Red Sonja in The Price of Blood #01

Red Sonja in The Price of Blood #01

Dynamite Entertainment 2020

Written by Luke Lieberman

Illustrated by Walter Geovani

Coloured by Adriano Lucas

Lettered by Taylor Esposito

Red Sonja faces the gallows! For all the blood she spilled, there is a price. This is the tale of how she came to such a pass. An early adventure of Red Sonja’s.

Alright so I am not sure when I became such a fan of the fiery red head, you’d think they’d mean ginger but nope her hair is red as red can be, but it happened. This one starts off with one of the more interesting openings we’ve had the pleasure to come across. Now Luke opens the story arc with where Sonja is and we then go back to see the sequence of events which lead up to this. This is how you do that technique, you do at the opening of the arc so that it makes much more sense to reader then doing it in a future issue. I also like that this is another of her early adventures so she’ll make mistakes and have lapses in judgement showcasing her age and inexperience. This makes things much more interesting to me and how Luke manages to keep her who she is and yet regress that a bit in such a fashion that makes complete and total sense.

I am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see here through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. Plus how this is structured and how we see the layers within already emerging begin to engage the readers’ mind very quickly. The character development that we see in how the characters interact with each other as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter are able to flesh them out beautifully. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story and the twists & turns along the way we are treated to a stellar opening. How we see everything work together to create the story’s ebb & flow is really rather well rendered.

I love the interiors here. The linework is strong and some really nice qualities to it that makes it feel more than it is, I dunno I guess it has that je ne sais quoi. How we see the varying weights being utilised to create the detail work is really nice to see. I mean i’d like to see more techniques instead of just straight linework as I can imagine what crosshatching could do in some places. Also there is one instance where we see the man calling for the death of those unlike him in their beliefs and I have to say that image is extremely interesting. How we see the composition within the panels and how they work to enhance the moments as well as bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work that we see is gorgeously rendered. The various hues and tones within the colours utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is inspired.

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Dynamite continues to breathe life into Red Sonja far beyond anyone’s expectations and I have to say they are doing it in ways that are respectful to the character. Seeing her grow through her adventures growing up is some of the finest storytelling that we’ve seen in the whole genre. The sword & sorcery world keeps growing and becoming more enriched through each tale that is told. Sonja continues to become more of iconic character than she was ever envisioned to be.