Red Sonja: Death and the Devil #1 // Review
There’s a certain red-haired woman who happens to be in line with a whole bunch of there people who all wear identical robes. The woman with the bright read hair is accosted by a shorter woman who simply can’t WAIT to met the serpent god Set. It’s a bit of a strange prospect for her the red haired woman to meet someone so eager to meet her own death, but it’s only the beginning in Red Sonja: Death and the Devil #1. Writer Luke Lieberman begins a new tale for Sonja with the aid of artist/colorist Alberto Locatelli.
The dark priest of the great serpent is in the middle of ritual sacrifice when Sonja meets-up with him. He’s not exactly happy to see her. She’s not exactly happy to see him, but she has business with him. Unfortunately for her, that business involves a rather uncomfortably large number of robed followers of Set. Unfortunately for HIM that rather involves the very real possibility of getting tied to a stake. If Sonja can make it through THAT, she’s got business in a throne room that turns out to be occupied by someone she’s certainly NOT expecting to see.
Lieberman has a solid grasp of the basic action of the story. The opening scene firmly establishes the action and where it’s going. There’s a clever, little bit of craft on Lieberman’s part that has the entire issue narrated by the figure Sonja is destined to meet in the throne room. It’s not...brilliant or anything, but it’s cool to get a sense of Sonja from someone who is in pursuit of her. There are quite a few moving parts to the plot that swing their way through action and drama in the first chapter of a very promising new series for Sonja.
Sonja always stands out in a crowd. The challenge is to make her seem like a believably mortal person living amongst people who DON’T make their living by the sword. As she is the center of the action, she tends to stand out in a way that makes her feel all too supernatural to seem...vulnerable. Locatelli renders a world with enough contrasting depth to keep Sonja firmly distinct while also maintaining a very sharp and clever sense of action that populates Sonja’s world with a lot of other fantastic elements that are all mutually formidable.
Sonja’s bern in the general vicinity of Death and the Devil countless times before. Neverthelesss, Lieberman and Locatelli manage to make it all feel very sharp and appealing in a way that feels very fresh and new. Sonja’s ally for this particular series seems like an interesting enough guy to contrast against Sonja’s power and poise. And the conflict that’s being presented feels more than interesting enough to maintain through the end of what appears to be a very promising new series for the She-Devil. It’ll be interesting to see which direction this one heads-in as the story unveils itself.
Grade: B+
