In Review: Red Sonja: Holiday Special

Synopsis: Sonja reminisces about the time she and Sir Max rescued a drunk Santa from the Grinch (Kulan Gath of course!) and learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Review: As readers will know. I’m not really known for reviewing much Red Sonja, but given that this is a special holiday edition. I figured I’d check out how Red Sonja celebrates the Festive season.

The Stories

This 38-page Holiday Special consists of two stories. The first story ‘A Very Merry Sonja’ is written by Amy Chu and Erik Burnham and is a fun tale that sees Sonja hanging out with her friend Max in New York.

Both writers have loads of fun with the difference in culture and Sonja’s initial reactions to the figure of Santa Claus are really fun.

By the close of this story. Sonja is very much into the goodwill of the season and takes a liking to Santa’s because of they all smell of Ale.

The second story is called ‘Wizards Of The Black Sun’ and is written by Roy Thomas and Clair Noto with artwork from Frank Thorne. In this story, a weary Sonja wonders into a  city but finds that all is not as it seems and has to face a series of tests in order to escape.

The Artwork

Generally the artwork for both these stories was pretty good, but  I kind of liked Richardo Jamie’s work a little better than Frank Thornes work. I liked the smoother line work, plus seeing Sonja on the back of Max’s motorcycle commenting that her horse can go faster is a tough image to get out of your head. So tough that not even a three-legged talking goat will do it.

Overall

This is a fun book for the holiday’s, but nothing really much beyond that. The first story is perhaps the most Christmas like. While the second is more of a morality tale.