Review–Gail Simone pens mighty Red Sonja reboot

This Wednesday Dynamite Comics will take on a reboot of the fierce and beautiful she-devil with a sword, Red Sonja. We’ve previewed Issue #1 and were happy with the result–full of swordplay and the mythic dialect you’d expect from the heroine originally found in the pages of Conan the Barbarian. The big news is that the new series is written by Gail Simone. Known for many comic book series, but particularly her gutsy Batgirl and Wonder Woman, Simone’s fans will find her Red Sonja a worthy new addition to the pantheon of strong women characters in comics. With some nice classic Conan-style artwork by Walter Geovani, Dynamite will no doubt have a winner with this new series.

Simone’s Red Sonja story has bits and pieces of archetype characters and settings. In Issue #1 keep an eye out for a new take on Akira Kurasawa’s classic save the village story. She also includes enough backstory to allow new readers easy accessibility to the character and her medieval high fantasy world.

Red Sonja is cut from the same cloth as Simone’s earlier Amazon Princess, Wonder Woman, and even manages to get a similar following of warrior women in the new series. Red Sonja could easily be a sister to Xena, Warrior Princess, too, although similarly grave in her actions and dialogue, we get a glimpse at her motivations, which includes a dose of empathy for friend and foe. She also possesses a similar warrior’s spirit and carries herself a bit like Marjorie Monaghan’s Freya from Star Trek Voyager’s retelling of Beowulf, a character worthy of a comic book series in her own right.

Look for some great variant covers by a bevy of top women artists, including Nicola Scott, Amanda Conner, Fiona Staples, Jenny Frison, Colleen Doran, and Stephanie Buscema.