The Red-Headed League
Y’all up for a bunch of comics about redheads?
Red Sonja #8
Sonja has successfully corralled Gribaldi, the world’s greatest chef, on the orders of a corrupt emperor, who wants to experience the talents of the greatest artisans in the world before he dies. Gribaldi is obsessed with cuisine, which doesn’t endear him to Sonja, who sees food only as sustenance — and she’s also frustrated because she can’t convince Gribaldi to help her satisfy her more carnal hungers.
Anyway, Sonja and Gribaldi are now off on their second quest — to obtain the services of Kalayah, the world’s greatest animal trainer. Unfortunately, Sonja would really rather see him dead, messily, because of his sadism and cruelty to the animals in his shows. But when attends a show in which a trained bear is savaged by starved dogs, Sonja mercy-kills the bear, and she and Gribaldi are thrown into the dungeon. Even if Sonja can escape execution, how will she obtain the Beast Lord’s services?
Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art and story, wonderful characterization, and an outstanding villain given an appropriate comeuppance. I hope you’re enjoying this comic, people.
Black Widow #5
Natasha is on the trail of a terrorist killing machine called the Hammer of God, a former Russian Orthodox monk. She tries to stop him from blowing an airplane out of the sky, but he still manages to get it on the ground. He’s killed when he’s sucked into the airplane engine, and Natasha learns that the airplane had only a single passenger. Who is he? Who paid for a whole flight just for him? What does he know, and who wants him dead?
Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice mix of action and intrigue, though it’s frustrating how the Black Widow’s leads keep getting killed off so quickly. But this is finally feeling like an exciting comic, and that’s definitely a good thing.
Hellboy: 20th Anniversary Sampler
Yes, Hellboy is obvously a redhead. And definitely as dead sexy as the other two.
We get an excellent collection of short stories here. First, Mike Mignola and Fabio Moon tell a tale of Hellboy’s fight against the Coffin Man, a demon who raises and steals the dead, and his shapeshifting demon donkey. And yes, this is entirely as funny and awesome as you’d expect it to be. Next, there’s a tale written and illustrated by Mignola about Hellboy going up against a poetry-quoting ghoul who has previously masqueraded as a normal family man to hide his hunger for dead bodies. We also follow Abe Sapien and Johann Strauss as they face a zombie plague with an unusual genesis. All that, plus a bunch of wonderful cartoons about Hellboy by R. Sikoryak — in the form of Peanuts, Popeye, Garfield, Dilbert, Ziggy, and more.
Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s grand, glorious fun, with all the strongest, most enjoyable aspects of Mignola’s Hellboy storytelling on display. And that definitely includes the humor — aside from Sikoryak’s wonderful cartoons, I haven’t enjoyed a line in a comic in months the way I did Hellboy yelling “SIT DOWN, DONKEY!” at a shapeshifting monster mule.
Today’s Cool Links:
- You can’t be persecuted when you’re the overwhelming majority and when your side holds vast political, social, and economic power.
- Why it’s crazy to insist that everyone should be armed to stop gunman rampages (Spoiler: It’s because life is not a cartoon, and the bad guys don’t wear supervillain uniforms.)
- Erotica Written by an Alien Pretending Not to Be Horrified by the Human Body.