By Dustin Cabeal

Oh wow… this is far worse than I thought it could be. The idea of this volume of Dynamite’s Red Sonja is that she’s been transported to modern day New York City. I’m sure some were thinking, “wow, that’s different” and while you’re technically right, different isn’t always good.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the story is the fact that it feels as if we needed to read something else to understand this story. Red Sonja is just transported, and much like the opening of Blindspot finds herself confused and facing off with the police.

But don’t worry everyone… there’s a dude that just so happens to speak her language.

Fuck. Me.

Let me get this straight, the story is going to have a layer of realism in that Red Sonja isn’t just going to speak English or understand English, but we’re going to bullshit that a guy was taught a “couple of languages” by his mom… and one of them just happened to be an ancient fucking language. Listen, this ain’t the Fifth Element, so I’m not putting any stock into that.

Sonja’s greatest enemy, a dude I had never heard of because clearly, I didn’t read enough of the old Red Sonja series, is alive and well in the modern time. His followers try to kill Sonja, but she gets free because she’s Sonja and whatever.

Two questions came up when Kulan Gath was mentioned. Why do I have to know who he is beforehand when I’m picking up the first issue and why the fuck does he care about Red Sonja anymore? To along with my first question, if you’re going to explain his importance throughout the series slowly, then he shouldn’t have had such an important role in this issue. He’s mentioned and shown way too many times for me to not be told their history. As for the second, he’s like fucking Doctor Evil. He runs a corporation, but he still does magic, and the announcement of Sonja’s appearance makes his eyes glow green like, “fuck yeah, I’ve just been controlling the world through my vast media empire, but really I’ve been waiting to kill this red-head with a sword.” Why would he even care? Don’t tell me it’s pride; the motherfucker runs an enterprise, he could care less.

The art was fine if the intention was to show how ridiculous Red Sonja would look walking around in the modern era dressed the way she is. There was plenty of strange boob shots that seemed really out of place with the tone of the story, but it might just be the thing that gets some of you through the story, so I won’t complain about it. I will say that her proportion varies from panel to panel in the police car. She’s a giant for half of it, and average size for the rest, but one panel is impossible unless her knees just disappeared.

I would say that this is the worst thing I read this week, but I also read Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and so I’ll say that this was the second worst thing I read this week. The art shows promise. It’s not perfect, but it’s very consistent and better than the majority of other Dynamite titles, but the story is trying hard to be clever, but using convenient, but unbelievable twists to get there making it a chore to read. Someone tell me how this turns out because this is as far as my curiosity will take me.

Score: 2/5

Red Sonja v4 #1
Writer: Amy Chu
Artist: Carlos Gomez
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainmen