Red Sonja Book Two: The Art Of Blood And Fire (#7-12, #0)

"Red Sonja does not 'pout', is that clear?" - Red Sonja

I'm still a relative newcomer to the Church Of Gail Simone, but I have become an enthusiastic convert and am going to keep preaching a lot of good stuff about her work now and in the future.  Actually she's an atheist so she doesn't have a church.  And I'm an atheist as well, so I wouldn't preach even if she did.  Huh, that was a stupid way to start my post, forget I said it. Start again.  Well, this is book two in Simone's reboot of Red Sonja, shorn of the more dodgy aspects of her original story (rape, only sleeping with men who best her in combat etc) we get a bawdy, vulgar, bisexual, fierce and totally awesome woman warrior, who travels in search of cash, sex and booze but in this collection is going to find herself on a mildly epic quest that will take her to some interesting places and have her meeting some fascinating people along the way.  The first book was pretty dark as it looked at the bleak events that hammered her into becoming such a fearsome fighter.  This storyline is somewhat lighter in tone although it still has some serious moments and sharp observations hidden under a more humourous layer.  The art of Walter Geovani also adds immeasurably to the series, it's crisp, clean, impeccably paced and choreographed and the colourist has helped it along by keeping a slightly muted look to it giving more of a down and dirty fantasy sheen. This collection also contains a hilarious zero issue, although it's by a different artist and the artwork while decent in of itself, is no match for Geovani's fine work.  So let's get stuck in.

We begin with Sonja trudging through a marsh mentally bemoaning the fact she has been searching this unpleasant area for four days.  She smells like a "latrine attendant" and:

Sonja: "I am in ill humour.  Parched, starving and randy.  I need wine.  Lots of it. I need hot food.  And not to put too finer point on it, I need someone to fill my bedroll.  I'm not particular.  As long as they're limber".

And that is pretty much this version of Red Sonja's mission statement! She decides to make camp and catches and kills a rabbit to eat.  She dozes off by the fire she is cooking it on and wakes up to find a man and a woman aghast at her cooking.

They scold her for it being half burnt and half raw and has no seasonings, Sonja says "it's meant to fill my belly... I'm not one for complications".  She offers them some, then tells them they both look limber...  As she talks she realises they have her knife and sword, "I really must learn to sleep more prudently".  The pair tell her she has intruded into their home. Sonja says they are "inbred, swamp dwelling murderers... rumor is that you are cannibals and sexual deviants.  Pleased to meet you".

Bogman gets some EyeScream.

Then another Bogman jumps her from behind, she jams the stake with the rabbit on it into his eye socket and kills him.  The other two are outraged and say they know why she is here, "you seek Gribaldi.  You seek the chef!"  Then they attack her and she beats them down reclaiming her weapons.  Then we get a flashback to one week ago.

She is in a city watching slaves build a mausoleum, she speaks with the King who summoned her to go on a quest for him.  He is dying and wants to go out with the best party ever.  He wants her to find "a courtesan, a stargazer, a swordsman, a beastmaster and most importantly - a chef".  If she refuses the quest, one thousand slaves will be buried alive and incarcerated with him in his tomb.

King Samala.

Back with Sonja in the swamp, she is punting a boat to the place where the rest of the tribe is.  She is outnumbered and gives up without a fight and they say they are going to have her cooked and eaten.  She is handed over to Gribaldi, who sends the rest away so he is alone with Sonja. He tells her the Bogmen are idiots but they are also gourmands. He admits to her that he doesn't cook the humans they give him, he found a nest of reptile eggs and cooks them instead.  He marinates them in ale first, "a delight!"

Sonja: "You... you put... you put food... In a barrel of delicious Cimmerian beer? You monster."

He tries to tickle her tastebuds with some soup, but Sonja is not impressed, "it's water and burnt weeds and roots. It means nothing to me."  Then suddenly the grown reptile people attack. Gribaldi frees Sonja and she reclaims her weapons again. 

Sonja and Gribaldi escape.

She fights some of the reptile men then stops and Gribaldi apologises, but the reptile men don't understand.  Sonja takes Gribaldi and they make their getaway because the reptile men have found the cannibal Bogmen and are snacking on them.  As Sonja and Gribaldi leave via boat Sonja comments, "...they were murderers and kidnappers.  Let's just hope they're also filling".

Four days later Sonja and Gribaldi are riding together in search of their next addition.  Gribaldi has been doing Sonja's head in with his unending stream of foodie talk and she also is suffering due to other "hungers" that need to be fed. Finally she can suffer no longer and at camp that night she wakes Gribaldi up.  She need nookie and she needs it NOW.  He is vaguely horrified by her directness, she say "you can think of veal the whole time if you like, only hurry up would you?"

He says it's outrageous, what if she's not his type. "I'm Red Sonja" she says, "I'm everybody's type".  He tell her she's a tad whiffy and she agrees, but asks if he can overlook it, "are you going to make me say please?"

Gribaldi: "Well what if I... what if I want to be romanced?"

This is too much for Sonja, she gives up and goes back to sleep grumbling as she does so.  He tries to make it up to her next day with "quail breast poutine with..." she interrupts him demanding to know why he announces each dish like "it's of royal lineage?"  She eats it anyway.

They arrive at the city where "Kalayah The Great" is putting on his animal show.  Sonja is not going to recruit him, she is going to slit his throat and watch him bleed out.  Later they sit in the audience and Kalayah starts the show - "wild bear versus hunting dogs!"  As Gribaldi watches in utter horror, the dogs tear into the bear. 

The horrific animal show.

Grimly Sonja tells him the bear is taken as a cub after its mother is killed, raised kindly so it forgets its instincts until it is sent into the arena to die.  The dogs are starved and shown no affection and have to kill and eat a puppy every few days then given nothing to eat for days before the festival.  She draws an arrow and fires it, not at Kalayah but at the mortally wounded bear putting it out of it's misery.

For this kindness Sonja and Gribaldi are thrown into a dungeon cell. Sonja asks him why he did not bargain his way out, he easily could have.  He says she saved him in the swamp, "I am no fighter.  but neither does that make me a coward".  Sonja notes this bravery, then clambers on his shoulders to loosen a wooden bar to their cage, unfortunately Kayalah was expecting this and stamps on her hand.  Then he tells her he remembers her threat to kill him and as they speak awful noises come from the arena, he had the tendons of her horses cut and then them tossed to the dogs.

She grabs his foot and tells him she will have her revenge, "from this side of the grave... or next".  He tells her she'll die in the morning and departs.  Sonja say to Gribaldi when they come for them "Fight.  Don't kneel.  Don't beg.  Fight."  Gribaldi asks her "I don't suppose from now 'til morning is enough time to make me a fearsome warrior?"  Sonja finds this gallows humour amusing.

Rat to the rescue?

Then suddenly a teenage girl called Rat appears and sets them free.  She works for Kalayah, but he beats her every day and worst of all he enjoys hurting and killing the animals.  The beasts don't do Kalayah's bidding, they are befriended by and love Rat.  Sonja says it's not her fault, she is a child.  Rat then leads them to the arena where Kalayah and some gaurds are waiting.  Gribaldi shouts at Rat for leading them to their deaths like the animals she claims to love.  Sonja says she had no choice.  Rat runs off crying "I am.  I am a betrayer!"

And she runs to the cages and opens them,  all the animals pour out and Kalayah has his arm torn off by a bear and the guards killed.  Kalayah begs Sonja for mercy but she lets the dogs tear him apart. Rat kneels sayng she must now die for her sins.  

Sonja refuses, "The Emporer asked for a Beast Lord.  And a Beast Lord he will get, Rat the Magnificent.  But a Lord deserving of the beasts who love her".  Rat rises and the bears and tiger happily join in for a group cuddle.

A happy conclusion.

Sonja's next recruit is to be a courtesan.  Having left Gribaldi, Rat and the animals ensconced in an inn she has ridden out  to a fancy brothel where, thanks to her chainmail bikini, she is initially mistaken for a new worker.  Once that confusion is cleared up, she is then mistaken for a customer.  She is introduced to a room full of male and female sex workers who immediately begin to fuss around her and her lust takes over.

Poor Sonja, always frustrated.

Unfortunately when the brothel madam discovers she has no cash on her  poor old lusty Sonja gets hurled bodily out of the place and lands in a muddy puddle.

Sonja:  "Curse me for a fool.  A bit of abstinance and I become a lovesick child."

She climbs the buildings walls and makes her way around until she finds a guard who she forces out of the location of "the princess of pillowing" from. Her name is "Aneva" and Sonja enters through her window.

And is struck dumb by how beautiful Aneva is.  "I normally look much nicer" says Sonja lamely.  Internally she is freaking out, the room is for the kind of woman she was never meant to meet or become.  She tells Aneva that if she comes to the dying king's party he will triple whatever she desires.  Aneva says she has work here and must refuse. She wishes to stay and start a guild for courtesans, they are ripped off and brutalised by the leader of a nearby garrison, Captain Ferox and she wishes to make sure he never ruins another life.

Aneva.

Sonja kneels and says that the lives of the slaves are in the balance and Aneva, being "a princess of true and kind sort", agrees to come with her.  When Sonja introduces herself, Aneva has heard of her. Then the guards come in and Sonja attacks.  But Aneva breaks the fight up and Sonja realises they just love her and want to protect her.  The Madam tells Aneva that Ferox will chase her and Sonja agrees to protect her with her life and blood.

They ride out and later Sonja goes fishing.  She returns and watches Aneva doing her make-up.  She wonders to herself that if her tribe had not been killed, if she had not become The Devil, would she be like Aneva?  Then Aneva spots her and offers to pretty Sonja up. Sonja says no, but Aneva can be "awfully persuasive" and an hour later she is made-up and in a nice purple frock. Sonja looks at herself in the mirror and freaks out thinking to herself:

Sonja: "This is a Sonja who died with her tribe at the hands of marauders when she was ten years old.  This is a Sonja who can never be... I let my foolish vanity cause me to forget that we are hunted."

The horse is shot with an arrow and up rides Captain Ferox with a few soldiers.  Ferox sarcastically says Aneva shames him, he who has protected her from all harm.

Even in a pink frock Sonja kicks butt.

She accuses him of atrocities and he admits, yeah I did that and so?  Then he asks Sonja her name, calling her a "delicate toy". When she says "Red Sonja" they all laugh and when Ferox calls for the lash to instill some obediance, Sonja draws her sword and says "It's time for training indeed."  And she takes down the soldiers thinking:

Sonja: "Fancy dress or no, face paint or no.  I am who I am.  Seems we all could do with a bit of reminding".

Ferox grabs Aneva while Sonja kills the soldiers. Then turns to find Ferox dead.  Aneva says he fell on his dagger.  When Sonja notes he has several stab wounds, Aneva drily states "he fell several times.  He really was an awkward fellow."

Sonja asks how she learned to defend herself like that.  Aneva says she is the Princess of the Art of Lovemaking but she is also "Toa of the Rhamoan Mountains".  She was born of peasants and worked since she walked and her brothers taught her to fight.  One day she saw a fancy woman carried by four men and realised "the farm was not for me".

But despite her luxurious lifestyle she thrilled to hear of Sonja's adventures and freedoms and would wonder to herself could she have been like Red Sonja, "in a different world.  Toa the brave. Toa the invincible. Rescuing damsels. Freeing slaves".  Hearing this Sonja says she will return her here and Aneva will get her guild, then apologises for making a mess of Aneva's hard work on her, "I'm afraid I wasn't meant to be beautiful."  Aneva embraces her saying "you are so wrong sister. You are more beautiful than the stars." Sniffle.

Versus Osric the Untouched.

Next up is the swordsman and it turns out to be a harder task than you'd think for Sonja. Before we see that though we are treated to the Emporer saying to a lackey that he's going to renege on his promise to Sonja even if she completes her task. What a surprise.  Anyway we return to Sonja and she is kneeling in the mud, mad as hell as she fights top swordsman "Osric the Untouched". "You disappoint me" he says as she clambers up.  She is tired, hungry and enraged as she is having a public duel with him and losing.

Sonja: "But I am Sonja.  I am the curse of Hyrkania. And I am getting humiliated."

She charges at him and misses and he spanks her on the arse with his sword as she passes him which makes her madder still.  She argle bargle's at him and runs at him again, tripping and face planting in the mud.   Aneva is still with her and runs to her aid saying she doesn't understand how she could be losing.

Aneva says she'll call the watch. Sonja says "don't you dare" and gets up for another go at Osric and humliatingly trips over her own feet. We then get a flashback to when Aneva and her first met with Osric.  They rode into his camp and like a gentleman he welcomed them and invited them for a meal. She makes the offer of great riches from the King if he comes to the party.  He's more interested in the fact Red Sonja has come to see him and throws a great feast for her.

At the meal she whispers a dirty suggestion in his ear as she is still starved for sex.  But Osric has to refuse, "if it's absolutely neccesary... I'd been willing to bathe first" she offers.  But he says he's taken a vow, he won't sleep with anyone until they defeat him in battle.  Take it away Sonja.

Nice bit o'meta Gail.

He says that's as maybe but "my lover has been my blade.  My companion. My wife".  Then he asks her why the party is important to her.  She tells him about the slaves, so he says he'll have a public duel with her and come if she wins. We return to the present with Sonja lying in the mud and Aneva standing over her holding her sword to defend her.  "What heart she has" Sonja thinks as she staggers to her feet.  Osric declares the duel over.

Sonja can't believe it and sadly kneels thinking how she has failed the slaves and now they will all die.  She turns to Aneva as says to her:

Sonja: "There is a distinct possibility water might come from my eyes Aneve.  Please turn away."

Aneva kneels in the mud with her and holds her saying "Never. Never". The mournful pair go to the local tavern to collect themselves.  Aneva tries to make excuses for her, that she was tired and hungry.  But Sonja says she has fought and won battles under worse conditions. She asked why Aneva defended her and Aneva says it is because she is a hero.  Sonja says "ridiculous.  I drink.  I fight.  I bed.  Ridiculous".

Aneva gets cross and slaps Sonja's drink away saying Osric does not care about the lives of those slaves whereas Sonja risks her very life to defend them. Her saying this gives Sonja a brainwave and she realises how she can use her brain and Osric's exact words to defeat him and leaves to find him again.

Rules said nothing about using fists.

He comes out of his tent saying he already defeated her as she thinks "Sonja cares nothing for sparring and jousting for entertaining throngs.  Sonja fights for blood.  When neccesary.  And when that happens... Sonja becomes a Goddess."  She sheathes her sword and punches Osric hard in the face and starts pummeling him.

She shouts at his prone body that he was given a gift and only uses it to fight when there is no danger to him.  He rises with fury in his eyes and charges him.  He misses and she spanks his bum with her sword.  He yells she can't do this, and she says she can, "You sir.  Are touched".  He realises he has lost and graciously surrenders.  He kneels and kisses her sword agreeing to join her.  Then he asks that as she has defeated him does she want to...?  She refuses, "...Sonja the invincible needs a nap it turns out."

The next chapter begins with our team relaxing around a campfire while Sonja is off collecting firewood. A group of bandits comes upon them and start making threats which the gang laugh off much to the cut-throats confusion.  Then Sonja returns and says to them:

Sonja: "I'll give you one chance nightsneak.  Leave.  Or feel the full brunt of my inhospitable nature".

They don't take a hint and a fight breaks out.  Several bandits are killed and the rest flee in fear.  The only casualty on the side of our heroes is Gribaldi's soup.  He takes it hard.  Sonja muses how she understands people like those bandits, but tommorrow "I go to face two of the very things that actually do cause my heart to skip a beat".

They arrive at the temple where the Stargazer is to be found. Sonja remembers that her village has a small wooden temple and the holy men talked to gods made of sticks.  What kind of gods is she going to face in a place as grand as this?  She thinks:

Sonja:  "Are my gods as humble and savage as my tribe?  For the first time in my bloodstained life... I am afraid."

The priests at the door hand robes to Sonja and Aneva saying "the women must cover their shameful flesh".  Sonja thinks that she never thought of her clothes as shameful until asked to cover them and now, "I feel vastly more exposed."  she can't wait to leave and "be Sonja again".

Sonja is not too proud to beg.

The priests call her a "slattern" and tell her not to look the rector in the eye when she talks to him.  Osric gets pissed at how disrespectful they are being, but is told the place is surrounded by bowmen so put up and shut up.  They reach the rector and Sonja bows on her knees to him and tells him about the King and his need for a Stargazer. The freedom of the slaves is of no consequence to the Rector.

He then decides to quiz Sonja.  He asks what she is called, when she tells him he says "yes, the colour of a woman's sin".  He also says he has heard she is called "The Devil" and that she delights in luring "good, virtuous men into sin with your flesh".  She says she is "as God made me, priest".  Then she asks for the Stargazer Plaitius.

The Rector says the man is a heretic who has defied the church and is being scourged until he breaks.  Then he'll be scourged again and burned alive to please the gods.  Sonja decides to appeal to his wallet and says the King will give them gold in return for him.  The Rector says, very well, if Plaituis recants he can go free with them, so he is brought up to see them.

But though he is in a pitiful state he refuses to recant, Sonja pleads with him saying he doesn't even need to mean it, but he still refuses and is taken back to the dungeons.  But he allows Sonja, Aneva and Osric to go and talk to him in his cell.  Sonja asks him if he is not afraid:

Plaitius: "They are going to torture me to death. I am so terrified I can barely stand.  I spent most of today trying not to piss myself." 

Sonja mentally sympathises, she remembers her time in the pit in book one. She pleads again to recant.  He asks her a question, what shape is the world?  Sonja says it is the shape of a map and at night Mitra himself rolls the parchement up.  So Plaitius tells him his heresy, he believes the world to be round.

Plaitius lays out his "heresy".

He asks her has she not noticed during an eclipse the shadow is a disc and do ships not travel over the edge of the great seas only to return undamaged and if you gain altitude can you not see more land?  Sonja says "that is nonsense.  You are mad!"  He goes on to say the world orbits the sun, Aneva thinks his wounds have addled his mind.  Sonja says even if this was true, why won't he recant?

Plaitius:  "Because I love something more than my life mistress.  Doesn't everyone?"

Sonja has respect for him, for raising his voice when he knew what the cost would be.  She decides there and then that Plaitius is coming with them, guards and lack of weapons not withstanding.

The torturer comes back in and Sonja breaks his nose before ripping off the robe she was made to wear.  Then they face the guards and Osric who still has his sword takes on a group of them. They fight their way to the Rector's private chamber and Sonja kicks the door down.  She tells him they are leaving with Plaitius and he will not stop them.  The Rector bellows why would he allow "a heretic and a whore" to leave?

Sonja shouts that he knows why it is because despite the guards and the stone walls, he is nothing but a coward.  And this hits the Rector hard.  Head bowed he tells the guards to let them go and as they leave Sonja thinks to herself:

Sonja: "And so Sonja will be afraid of temples no more.  No more and never again. Thank you Stargazer.  Thankyou".

The final chapter begins.  Sonja needs a dancer fast, she has one day left and goes charging into an inn where Rukaua is performing.  She barges in, ready for a fight, but the people there have heard of her quest and are only to happy to help her.  This leads to the following page as Sonja reluctantly indulges Rukaua's fantasy of being rescued by a strong warrior. Heee!

This page makes me very happy.

Returning to the King's palace she introduces them as "the six most transcendent artisans in all the known world.!" Then introduces them one by one and tells King Samala that they will make his death party something special.  He pauses much to Sonja's fear that he might renege.  Then he hugs her saying "you have brought all I have wished for" she can also call this place home if her wandering days become over. Then it's time to party.

Sonja relaxes in a lovely bath attended by men and women and starts to ask them to see to her "other" needs when Aneva rushes in saying "I have nothing to wear!"  The King's second-in-command, the Overseer, appears saying they can supply clothes and Sonja, once again left frustrated gets out of the bath but tells the attendents to remember where they were.

Then as Aneva and Sonja are given beautiful dresses to wear, she asks where the others are.  Aneva tells her Plaitius is reading the stars, Rat is caring for her beasts. Rukaua is constantly practising and Gribaldi is fussing over the food preparation.  Sonja is being bothered by something she can't put into words.  Then calls in the Overseer who has been watching them.  The Overseer admits that Samala is not going to honour his agreement regarding the slaves.  He says if she doesn't oppose him she will be showered with gold, titles, lands and nobility.  Sonja responds:

Sonja: "The Emporer is a great lord, Overseer. A ruler of men.  The King of the Golden City.  While I may be no more than a peasant playing dress up for a moment.  But I am Hyrkanian.  We keep our word.  So with a peasants heart... the Emperor can go $^%$ himself"

She hears the Overseer sigh and wonders if he is a good man put in an awkward postion.  She starts fighting the guards but is quickly overwhelmed and put in a prison cell.  Samala comes and taunts her and then drops the bombshell that her six friends will join him in death too.

Samala is a dick.

The party begins without Sonja.  Rukaua is dancing for him and Gribaldi brings him delicous food.  He asks for the astronomer and the whore. Aneva sits on his lap and Plaitius is commanded to tell his fortune.  Rat has found Sonja in prison and using a gorilla breaks her out of there.  Meanwhile the Emporer has found a knife on Aneva and accuses her of wanting to cut his throat.

He throws her to the floor and when Gribaldi rushes to her side she tells him Samala means to kill them all.   Then Osric appears and begins fighting his guards. Rat and Sonja arrive at the battle and Rat uses a hawk to dive and attack.  Aneva gets stuck into the fighting too but Sonja, back-to-back with Osric admits they are outnumbered.  Osric says "it has been my honour to fight beside you.  Sonja the invincible."

Then Gribaldi shouts to everyone to stop. He says he has poisoned the Emporer and Samala dies coughing his guts out on the floor. Rukaua finishes his dance, "did I miss something?"  The Overseer takes command and tells Sonja the slaves will not be killed, "I think he is a good man" muses Sonja as she gets ready to go.

Goodbyes are said.

Then it is time for an emotional farewell to her friends.  Rat wants to build an animal sanctuary, the others are going to stay to help the new Emporer.  Gribaldi and Aneva are now a couple and as Sonja embraces Aneva she thinks "If I don't leave... I may stay forever. I will miss them. My heart hurts a little".

She rides back to the brothel where she found Aneva and gives them a huge bag of gold. She gives it to the madam so they can start their guild.  And there is also money left over for Sonja to have a great time.

Sonja: "As for my wishes?  I'll take one of everything".

And Sonja FINALLY gets to scratch that itch.

At that brings the arc to a close.  There is a zero issue, which tells a humourous story of a man who pretends to have been married to her and tells a story where an idealised version of her is compared with the reality.  It's fun but throwaway stuff, the real meat is the story we have just had.  I love how much it fills out Sonja's character, she's brave, honourable, headstrong, cunning, proud of her humble origins and a good friend.  Probably my favourite chapter is the one where she finds Aneva and we get a reflection of a road not taken due to fate as well as how Sonja's exploits have fascinated and inspired other women like Aneva who also wonders if she could have had the life Sonja had.  But crucially they stay happy with the way things are and their friendship is lovely to see. Despite how dark it gets in places, it packed full of great jokes and humour.  The running gag of Sonja absolutely dying for a shag is well executed and funny stuff, you rarely see such blatantly sexual-without-being-sexualised female characters in comics.  Once again Gail Simone and Walter Geovani have given us a female character who is a fantasticaly nuanced individual and an absolutely compelling read as well.  There is one more volume of Simone's run on the character so watch this space...

Jennifer Blood Book 1: A Woman's Work Is Never Done (#1-6) NSFW

NSFW:  Full frontal male nudity, beware the Penis!  Also sex happens.

"What we do in life.  Echoes in eternity" - Jennifer Blood

After a career writing male protagonists, with this series Garth Ennis decided to try his hand at writing a female one.  Now he's written a lot of interesting and varied women characters in his books before like Tulip in Preacher and Tiegel in Hitman, but they've tended to be subordinate to the male lead.  Here we see him explore the idea of a character that is as proficient at meting out death and destruction as The Punisher but who also lives an entirely normal family life with a gentle husband and two young kids and how she balances the two sides of her life inside herself as she embarks on a week of bloody revenge against the family members who had wronged her.  The book is very heavy with textual narration via Jennifer's diary in which she records her exploits and thoughts on her mission as well as how she takes such care not to let the violence spill over into her ordinary life.  It goes without saying that the gun fetishism is turned up to the maximum as is the violence and sexual explicitness.  So if spilled guts and naked penises aren't something you want to see, don't read on.  Artists are Adriano Batisa, Marcos Mars and Kewber Baal, doing two issues each consecutively.

We begin with Jennifer recording all sorts of mundane things in her diary.  How her husband Andrew is so sweet and a dilemma over washing up liquid.  But it takes a Garth Ennis turn when she says she was reading "Guns And Ammo" in the nailbar.  She wonders why there are so many articles about 9mm guns:

Jennifer: "What on earth is the point of having twice as many bullets if you have to use three times as many to put someone down?"

Her husband picks up the kids to get in her good books so he can go bird watching at the weekend which she happily accedes too.  While she does her domestic chores, she thinks about earlier when she took her car in for a service (she could repair it herself but what would the neighbours think?) and the mechanic leered and pawed at her. "Eventually I made one of my mental notes".

Jennifer Blood.

Later, after spiking their cocoa her drugged husband and children have been put to bed and she gets dressed up in a leather outfit, black wig and tooled up, in the armoury she secretly added to the basement while her husband was away seeing his parents.

She has a bit of a twinge about the kids, but ignores it and drives on out to the docks where her target is.  She collects the MP5 machine gun she stashed in a car their earlier and "Before I knew it, I'd struck a pose".  She stops that immediately and carries on surveilling the docks.

Boosted cars are being brought there for sale overseas.  She waits for them all to be loaded, twice as many as usual today then when the men are clustered together to be paid she chucks a grenade at them and machine guns the survivors.  But she hadn't realised double the cargo, double the security.

Boobs, the ultimate weapons.

Two men get out of a car behind her and point guns at her but are distracted by her "boobies" long enough for her to shoot them.  Another jumps her and they engage in hand-to-hand combat.  She pulls out her knife which is stashed on her back and stabs her assailant then slices him up, "how much blood can one man have in him?"

She leaves her calling card.

She hears the police sirens and starts to leave when she sees one of the men on the ground dying recognises her, "it can't be."  She suffocates him and says "go back to sleep uncle Mike".  Then she writes Jennifer Blood in blood on one of the containers and makes her getaway.

Jennifer: "And that was the end of my first night out."

Back home she showers and gets the smell of blood and cordite out of her hair.  She has another twinge about coming home to a happy family after causing such carnage.  Then, bone-tired, she slips into bed.  Sadly her husband is feeling randy, so she has sex with him. "Nice to do something boring just to bring youself down off that massive adrenaline high".  Then she notices a damp patch on the ceiling, she is annoyed, "just what I needed.  Honestly".

Romantic!

The next day we get the charming image of uncle Steve having sex with his wife Renee on the prow of their yacht.  Jennifer is at the docks doing some recognaissance.  She mulls over how you can't get a large calibre sniper rifle that is easy to conceal.

Jennifer: "You'd think someone would have come up with something by now, wouldn't you?  Honestly".

Back home the family meet their new neightbours, Jack and Laura and their baby.  Jennifer realises Jack is going to be trouble from the way he looks at her. Jack says he is going to throw a housewarming barbeque and they are invited.  Jennifer chats to Laura about schools, "my mind wanders.  I'm talking schools, but I'm thinking of fields of fire.  I should possibly try to stop that." Later she drugs the family, but forgot to get them into bed first and has to carry everyone up thinking truly, "a woman's work is never done".

The uncles discuss their little problem.

Onboard Steve's yacht the Uncles discuss Mike's death.  All the cars were left so it doesn't look like a rival outfit, who are all either happy or too chickenshit to do anything like this.  One of them wonders if it is someone from the old country. 

Steve says are they implying someone is back from the grave?  Another one says no, there was no faking that day.  The name "Jennifer Blood" is bugging Pete, it has made him think of family, "but they say the family's done, Pete.  I mean we are it" says another uncle.

They realise they can't do anything "which means the ball's in this maniac's court.  All we can do is brace for impact, an' wait on what the crazy fucker does next".  Jennifer meanwhile has wired lots of explosives under the yacht, enough to rip it open.

Boom! Headshot!

Then she uses a sniper rifle to kill the three guards/drivers of the three uncles who travelled there.  Then she puts the dead bodies in the cars as psychological warfare.  The three uncles leave a displeased Steve who starts saying they don't respect him, then he tells Renee to suck his dick.

Jennifer boards the yacht and takes out all the men aboard with a gun that has a supressor attached.  She walks out on deck and reveals herself to uncle Steve.  He immediately starts begging saying he can make things right. 

She just handcuffs him and Renee to the prow of the boat.  She leaves the yacht and just as the other uncles discover the corpses in their cars, Jennifer blows up the ship and watches Steve and Renee slowly drown as it sinks, the pair cursing each other the whole way down.

My heart won't go on.

As the rest of the uncles regard the drowned pair, they see the boat's flag has "Jennifer Blood" written on it in blood.

Jennifer: "Yo-ho me hearties.  Yo-ho.  And so to bed.  You won't believe what tommorrow will bring".

The next chapter starts with her regarding neighbour Jack's penis as he has cornered her in the bathroom and dropped his trousers.  "God, I hate being right" she thinks.  She tells him she is not interested in extra-marital stupidity, "I don't betray my husband at all" she says.

He tells her he thinks she's playing hard to get.  She wonders how to get out of it, she could poke his eyes out, strike his throat, and grab his balls and throw him out of the window before slamming his head into the barbeque, but that might be hard to explain to the party guests. 

Imaginary revenge.

So she screams at the top of her voice, and Jack hurridly pulls his trousers back up as everyone comes in to see what the matter is.  She says she saw a mouse:

Jennifer: "It was so small and skinny and pink and disgusting.  Like a tiny little worm".

With the "mouse" now gone, everyone goes back outside.  A woman comes up to her and says that she saw a mouse too, and she kneed it in the balls.  Jennifer thinks if she could have a friend, Emily Eastwood would be ideal.  They'd gossip about the neighbours and skewer them with their wit and generally rebel against the suburban existence.

Jennifer: "But that's not me.  I can't risk clever friends.  I can't do irony. Woe is me".

The remaining three uncles are at the office of Marcus their lawyer who Pete calls a dramatic Jew.  Marcus shows them CCTV footage from the police of "Jennifer Blood".  One of them thinks he recognises her, and other tells him to leave the fairy stories in the mountains. They are definitely being fucked with.

Marcus: "Whoever's doing the fucking, knows things that should not be known outside this room".

They discuss the probability one of them is responsible but discard that theory quickly.  Pete says the police who provided the information should be killed so they can't be traced back to them.

The uncles are still none the wiser.

Marcus says whoever he hires to deal with her, will know about them.  Pete says they'll be killed as well when they have done the job.  He says he wants the bitch dead, "and her bones ground to powder".  He wants her gone from this world.

We return to Jennifer's surveillance on uncle Nick.  She realises he is the weak link who would choose to flee rather than stick around and risk death.  He goes home, grabs some cash and drives off, leaving his wife and kids behind.

He takes the back roads luckily for her and she is able to shove his car off the road using her souped up S.U.V.  She hangs him upside down from a tree and gets out a knife.  He comes too and says to her that while he was partly responsible for the death of her dad, what came after was all Pete.

She says she knew he'd break.  Then she cuts into his stomach and pulls out his intestines. When they get too slippery for her to handle, she uses the car to pull them further out and spells out "J.B." with them as Nick bleeds to death.

Another uncle bites the dust.

Marcus is called up and told Nick has disappeared.  Marcus says he may have found a solution to the problem and on his PC screen is a page advertising the "Ninjettes".

Marcus is interviewing the Ninjettes who are teenage girls with masks on.  They speak pidgin English and random Japanese words.  They are evidently not Japanese.  Marcus says they come with recommendations from top men in the business.

He then tells them they are going to be part of a trap.  They are going to lure the target to an old nightclub where they will be waiting.  There will be perimeter security as well. They are going to make the lure so attractive the target will definitely come.

At Jennifer's home she is mixing the sleeping pills in with the cocoa for her family.  She wonders how drugging your family rates:

Jennifer: "On a scale of one to ten, when ten is gutting your uncle and using his viscera to spell your initials?  Barely even a two if you ask me."

There is dissension in the ranks of the Ninjettes, actual three trust fund kids called Kelly, Skyler and Chelsea.  Kelly thinks the racial charicaturing is demeaning.  Skyler says it's about building a brand and being memorable.

The Ninjettes.

Skyler and Kelly argue about each other's respective families and Skyler asks why Kelly can't get into character like Chelsea who is dancing happily behind them.  Kelly says she's always in character.  They'll do the job, get cash before their trustfunds open up and not have to rely on allowances from parents and "ninja up and get through this".

Jennifer isn't fooled by the trap she is being led into. She has been surveilling the family for months and months.  She follows uncles Jimmy and Pete, such tempting targets as they travel to the old nightclub.

She waits for them to leave then climbs into the van that holds the extra security personel and tells the chief to call the operation off, she has a gun to his head so he obliges, getting them back into the van.  They drive round the block ten times, then Jennifer kills them all.

She decides to face her potential killers, and climbs onto the nightclub roof and drops a smoke grenade.  In the confusion, she shoots Chelsea and Skyler, leaving Kelly alive for questioning.  She tells her to drop the katana and did she realise how much strength would be needed to cut someones head off with it?

So much for the Ninjettes.

She asks who hired them, and is told it was Marcus Goldhaven.  Jennifer says they were way out of their depth, how did they get on the ciruit?  Kelly admits they slept with the men who recommended them.  Jennifer says she can go if she has her "solemn promise" not to say anything.  Kelly enthusiastically agrees and turns to leave and Jennifer cuts her head off with the katana, fancy that, "still a very silly toy to bring to a party".

She arrives at Marcus's office and he recognises her as Jennifer Blute.  Isn't she supposed to be dead, fell off a boat during spring break?  She says yes, but then she started swimming.  Marcus tries to bargain for his life, but when he realises he's going to die he starts talking about that instead.

He says  he'd quite like to be machine-gunned and fall out the windown onto the pavement.  She says it would attract too much attention.  What about blasting his head off like in a clint Eastwood film?  She says she doesn't have the right kind of gun.  He says he just wants a memorable death.  Taking out an orange she says he will and he is hanged from the light fitting in ladies undies and the orange stuffed in his mouth.

Based on the real life death of a Tory MP.

Late that night, weary she returns home.  But she is being watched through a telescope by Jack.  He catches a glimpse of her leather suit and jumps to the conclusion she is into BDSM and goes out every night with a bag full of dildos to get some action her hubby can't provide. "I was right, I was right. Fuck yeah!" he says gleefully.

Jennifer has a nice day playing with the kids.  She relaxes and catches up with some sleep. She dreams about being at home with her mum and dad as a kid herself.  And how much her father loved them.  She thinks of her mother:

Jennifer: "She was the only human who could reach him.  Who knew how to melt that stony heart".

She recalls how the Blute Boys took over the organised crime in the city.  A campaign of sustained and horrific violence until there was no one left to oppose them.

Jennifer: "In one long week they made the city theirs.  Nick, Steve, Mike, Jimmy and Sam.  My dad behind it all.  His plan.  His resolve.  His hands steeped in so much blood the others looked like innocents.  Sam Blute was steel and ice and lead and stone.  But with Jennifer he was something else".

Jennifer's happy childhood.

Her next target is uncle Jimmy. She is unsure of how to deal with him, he "was good at getting into peoples heads".  He is attending a dogfight which suits her as the barn is a long way in the middle of nowhere.

Using a flamethrower she torches the barn killing everyone bar Jimmy who jumped into the dog fighting pit to escape.  She shoots the half dead dog down there saying that's the one death she'll regret.  She asks Jimmy if it was his idea to kill her father up close and personal rather than get an outsider to do it.  He is silent for a moment then he says, yes, "because I wanted to feel the blades go in."

The others made excuses for doing it that way, but he wanted to feel the skin splitting, his guts bursts and his blood spray on his face.  "I wanted to feel steel against bone" says Jimmy.  He asks how she knows they killed him, "Pete talks in his sleep" says Jennifer.

Jennifer's dad betrayed.

Her father had to go for many jealous reasons, but mainly because of his wife.  Pete "wanted her like nothing on earth". After Sam's death he made sure she was hollowed out with pills, until she ended up turning to Pete like he wanted all along.

Jennifer had been packed off to boarding school.  Her mum sent her a letter one day blowing the lid off what her family were like, she included some useful numbers like that of a bank account in the Bahamas.  The letter said when she dies, "they'll get you too".  A year later her mother committed suicide.

"Fuck her" says Jimmy.  She knew the score, where all the money was coming from.  He baits Jennifer into coming down to face him.  "I think I'm going to stop writing in my diary now" she writes as we see her chopping Jimmy to bits with an axe.

Hands on revenge time.

She returns home exhausted.  The watching Jack is dressed in a leather fetish suit, he rips the trousers off and says, "tommorrow night. You won't even know what's hit you."

The last chapter begins with Jennifer injecting a drug into a stricken uncle Pete to keep him alive while he dies from a bullet in the gut.  She says she expected him to be harder work as she contemplates all the dead bodies strewn about the house.  Now it is time for her to talk.

She tells him about the letter her mum sent, that revealed the true face of the Blute family.  When she committed suicide, Jennifer jumped off a ship during spring break, made it to a bank and all of her dad's money, "Jenny Bell of nothing nowhere was all set to go".

Uncle Pete, the worst of the lot.

But she couldn't stop thinking of the family.  "What are we, Uncle Pete?" she asks.  Hugarian or Romanian, or border trash feeding on the bones of war.  And that continued when the brothers came to America.  She couldn't stop thinking of her murdered dad and what Pete has done to her mum.

Jennifer: "You see whatever we are is in me too.  That urge to kill.  To live by the feud.  I guess you could say it's in my blood."

She used her father's contacts to learn to use guns and fight hand-to-hand.  Learned surveillance and industrial espionage.  She has "an entire criminal network to teach me everything I needed".  And if one got suspicious of her true identity she'd kill them without qualms. 

One day while learning broken bottle fighting, she realised she was prevaricating, "but a funny thing happened on the way to the unspeakably violent showdown".  Then she hears a noise and goes to investigate.  Jack jumps out at her, ripping off his trousers.

Oops, heh heh heh.

She puts a gun in his face and he starts pissing in fear.  She realises what he thought she was up to, and shows him all the corpses.  Then she drugs him and tells him if he says anything she'll release surveillance of this place showing he was here.  She also warns him not to ever try and force sex from her again.  And he burbles off home in a terrified daze.

She returns to Pete and picks up the story.  She'd taken a class in accounting with a half arsed idea she could take down the Blutes financially.  Andrew was the lecturer.  She fell in love with him, "he was the exact opposite of every man I'd ever known".  She says the Blutes would call him weak, but "he's the kind of man that makes society work instead of preying on it."

She can't fight her true nature.

She says her family life was almost enough for her to forget thoughts of revenge.  But seeing the Blutes escape justice one too many times sparked the desire again.  She tells him her dad's money went nowhere near her family.

Jennifer: "That's my revenge on you uncle Pete.  I have a life. A proper one.  Not some travesty snared in filth and darkness."

She says she can give him two more hours as his bowels leak into his guts, "then I have got to go home and make a start on breakfast".

And she wins.... for now.

An solid experiment by Garth Ennis this, gender flipping his usual manly man military killer into a tooled up housewife makes for fascinating reading in the context of his wider body of work.  I'm not sure he totally pulls it off, I'd hope for more about how Jennifer functions switching between two very different lives, she is in fact a sociopath with how she can carpentalise the gruesome deaths which don't affect seem to her greatly (although the mask slips once, when she stops writing about uncle Jimmy's horrific death for a moment) and herlove for her family.  There is an interesting possibility that arises from her actions, she seems to feel more alive and more like her "real self" when she is killing, whereas when she is trying to fit into suburban mundanity she feels like she is playing a role, and that explains why her "housewife" persona is such a stereotype, she is totally deluding herself along with everyone else who knows her. I know Ennis hasn't written the books that come after, they are written by Al Ewing and seem to be better regarded than Ennis's original work creating the character.  I haven't read the rest of the series, it's on my list of things to check out.  The book does suffer somewhat from weak art, that just doesn't fit the darkness of the subject matter, with three sub-par artists on the arc artwise it's a real disappointment in that respect.  I'm not sure this is prime Ennis, while it borrows from his amazing Punisher MAX run quite heavily in places, it in no way matches up to them and the Ninjette chapter falls flat for me in every possible way, either as comedy or drama.  But he has at least given comics an interesting female anti-hero who's gone on to have a possibly richer life beyond his pen.  Worth a look for the Garth Ennis completist.

Red Sonja Book 1: Queen Of Plagues (#1-6)

"We were never meant for lingering in sickbeds we two" - King Dimath

Time for some more Gail Simone, this time her 2013 reboot of a somewhat previously problematical female hero, Red Sonja.  Notable for wearing only a chainmail bikini which has made comic conventions sexier places than usual thanks to dedicated cosplayers, Red Sonja's character history needed to be completely rewritten to make it acceptable for a modern-day female comic character. When she was first created in 1975 by Robert E. Howard and Barry Windsor-Smith, her backstory was that she was brutally raped, when she can't even lift a sword to defend herself she calls to the heavens to help, and the Goddess Scáthach appears and imbues her with incredible fighting skills but she can only sleep with a man if he defeats her in fair combat.  Which all sounds a bit icky and sexist nowadays, so that has been removed from origins.  Now she is a smelly, drunken, sex-hungry traveller, who honed her fighting skills when thrown into an extreme survival situation and she always looking for someone to romp with, male or female, though she doesn't find opportunities for sexy times nearly as often as she would like.  She rarely wears the iconic chainmail bikini as well, dressing far more sensibly according to the weather.  In short she's now a kickass bisexual female barbarian hero without the rapiness and reliance on a stronger man who can "take her" to get her jollies.  The art by Walter Geovani is commendable as well, clear and crisp with a muted colour palette suiting the olde worlde aspect of the story. All the covers, including the varients were drawn by women and it's amazing how many put her in the metal bikini, not that I am complaining!

Hail to the King, baby!

This first six issue arc introduces this new take on Sonja, as well as acting as a self contained story arc of it's own.  After an enthusiastic introduction where Simone tells of how much being allowed to create a new take on the character meant to her, the story begins with a battle and a King claiming victory over the Zamorans.  This is a flashback from "three turns of the seasons past."  The King wants to face the Zamaron king but he has been lost somewhere during the battle.  The king asks where his son is and his knight says he has heard that his son was seen "harrassing" the dead.

His son arrives and says he was collecting "humors and specimens" and apologises for not fighting alongside his father.  He hopes he'll finds a way to make him proud one day.  They descend into the dungeon where eighty prisoners were forced to fight for the entertainment of the Zamorans.  Only two are left, bound to posts.  The king orders them freed, fed and bathed.  One of the women manages to say her name, "Red Sonja".

The action then cuts to the present day and she is sleeping by a fire in a forest when three scavengers come upon her.  She says they can take the gold and other stuff if they like, just not touch her sword as she'll send a throwing knife into one of them's head.  The lead scavenger asks why she hasn't done it now to stop them taking her stuff.

Red Sonja: "Because I am drunk scavenger.  My aim could be off a bit.  I might get blood on my horse."

Suddenly two girls burst into the clearing armed with bows saying they will defend her.  But the lead scavenger attacks one and this rouses Sonja in anger.  She grabs her sword and stabs up two of the three scavengers.  The final one pleads with her, then vomits blood on her.  He has the plague.

Red Sonja, classic style.

The two girls say she is summoned by King Dimath, the man who showed her kindness when she was tied up in the slave pit.  She agrees to go with them and asks them to brew up a concoction so foul it will make her angry enough to forget she is drunk.  She leaves the dying man her booze and a knife to end his life with.  She and the girls depart as he drunkenly sings to himself.

The reach the town garrison and the girls get Sonja cleaned and prettied up much to her annoyance.  She meets with King Dimath and he calls her "sword daughter".  He lays out the situation.  Their army is gone, the plague took them.  The other city states refuse to send aid due to the plague.

Sonja doesn't normally "do" pretty.

The Zamorans are on the march with a terrifying new general and beasts that walk like men.  All that are left are the craftsmen and farmers, and the women and children.  He wants Sonja to train them to fight off the Zamorans who are on their way to take the town.  Sonja agrees and throws herself into it but secretly believes:

Red Sonja: "It's hopeless.  Of course it's hopeless.  I can teach them tactics, I can't teach them war.  But they have heart.  And they have nowhere to go."

The day of the battle arrives, Sonja rallies her motley troops but then sees the new Zamoran general, it is a woman called Dark Annisia, her "sister" in the Zamoran slave pen.

As she and Annisia fight on the battlefield, Sonja remembers when they were the last two scheduled to fight in the slave pit.  The two bow wielding girls, Nias and Ayla charge into battle next and then the king orders a full on attack.  Sonja and Annisia fight and "for a moment... we are eternal."

Sonja versus Dark Annisia.

The action flashes back to them tied up in the slave pit. A gross, froglike Zamoran leers at them and looks forward to seeing who will win the next day.  Left alone Annisia says she will not raise her sword to fight Sonja.  Either Sonja or the Zamorans can kill her.

Back in the present, Annisia screams that Sonja dishonours the dead and shames them both.  Sonja wrestles her to the ground, but gets stabbed in the thigh.  Annisia keeps ranting about Sonja's betrayal.  Sonja says she never betrayed Annisia.  Annisia says not her, she means "Them.  Do you not see them?  They follow me always" and she gestures to empty air behind her, but where she sees many ghosts following behind her.  The ghosts of everyone they killed in the slave pit.

Annisia: "Can you not hear their endless cries of grief and hate?"

The haunting of Annisia.

Sonja says she can see no one.  Annisia says she is a liar.  They demand she make hell full of souls to ease their solitude.  So it is left to Annisia to bring them companions and solace, by killing many people.  King Dimath charges her, but she throws a sword through his throat and kills him.  Sonja and his son run to him, but he is dead.  Sonja says she will have Annisia for that, Annisia says no, she'll stand down as she has the plague.

Annisia says to the kneeling Sonja that she will die puking her guts out, alone and afraid. She will have waking dreams of loved ones long gone and she can't understand why Sonja risked everything for the rag-tag defeated army of Dimath's.  She kisses Sonja full on the lips.

She then offers a deal.  If Sonja surrenders her sword and her honour, they'll allow the survivors to return to the town, but a fence will be put round it to prevent the plague getting out.  Sonja agrees.  Annisia exiles her to the snowy mountains of the north.

Annisia: "You are no longer Sonja the Devil.  You are nothing. You are no one."

Sonja is marked round the eyes to warn she is plagued then sent with a horse to travel alone until the disease finally claims her.

Sonja goes into exile.

Sometime later a sickened Sonja ponders her horse.  She knows it is fading too but she can't turn it loose because if she couldn't look after it, she'd forget to look after herself.  A beautiful white stag appears in front of her, she goes to kill it but it's majesty is too great.  She ends up collapsing in the snow and the white stag lies down next to her.  She dreams of meeting her father who says she has one last task to do and carry out the custom of their village.

There is then another flashback, Sonja and her brothers are out hunting and she chases a white stag.  But when the others catch up she says she let it go and cannot explain why.  Back home her father, the village cheif says she knows more about tracking and shooting than anyone in the village, but she cost them food for today and she may never be ready for the hunt.

That night her village is attacked by marauders.  In the ensuing battle every single person in the village except for her is killed, and the houses and fields burned.  She is restrained by one of the men and when she asks their leader why they did it he says "It's because we were bored, Hyrkanian".

The oranges of Red Sonja.

Sonja is left alone with her captor who wants to have his way with her, so she slips out of his grasp and stabs him in the gut.  Then puts an arrow in his head for good measure.  She then begins the laborious task of burying the dead.

Red Sonja: "And that is the story of how Sonjita, just twelve years old, daughter of the chief, dug the graves for everyone she had loved... and then I, Sonja of Hyrkania truly hunted for the first time."

One by one she lures the men away from their campfire and into the forest, sleathily taking them out.  All twenty end up dying by her hand, with the final one so freaked out he yells "kill me, you devil!" And Sonja finds a new name for herself.

Revenged.

Back in the present she wakes with the white stag still next to her, it talks to her and tells her to perform the custom of her people, and she starts to dig her own grave.  But she is too weak and collapses and the wolves come to investigate.  Then Nias and Ayla burst in on the scene and tell Sonja the king's son found a cure for the plague.  But then they realise she isn't responding and that "Red Sonja is dead!"

Outside the fenced of town of Patra, Annisia and her army are still camped out.  A peasant from inside the village makes a run for it but is captured.  He says they are starving because they can't access the fields to grow crops, and that no one in the village has died of the plague since she sent Sonja away.  Annisia asks the ghosts what she should do with the peasant, they say no mercy and Annisia chops his head off.  She then says she doesn't want to be known as Dark Annisia anymore, but Red Annisia.

Back with Sonja, she is not dead.  But is being treated by Ayla and Nias, they feed her an elixir that Tiath the kings son made that will temporarily relieve her symptoms so they can get her to him for the proper cure, they also blindfold her to protect her eyes as they heal.  They make a board for her to lie on and pull it behind their horses.

Nias and Ayla to the rescue.

They camp out later and Sonja is able to speak to them.  They say they need her to be their general again.  Sonja says being that means being able to assess who is a asset and who is a liability.  When they demand to know what she thinks they are, Sonja replies: "Kind hearted. Loyal spirited.  You will never be soldiers."

Back in the past we get to see Annisia and Sonya fighting in the slave pits.  Annisia gives Sonja some combat tips, as well as advising she pick a small, quick weapon.  The next day Annisia and Sonya win their fight in the pit, watched over by the Zamoran king Bazrat himself.  Sonja chops off one of her opponent's heads and holds it up proclaiming that she is Red Sonja.

In the present, while getting fresh water and food, Nias and Ayla are captured by a Zamoran patrol.  Red Annisia has said to make an example of them, so their leader says to de-bone them like a fish.  Then Red Sonja, still blindfolded and armed with a bow appears.  She kills all but the leader and the one holding Ayla and Nias, who stab him to death. 

Even half dead Sonja will Kick. Your. Arse.

The Zamoran leader drags Red Sonja into the river with him, she recognises him as the slave keeper and chops off his hands before kicking him over the waterfall. A newly determined Sonya says the people of the village need to be saved from Annisia, "I'm coming for you sister, do you hear?"

Some of Annisia's men and mer-men are keeping watch close to the village.  Suddenly a string of severed heads is chucked at their feet by Sonja.  Then she Nias and Ayla take all but one of them out.  The one spared is to return and give a message to Annisia.  "I will meet her in the place where we were made."  Once they are alone, Red Sonja half collapses and has to take more potion.  She doesn't like relying on magic, but the girls say it's something called science, not magic.

As they ride along, Nias says she was barely able to open her eyes but she still became the destroyer when they needed her to be.

Sonja: "Being Sonja means being called to darkness and pain and knowing you have the power to alter and take the lives of many.  A great many.  And praying to the Gods that you chose the right side."

The girls show her the Kings grave.  They managed to get it away from Annisia who had ordered it cremated along with the livestock.  A humble grave, but at least they buried him in the place he loved the best.  Another flashback to three years ago.  Dimath is concerned they haven't been able to find Bazrat.  Then he wishes to speak with the women from the pit.  He tells them he has arranged horses and some coin for them and they are free to go.

Dimath's grave.

He tells them not to let the evil done to them make them who they are.  Sonja kneels before him saying she is in his debt, "Red Sonja pays what's due, sire."  Back in the present Sonja mutters that she would "rather have full plate armour than memories sometimes."  Sonya asks where the cure is to be found, it's in a place by the town square.  When Sonja is told that Annisia closed down all the pubs, she gets super pissed off.

Annisia is communing with the angry ghosts that follow her.  The man from the watch who was sent to deliver Sonja's message arrives and tells her what Sonja said.  Annisia says she will meet Sonja, but also all the inhabitants of Patra are to be herded into the towers, locked in and then burned to death.

Meanwhile, Sonja is having the cure administered via a strange contraption with a huge leech attached to her stomach.  Tiath thinks that Sonja was more the son his father always wanted than he was.  Meanwhile Nias and Ayla have gone to rally the troops.  They declare themselves generals and the others say "we're doomed".

Ew.

Sonya is finally fully cured.  Tiath gives her the best chainmail and his father's sword.  Finally Sonja asks for something to scrub the plaguemark off her face.  Sonja and Annisia meet in the slave pit.  They both say that neither is the person they loved back then.  They begin to fight when suddenly the pit is surrounded by soldiers and King Bazrat appears in the throne looking down upon them saying he's come out of hiding to get what he didn't get three years ago, seeing both of them die.

He tells them to "amuse their king".  All the soldiers have arrows pointed at the women.  And a scantily clad lady is pouring drinks for Bazrat.  Annisia is shocked to find out he is still alive.  Bazrat then drops another bombshell, he reveals the plague is not a plague at all, it is a poison.  That was why the armies died first and no one else.  He waited out his time in exile and now is back, with a new army and the drink pouring woman being a general from his first army whose husband he killed.

The evil king Bazrat.

Annisia who had been given the job of burning "plagued" villages to the ground to contain it starts to have a breakdown.  "Sonja, I am drowning.  Help me."  She is surrounding by the accusing fingers of all the people she killed.  Sonja asked why he hated the Patran king Dimath so much he would raze entire countries.  Barat says actually he didn't want him dead he had a brutal respect for him, but Dimath was killed by Sonja and Annisia.  Sonja lays the Hyrkian curse upon him.

Then Annisia attacks Sonja, Sonja fights her reflecting that the pit never really left Annisia.  The one thing in this world she could not imagine harming.

Sonja: "I wish.. I wish for a better world."

Sonja versus Annisia round two.

In the village the women gathered by Ayla and Nias hold up a squadron of Zamoran troops and demand their uniforms.  Back with the Sonja and Annisia fight, Sonja manages to disarm Annisia and get her sword back.  Annisia pulls out two daggers and keeps goading Sonja about what she did to Dimath.  Then she suddenly hurls the daggers at Bazrat's two guards and kill them. 

Bazrat panics and tells the archers to kill them.  Annisia leaps ontop of Sonja and takes the arrows meant for both of them.  Angrily Sonja gets up and grabs her sword so she can "cleave him in twain".  She makes her way up to him and tries to frighten some of his men out of her way, they refuse to move so she murderises them.  Bazrat spots what he thinks are reinforcements but turn out to be Ayla and Nias's warriors in disguise.

A gruesome but fitting end.

Bazrat runs, but is stopped short by Annisia.  Before she and Sonja can kill him, the drink pouring woman says not to bother, he's about to die from the huge amounts of poison she just fed him, and indeed he suddenly collapses choking on blood and liquified internal organs.  But before everyone can take stock, Tiath runs up behind Annisia and runs her through with a sword, then yells he did it, he avenged his father's death.  Annisia dies in Sonja's arms, the angry ghosts now welcoming her with forgiveness.

Now Sonja confronts Tiath having figured out he poisoned her at the party before Annisia attacked the town.  Tiath says he did it because Bazrat says he and his father would be allowed to live if he killed the army and got rid of Sonja.  He begs Sonja not to kill him, saying he can cure suffering and death and the world will not know his like again.  "The price is too high" says Sonja and kills him.  She knights Ayla and Nias and leaves them in charge of the town and then departs saying:

Red Sonja: "I'm going to get drunk in a legendary fashion."

And that concludes the first arc of the new Red Sonja.  I enjoyed it very much, not knowing much about the character beforehand except that Red Sophia in Cerebus was a parody of her.  This is a very "feminist" tale.  All about female friendships and empowering women with kickass characters who are by no means perfect Mary Sues, but who you like all the same.  The flashbacks are well spaced and breaking Red Sonja down via the poison, only to build her back up the badass ladder as she slowly gets better was a great idea.  Easy to show a healthy, powerful top of their game fighter, but more interesting in someways to see how that same fighter would cope sick, half-blind and on the edge of collapse through an entire battle.  Gail Simone is able to write dialogue that feels authentically period without getting all flowery and her characters also all have distinctive voices in the narrative. The collected volume also has all the varient covers done by female artists and a script exerpt from chapter one. All-in-all, a great start to the new Red Sonja ongoing series.