Writer: Mark Russell
Artists: Bob Q & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Sonja finds herself a prisoner in the dungeons of the sorcerer of Shangara. The two guys with her seem content to be hanging from the wall. In fact, they get angry when Sonja breaks the bars and knocks out the guard. They refuse to be rescued and she goes off to find the sorcerer. She comes on some women in stocks forced to peel potatoes. They call the guards and Sonja has to deal with more guards. A dwarf jester shows her a way out. He tells her that she shouldn’t bother with the sorcerer as he is too powerful. He convinces her to leave but Sonja figures out that the dwarf is the sorcerer. The dwarf tries to knife her, but Sonja stabs him. She finds out that the dwarf has been impersonating the sorcerer after he died and just using the fear of him to keep control. Sonja frees the prisoners who are nervous about their freedom.
“The Hunted”
Writer: Amanda Deibert
Artists: Cat Staggs & Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Sonja comes on two lovers and rescues them from a group of brigands. She gets the two to follow her to safety. After going through a freezing river, they build a fire. This attracts the brigands and Sonja manages to kill them and recover the treasure they took from the village. The two lovers realize that they were used as bait by Sonja.
“Seeing Red”
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artists: Benjamin Dewey & Simon Bowland
Sonja is hired by a guy to recover a stolen ruby from a tomb. In the tomb, she has to fight an invisible demon. Sonja wins and finds out the guy who hired her was just using her. She was supposed to put the demon to sleep after it ate her so he could take hired mercenaries to grab the gem. Only Sonja comes back and shoves the gem down his throat.
A Red Sonja anthology series that is meant to only use black, white and red as colors. This was done successfully a few years back for a graphic novel and they decided to expand the idea. I personally love the look of this. Also, the stories were well done both story wise and artistically. They had humor in all the stories and a good share of adventure. This first issue starts off the series on a high note.
Comic book cave of awesome 