Simply Red

Red Sonja #1

It has been an awfully long time since I read a comic from Dynamite. Honestly, I mostly think of them as just a shade above Blue Water Comics — mostly there to publish comics in hopes that they’ll become collectibles, always with lots and lots of variant covers. But hey, they got a comic written by Gail Simone? Sure, I’ll give it a shot.

So we got Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword, who we’re first introduced to as a just-released prisoner of the brutal Zamorans. A group of 80 prisoners were kept in the dungeons and forced to fight to the death — only Sonja and a woman named Annisia survived when they were rescued by an invading army. Years later, Sonja is called back to civilization by her rescuer, King Dimath — his kingdom is wracked by plague, his soldiers are dead, and the Zamorans have built up a mighty army of psychos and monsters. And Sonja is asked to train the remaining citizens to fight in a war. Can Sonja accomplish the impossible?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent writing — well, of course, it is Simone, and she tends to bring her A-game for almost everything. Good action and dialogue. Very nice cliffhanger. All in all, I approve. Nice work, Dynamite — always better to go with quality above variant covers…

Day Men #1

It was a pretty good week for new comics. This is a nice one, written by Matt Gagnon and Michael Alan Nelson, with art by the great Brian Stelfreeze. We’re focused on a guy named David Reid, a guy who works for the Virgos, a major crime family. Specifically, the crime they specialize in is drinking blood. Reid’s job is to take care of chores the vampires need done during the day, when they’re all stuffed in their coffins. His duties involve everything from running off suspicious mortals to cleaning up bloody crime scenes to paying off cops and informants. The serious trouble for David starts when he has to pick up Nybor, a family member who’s been on a drunken bender for a few days. Turns out he’s passed out in a room with the dismembered body of one of the Ramses family, a rival vampire clan. Can David get Nybor to a safehouse before the Ramses find out and start a vampire war? Probably not…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art, fun story. We’ve got a nicely realized background, with the underground vampire gangsters coming out as a combination of brutal Mafia stereotypes and twisted vampire stereotypes. David Reid and his coworkers are nicely drawn, though I expect we’ll learn more complexities in their characters as the series goes on.

Batwoman #22

Batwoman and Hawkfire are working to track down clues to Batman’s real identity — which involves beating up Bane and then interviewing a bunch of supervillains, including Black Mask, Professor Pyg, the Mortician, and Fright. Meanwhile, Joseph Kane is continuing his training of Bette — while he and his wife worry that she’s not ready, the mercenaries he’s using to provide her fight training feel like she’s doing a great job kicking their butts.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fantastic action all the way through. Man alive, so much ass-whuppery. And it’s great to see Bette turn into a great fighter. Really, this was an incredibly fun comic all the way through.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a really cool Wonder Woman fan movie. Why do people keep saying a Wonder Woman movie would suck? Are they paying no attention at all?
• Hey, cool — I went to high school here. Loved watching the Eagles play hoops. This is why I still can’t believe more teams don’t run a full-court press during the whole game.
• This is all the information you ever needed to know about the sea pig.