Red Sonja: The Price of Blood Issue One review

 By Mark Rodriguez

Upon checking out Third Eye Comics, they had a 'Fun Box' full of 25 mystery comics and some graphic novels. We got an interesting assortment of Marvel, DC and indie stuff, but one of the comics that stood out to me was this Red Sonja comic. Let's have a look.

The issue opens with Sonja being trapped in some sort of prison with a crazy laughing inmate. Sonja tells him to stop gawking at her. The man tells her he doesn't see many women and the last woman that was locked up kept bashing her head against the wall until she died. Sonja says she can wipe the smile off his face and he says he doubts she can. She kicks him in the face. A third inmate named Bamba says he's been wanting to do that for a long time. 

Bamba wants to hear Sonja's tale and she refuses. He tells her they're trapped and will only be set free to be sent to the gallows where they will face their death. He'd rather spend the last hours of his life listening to a beautiful woman tell her tale.

Sonja explains she didn't come to Aquilona looking for trouble, though trouble always finds her. Sonja and her friend Elli just finished saving a kingdom when they heard about the Festival of Fire and decided to check it out. 

We flashback to the festival where the women decide to set their horses free and partake in the festivities. There they enjoy some Stygian Red Ale, which is at no cost. A man explains that they are following the teachings of Mitra where they enjoy the dance since life can be so fleeting. Sonja grabs some beer and everyone toasts to Mitra. Sonja celebrates her toast by kissing a random stranger and pushing him away.

Sonja and Elli dance the night away and enjoy the evening. As they dance, a guy gets fresh with Elli and Sonja socks him out. Sonja and Elli find the man from before. He explains that a woman offered herself to him as well as some whiskey, but he refused since he does not partake. Sonja says she does partake and asks where the woman went. 

Sonja relaxes and enjoys the moment of peace after all the fighting she usually endures. The monk tells the about Mitra and his beliefs, and Sonja asks where Mitra was when her village was burned down. Sonja finds the woman that the monk mentioned earlier and tells her she does partake. Morning hits as both women partook, and the monk notices that their camp is under attack. He tells Sonja that they call them heretics because they don't follow their false vision of Mitra. 

Sonja lights up a stick with the campfire and runs over to attack the horsemen herself. This gives the people time to escape. Sonja grabs a sword from one of the men and uses it to hack and slash the others. One of the men tells her to surrender, and she hacks him across the chest. He turns towards her with his horse, knocking Sonja back onto her shoulders. 

One of the knights tries to attack Sonja but gets an arrow shot into his neck. A woman helped her and Sonja says if she really wants to help they should attack them all. The mystery woman says that would be suicide. They see that the knights have rounded everyone up and had them killed for sins of 'debauchery and promiscuity'. Sonja is also hit by a small arrow to the neck and falls unconscious. The last thought through her head before passing out was promising to kill 'the man with the fancy robes' that was ordering the executions.

Back to the prison, Bamba laughs at how Sonja tried to kill one of the high inquisitors. The other inmate laughs and doesn't believe her story and that Sonja could kill anyone. Sonja asks Bamba why he is locked up, and he says it was due to him murdering 'the wrong person', meaning one of the 'important kind'. He asks her who told her to try to kill the high inquisitors. Sonja says she had help, someone named Yfat. 

We flash back to Sonja waking up after the arrow knocked her out. She meets the woman named Yfat who says she saved her before she got herself killed trying to stop the inquisitors. She liked Sonja's spirit and says she will get her chance to kill them, while staying alive and earning some money on the side. 

Yfat explains that she is a purveyor of a special set of services. In this case she wishes to enlist Sonja in killing 'the little man in the fancy robes' that butchered the fire festival. Sonja accepts, but Yfat says she will need to work on her subtlety. She will teach her how to be a real killer.

Later on, Sonja and Yfat are disguised as followers as they are at a religious gathering. The man is preaching about the evils of outsiders and non-believers. Yfat tells Sonja that there will be blood in the Shemmish quarters of the city. The man preaches that the recent Fire Festival was a Shemmish plot to spread sin and corrupt youth. Yfat shows Sonja which of the men are Governor Zelden, the chief of the guard, and the biggest threat, General Matthus. 

Sonja says if the zealots plan an attack, they should organize a resistance. Yfat says the Shemites will hide until this passes and the inquisitor will be exposed. This will present an opportunity they can take advantage of, since Yfat has a plan. 

The man in the robes continues to call for the blood of the Shemites when he notices Sonja in the crowd approaching him. Sonja says she is a wicked woman that has lived a life of sin and wishes to find salvation from Mitra. The man will give her a private confession and he whispers to his guards to check her for weapons.

The guards escort Sonja to The Temple of Eternal Song. The man wants to hear of her sins and Sonja mentions she thought that Mitra was about fellowship and good drinks with friends. The man asks what fool told her this, since Mitra is about service and sacrifice. Sonja says she has one last sin to confess, one she has committed several times. This is the sin of murder as she slashes him across the throat with her nails.

Sonja drags the man as he chokes on his own blood. She says 'the fool' he asked about was a man she met at the Fire Festival. He showed her the world could be a better place without the evils of men like him, and then he had to turn the valley into a killing field. She drags him over to the open window and says maybe Mitra is cranky like him, and he will find out soon. Sonja throws the man out the window and leaps after him with a rope to escape. 

Bamba tells Sonja that the man planned to do horrible things to her and Sonja says that he won't anymore. She further explains that there was violence in the streets when the bell tolled over the inquisitor's death. No one knew what was going on except for her.

Sonja returns to Yfat who asks if the bells tolling means that their friend got to meet the gods. Yfat serves her some lotus nectar and Sonja earned herself some gold. She drinks up and asks who's next.

Elsewhere General Matthus is making his battle plans when he hears the bell going off. He tells the guards to reinforce the city guard. He wants whichever countries that have spies in this city to be brought in for questioning.

The men arrive at the corpse of the Grand Inquisitor and his guards says there was a redheaded woman from the streets that went to see him for private counseling. Zelden tells them that he has his men searching the city and they will find her. Matthus says they will put a bounty on her head, a thousand gold pieces, dead or alive.

My Opinions-

The first thing that surprised me about this one is that we started out with Sonja locked up in a dungeon, and even though we have a flashback, it didn't end with explaining how exactly she got there. I'm assuming we'll find out next time and then the story will end with her somehow escaping and wiping out these religious zealots.

The story is interesting, the art is pretty good, and we get to see Sonja not only cut loose at a festival, but also cut loose as she hacks and slashes her way through inquisitors. She's as violent and bloodthirsty as ever, though we see that she does wish she lived a life where she didn't have to kill. 

The religious zealots, as you'd expect, parallel a lot of real world atrocities that I won't bring up here. I had to point out the hypocrisy in which the Grand Inquisitor called for the lives of the people at the Fire Festival for 'debauchery' while at the same time it's implied he does similar and non-consensual things to women in his 'private counseling'. 

I have to say, it's a shame that it looks like Sonja's friend Elli died alongside the others at the festival. I wonder what else will happen to Yfat and the other prisoners that are locked with Red Sonja. 

The book was released back in 2020 so it might take a while to find the rest of them to get the whole story. Overall an interesting find within the Mystery Fun Box from Third Eye Comics.