Seriously, every comic should have a one-shot with the title and “…and Cub.” Best marketing ever. Why? Well go Google Lonewolf and Cub. Okay, you back? Pretty cool right? Well, Sonja gets her own cub in this week’s one-shot. Is it good?
Red Sonja and Cub (One-Shot) (Dynamite Entertainment)
Let’s cut to the chase: Red Sonja is a barbarian type who cuts through arms like it’s breathing. This issue opens with a mother and guard traveling through a blizzard only to be caught by some marauders who cut them down. You see, they’re trying to get a little girl to another province to wed a rival’s child and create peace throughout the land. Some folks don’t want this. Unfortunately for them, they attack with Red Sonja nearby. She takes it upon herself to cut down these bastards to save a little girl’s life and so begins her cub protecting story.
Notice how the blood spells out “die” in the bottom right.
It’s clear once you finish this book that writer Jim Zub framed this issue around fight sequences because there are a lot of them. There are three total with the threat of a fourth as she attempts to deliver the child no matter the odds. That means plenty of slashing, dicing and blood-soaked pages. These are well rendered. The child, eh, I could take it or leave it. She doesn’t seem very childlike, at least in the believability of the dialogue, and Sonja is her usual stiff self. The overall story isn’t the most surprising or interesting either. There’s a bit of teaching going on between Sonja and the child, but nothing too complicated.
The art by Jonathan Lau is quite good with some nice inking that reminds me of the classic Spawn comics. The action is always easy to follow and the choreography in the sequences is interesting and exciting. There are a few panels where Sonja seemed to have lost a leg, or what is actually being portrayed is lost, but overall it works well.
Never make a Red Sonja say “hmm.”
Is It Good?
Not a bad one-shot by any means with plenty of taut action to keep the action fans happy. The story isn’t breaking any new ground and I would have liked to have seen some homages to Lonewolf, but overall it’s a nice adventure.
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