had to be reimagined for a modern audience. I understand that her oath of only sleeping with a man after her beat her in battle felt very outdated, but all Dynamite did was turn her into a female Conan, raging libido included. Nothing wrong with that; I’m sure a lot of fans were thrilled to see Red Sonja have a love life, but this felt like decades of development by some of the finest comic book writers in the business being shoved aside.
Dynamite resurrected Red Sonja by introducing a virtual doppelgänger of the She-Devil. Dynamite put out some great Red Sonja issues at times, and the publisher is to be commended for keeping Red Sonja alive for two decades. They also published some of the greatest Red Sonja covers ever. But the Frank Thorne, Howard Chaykin and John Buscema days of Red Sonja are over. Or are they?
In July 2024, Dynamite released an omnibus edition of Marvel’s Red Sonja stories. It seems like Dynamite also acquired the rights to the original Marvel Comics runs of Red Sonja. And I’m glad they did because this omnibus is a thing of beauty.
After going through the 648-page volume, new readers will know almost all they need to know about Red Sonja, including her genesis explained in the introduction penned by original Marvel Comics’ Red Sonja editor and writer, Roy Thomas. They will also have read most of the original Red Sonja stories published by Marvel Comics. OG readers will relive 648 pages’ worth of nostalgic Red Sonja stories. As for Dynamite readers, some might actually enjoy the book even if they prefer Red Sonja’s new life in the Dynamite books.
Red Sonja has been drawn by many great artists over the years (including her current Dynamite run). Artists like Howard Chaykin, John Buscema, Esteban Maroto and Neal Adams all had their turn at drawing the She-Devil with a Sword, but the artist who made the greatest mark on the character was (and remains) Frank Thorne. If you like Thorne’s work, this omnibus is for you.
There is something… primal about the way Thorne draws Red Sonja. His pencils sometimes feel rough. All early illustrators, while still emphasizing her physical attributes, seemed more concerned about showing off her fiery character (the red hair helped!). She was not a muscle-bound female version of Conan. In fact, Thorne’s interpretation was fleshier, not full-figured, still athletic, but full hipped, more “natural”. While many fans might have been attracted to the comic book because it featured an almost naked woman wearing a chainmail bikini, a lot of readers were simply interested in reading her adventures. Hyboria was much in demand. Conan was blazing his way through that world, and anyone who did not get enough of a sword & sorcery fix from the Cimmerian got an overdose from the adventures of the fiery redhead from Hyrkania.
The omnibus is an interesting read for all Red Sonja readers, from OG fans to fans of the current Dynamite run. It’s also a great way for new readers to get introduced to the character. It’s not a cheap book (even the softcover version is expensive), but it’s well worth the investment because readers will get a lot of reading time out of the huge 648-page book.
The book also features a cover gallery and a pin-up gallery, including some of Thorne’s very best work as well as outstanding work by Dick Giordano, Howard Chaykin and Esteban Maroto.
Have the original tales stood the test of time? As well as any comic book from the ’70s and ’80s has.Some of the dialogue might make even the most diehard OG reader cringe, but if you love reading Conan comic books from that era, you won’t mind those Red Sonja stories. The art remains iconic, no matter how old it is.
I was sorry to see some stories missing. (Namely, the triple crossover story with both Conan AND King Kull – a story for the ages!) I remember how ecstatic I felt about this story when it was announced. It still retains all of its intensity and coolness today, and after many readings, it’s still just as enjoyable. Unfortunately, you will not get to read it in this omnibus (something to do with the rights to the Kull IP, I think).
The recently released Red Sonja Omnibus will be welcome news for those readers who miss the good old days of original Red Sonja.The hardcover version is pricey, but the softcover edition is a bit more affordable. For OG readers, new Red Sonja readers and even some Dynamite Red Sonja readers, this omnibus feels like a must.
Title: The adventures of Red Sonja Omnibus
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
# of pages: 648
Publication date: July 16, 2024
Format: Hardcover and trade paperback
About the Author
Jules-Pierre Malartre Jules-Pierre Malartre currently lives in L’Île-Perrot, a small island west of Montreal (Quebec), which is as close to the Great White North that he will ever dare go, but still cold enough to save him from big-ass spiders, alien abductions, undead dinosaurs and tourists who find his French accent charming. In 2005, he quit a promising aerospace engineering career to go into freelance writing, which was a very, very bad idea according to his mother. Since then, he has become considerably poorer, but he has grown much happier. Along the way, he adopted cats—lots of cats! When he is not writing technical manuals, newspaper articles, press releases or blogs on anything from comic books to yoga, he is busy working on his first novel, a semi-autobiographical fictional account of his life that dares to ask the question, “where did God go wrong with me anyway?” His first short story, “The Rest Was Easy,” was published by the online literary magazine Amarillo Bay in 2013. The five people who read it liked it. He’s well aware that it took him over a decade to publish another one, so he’d really appreciate it if you'd cut him some slack about it! He loves coffee, cats and reading, mostly because those three things go very well together.
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