In SONJAVERSAL #2, available from Dynamite Comics on March 3rd, 2021, readers hop from the past to the present in Red Sonja’s life and from one dimension to the next as more Sonjas are introduced for the battle to come. When the Sonja at the heart of it all decides to take off the kid gloves, a new battleground is revealed. (Yes, I know it sounds confusing. Just keep reading.)
The Details
- Written By: Christopher Hastings
- Art By: Pasquale Qualano, Vincenzo Carratú
- Colors By: Kike J. Diaz
- Letters By: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
- Cover Art By: Jae Lee
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: March 3, 2021
Was It Good?
It’s coming into focus, which is another way of saying it builds and improves on issue #1. (Read our SONJAVERSAL #1 review here for the background.) Issue #1 took a little processing to get into because the reader is thrown into multiversal chaos with no setup or a prologue to set the stage. Issue #2 finds the rhythm in the chaos and makes the reading experience more enjoyable.
The art is excellent, particularly the coloring work by Kike J. Diaz in using different color saturation to separate different time periods and dimensions in an intuitive way.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
We begin with a small montage of Sonjas from across the multiverse. Some were introduced in the first issue, some are new. At first, it seemed the authors were going with naming the different Sonjas based solely on hair color, but it doesn’t fully work as a way to remember which is which, so now we’re mixing hair color with story type: Blonde Steampunk Sonja, Blue Road Warrior Sonja, Purple Giant Mech Sonja, etc.
The montage eventually shifts to Red Sonja at a moment in her past where she meets an accomplished warrior, Warrick, boasting of his latest victory in a pub. The warrior catches Sonja’s eye, but as we know by now, Sonja will not be with any man who cannot best her in combat, so she draws her sword to see what he’s made of.
Back to the present and the (literal) cliffhanger from issue #1, Red Sonja is questioning Orange Sonja as to her presence here and why she wants to kill Red (let’s just switch to descriptions to make this easier to read.) Orange admits she’s here to kill Red as penance to her gods who have found her lazy and lacking. Orange activates hidden tech armor and flies up to attack Red. It’s never explained where the tech armor came from, especially since Orange is only wearing a silver bikini, so let’s go with nano-tech.
Flashback to Red’s idea of flirting. Red and Warrick’s swordfight spills into the street and eventually up a nearby mountain trail. Surprisingly, Warrick overcomes Red and sends her off a cliff edge to the river below.
Back to the present, Red takes cover from Orange’s tech sensors in a nearby cave. Orange sends out some grenades to flush Red out, but not before Red finds a weapon left behind by one of the previous Sonjas from an advanced world.
Warrick saves Red from drowning in the river. He’s too intrigued by Red to let her die, and Red yields the fight and her body to the warrior who bested her.
In the now, Orange flies down to find Red and finish her off. Suddenly, Red leaps from her hiding spot and separates Orange’s head from her neck with a lightsaber she retrieved from the body of another Sonja.
Frustrated and enraged, the Sonja who’s started it all that Red hasn’t been beaten because she’s the only Sonja that hasn’t lost faith in her gods. To be proven the true Sonja above all others, Sonja must face the fullest extent of Sonja Prime’s attacks by bringing all the Sonjas together for one massive battle royale.
Without spoiling what happens next, we see who Sonja Prime really is and where the final battle will take place, and it’s sure to bet things will get messy.
Final Thoughts
SONJAVERSAL #2 brings the story’s plot into focus with great art and better introductions to the army of characters. The setup makes sense in a multiverse kind of way, and the next issue promises to amp up the action 10x.
Score: 8/10
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