By Mark Rodriguez
Red Sonja is one of those classic comic characters that I seen here and there and heard of but never had the chance to read the books. She first appeared in Conan The Barbarian issue 23 back in 1973 and she has crossed over with other classic characters like Vampirella. Let's check out this book.
'Eyes of the Gorgon'
The story opens with Red Sonja riding into a ghost town. She goes to a tavern and asks a person where the townsfolk are. The man doesn't answer so she taps him on the shoulder. The man falls over and crumbles into pieces, having been turned to stone. A she is surprised by this, a man tackles her down, calling her names like witch and demon. As Sonja falls, the man grabs her sword and starts swinging it at her. As he swings his sword, it gets caught into a cupboard and Sonja manages to kick him away.
As Sonja regains her sword, the man tosses a beer barrel into her face. As she tries to recover, he grabs a broken bottle and leaps at her. Unfortunately for him, he lands right onto Red Sonja's sword. With the man dead, she wonders what kind of crazy town she's stumbled into. Another man grabs her from behind, blaming her for turning the villagers into stone.
Red Sonja tosses the woman over her shoulder as more villagers bust in arms with gardening tools. Sonja has had enough and starts attacking them with her sword. She leaps onto a chandelier and swings into the group but the chain snaps and she falls. Everyone quickly grabs her and a blonde women tell them to take her to the town square so they can hang her. They're convinced Sonja is some sort of demon that is vulnerable in daylight.
They ready the noose and get set to hang Red Sonja. Just as she is being hanged, someone screams, who the townsfolk recognize as the widow Valek. Her child was just turned to stone, so the villagers realized it couldn't have been Sonja and they just hung an innocent woman. They return to try to save her and see she's carried off by some sort of animalistic man. The people think she was better off being hanged, and no one is brave enough to go after this man. They pretty much left Sonja to her fate.
Red Sonja awakens with a rat on her chest. The man that saved her is named Unka, so speaks in broken sentences and lives in the cave they're in. He explains the townsfolk thought she was the Gorgon that was turning people into stone. He knew better since she doesn't have snakes in her hair. He gives her back her sword and has a horse ready for her to leave. Red Sonja says she owes him one and she always repays her debts. She is not ready to leave just yet though, as she wants to know about the Gorgon that is terrifying an entire town. As she leaves, Unka warns her that to look upon the Gorgon is death.
Red Sonja waits until nightfall in the outskirts of town before she returns to investigate. As she lurks through the shadows, she notices the town is empty. She hears a chant from the village square. She finds a group of men chanting for the Gorgon as they intend to sacrifice a woman at a burning stake. This pisses off the Hyrkanian Warrior and Sonja attacks the villagers, this time not holding back. Just then they all run away and she sees a cloaked figure appearing behind her. Sonja demands to see this person's head and she is shocked by what she sees.
The cloaked figure turned out to be some sort of demonic woman with snakes for hair. Red Sonja finds herself unable to move, her limbs feeling like lead.
The next morning the townsfolk see Sonja being turned to stone. They recognize her and said they tried to warn her.
Red Sonja waked up in a prison cell where Unka lets her out. Unka explains that they are Gorgon's cave and she brought her there last night. He reveals all the townsfolk that were turned to stone are actually alive and locked up as prisoners. Unka explains they were brought here as punishment for being cruel. Sonja asks why she felt like she turning into stone and Unka shows her the Gorgon mask and says she was tricked like the others. Sonja thinks Unka was the Gorgon but the cloaked figure arrives and says the mask is hers.
The cloaked figure is the blonde woman that was calling for the town to hang Sonja the day before. She injected Sonja via her ring and had Unkas grab her while the people were distracted by the widow. The potion paralyzes the limbs which gives her time to replace the victim with a stone replica. She explains that a clay mold is formed around the body and filled with wax. Plaster is poured around the mold and when it's hardened, it's filled with liquid hot rock. The wax melts off it and a solid rock statue is formed.
The woman, named Delores Garde, explains that 15 years ago her parents were stoned to death for giving birth to a deformed baby. That baby grew up to be Unkas, Delores' brother. Unkas is told to take Sonja back to her cell, but she kicks him. Since she attacked him, all of his rats come after her. Delores explains they attack whoever attacks Unkas, Sonja tosses Delores into her brother, so the rats think she's attacking him and go after her, eating her alive. During this time, Sonja opens the cell and let the people go free.
Unkas angrily lifts up Sonja and throws her into some boxes. He then gets her into a deadly bear hug. In desperation, Sonja grabs one of the rats and squeezes it, making it lash out in self defense. She shoved the enraged rodent into Unka's face, slashing at his eyes. Unka is now blinded but he stumbles upon Sonja's sword and starts swinging it wildly. Even though she tries her best to avoid him, she does get cut a few times, and she is now weakened from blood loss. Sonja falls near the rope that is holding up the cauldron full of boiling liquid rock.
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| Losing blood....? Where? What blood? |
Sonja grabs onto the ropes to pull herself back to her feet and calls Unkas over. Unkas slices the rope and the cauldron overturns, spilling the liquid rock all over him. Sonja grabs her sword and leaves, telling Unkas that his plight might never have been fair but now he can plead his case to the gods.
"Silent Running"
We start in the middle of battle as Red Sonja is hacking and slashing her way through several men. As the battle ends, she turns to see the piles of people she killed.
Later on she is a log raft until suddenly sea creatures destroy the raft and kill the guide. Sonya leaps off the logs and prepares for battle. Some time later, Sonja is running through the woods, dodging darts. She sees some creatures on a ledge above her tossing boulders down at her. Sonja leaps across a chasm and grabs onto a ledge, dodging the boulders.
She enters a temple and faces revived skeletons. She tosses some sort of bracelet and its magic turns the skeletons to ash.
Red Sonja is now in a snowy are where she encounters huge snow beasts. She draws her sword and slashes her way through them.
The brave warrior finally reaches her destination. She sheds a tear and drops to her knees. She remembers lost loved ones and an evil entity she must face.
My Thoughts-
So we got two stories, one from a more classic era and one from a modern take. I liked the first story as it was a mystery as to what going on to that town. It was pretty much an overly superstitious town, reduced to even performing sacrifices in an attempt to get rid of this Gorgon. While what Delores and Unkas did was out of revenge, the townsfolk are terrible people, and they pretty much left Sonja to her fate twice without any attempt to help her. When they thought Sonja was turned to stone, they pretty much shrugged and went 'sucks for her'. Everyone in this town is horrible, which explains why Delores and Unkas did what they did, even though they're the villains of the story.
It's like, at first I felt bad for them when Sonja started stabbing them and whatnot because they were just confused and thought she was the one turning people into stone. But then we see they are willing to sacrifice their own, they killed Delores and Unka's parents over their prejudices and they're also cowards willing to just shrug and let whatever happens happen. Everyone in that town sucks.
Sonja had a rough time in the town, which made the story exciting. She's a powerful woman able to somehow withstand a barrel to the face, but she's also able to be taken down, so it's exciting whenever she's in danger. This was a solid tale. I just like these classic 'how will they get out of this one' types of stories where the situation and perils keeps changing as the story unfolds. One thing I noticed, maybe it was the style of the time, but the comic likes to show constant close ups of Sonja's face as she reacts to different things.
The other story was a dialogue-less rush as Sonja is unstoppable, hacking and slashing her way through anything and anyone. I'm not too familiar with the lore behind Red Sonja, so I'm assuming the people shown on the last panel are people close to her that she lost and the red demon thing is what she has to fight. It was funny how the last story didn't show blood, despite Sonja mentioning she was losing a lot of blood in battle, while this more modern story had blood everywhere as she was hacking people's heads off and whatnot. The different between comic book eras. The art was pretty amazing in this second story, especially the detail of the temple ruins and whatnot.
Interesting stories. If I ever run into Red Sonja comics, especially the classic ones, I just might pick some up.
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