By Dustin Cabeal
You know what would make that cover better? Not having those goddamn hands covering the most interesting part of the cover, which is a sword going through Sonja. It’s fucking awesome otherwise, but fuck those hands!
Hey, I’m still reading this, and you’re not going to believe this, but this is the best issue of the series so far! Not just because it explains why everyone is here and what they’re doing, but because it has a consistent pacing, it doesn’t have to worry about the cops or bad guys chasing Sonja. Nor does it have to explain why everyone can speak her native tongue.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The bulk of the story is pseudo fighting and revealing how all three main characters got to the modern era. That’s right if, for some reason, you didn’t figure it out already, what’s his dick Max is from the past as well. What wasn’t clear was that the bad guy Glockenspiel or whatever his dumb name is, was also transported and just hung out waiting for Sonja to show up. Which again shows why he’s a shit fuck villain. Sure, he took over the city and enslaved a lot of people, so it’s not like he was sitting in an alleyway waiting, but he was still fucking waiting for her as he states through dialogue. It’s like, dude… find the fountain of youth or the fountain of no longer ugly.
The other thing that just continues to fail this comic is the humor. At least, I think it’s attempting to be humorous. There are several lines of dialogue in which it comes across as some low-hanging fruit jokes, the comic equivalent of “Dad Jokes,” but they fail to commit and entertain. For instance, Guggenheimer (or whatever his name is) smacks a demon on the nose like a bad dog which completely breaks the mood of the scene. Amy Chu needs to either go full slapstick or abandon these half-hearted attempts at humor because all they do is break of the tone and pacing of the story.
Carlos Gomez did a pretty damn good job on the first three issues, but here his artwork looks rushed. Granted, the scenes are larger than life as they break down a museum from the inside out and there’s a giant dog demon, but Sonja and Max lack a lot of details that made the art standout in previous issues. Overall, it’s still quite good and conveys the message, but it seems like an unnecessary dip in the quality, especially at this crucial point in the story arc.
This issue is by far the best issue in the series, but it still has a long way to go in order to be great or game changing. As it is, this series could easily be forgotten next year or with the next reboot that Dynamite does, and that’s unfortunate. It just has quite found that staying power and is currently just getting by on the fact that its Sonja in the present. That novelty can only last for so long, and hopefully, when it wears off, there will still be a reason to read Red Sonja.
Score: 4/5
Red Sonja v4 #4
Writer: Amy Chu
Artist: Carlos Gomez
Colorist: Mohan
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment