You think you have problems? Red Sonja has to traverse Hyboria to find and rescue a young girl from the clutches of a horde of ravenous snake-beasts! On top of that, dead Martian soldiers have reanimated and now roam the countryside, hungering for the living. Martian zombies? This might call for a bigger sword!
Red Sonja Attacks Mars #1, written by Jay Stephens with art by Fran Strukan and colors by Miroslav Mrva, follows up on the Mars Attacks Red Sonja miniseries from 2020. If you haven’t read that miniseries, don’t worry – this issue starts with a brief summary of what happened in it.
Fran Strukan’s art is very reminiscent of the grisly Mars Attacks! trading card art from decades ago. Though not quite as lavishly detailed as that classic art, it retains the property’s gore and utter bizarreness, at times looking like something out of a crazed fever dream.
After a brief interlude at the beginning of the book with Martian scientists pontificating on their previous invasion of Earth (as one of them obsessively looks at Earth through a funky telescope), the rest of the issue is pure swashbuckling action, as the story switches to Earth and Red Sonja (along with her bumbling sorcerer companion Kanawt the Metamorlock) battle a horde of gargantuan snake creatures ransacking Kanawt’s village. The action never lets up from there, eventually taking Sonja and Kanawt from the village through a storm-ridden desert and finally to an ancient underground temple where they face a horde of Martian zombies.
This was a great twist on the typical “Mars attacks Earth” stories. I was expecting to see another fleet of Martians come to Earth in an attempt to conquer it again but instead we get a zombie story and I’m all for it. As Red Sonja says at this issue’s climax: “Mars Attacks! From beyond the grave!”.
Dynamite
They’re not pushovers, though. These zombies pack ray guns and can still talk, attack and react with a modicum of intelligence, making them more of a threat than the usual slow, shambling, brain-dead undead from something like The Walking Dead. Yep, get ready for some sweet, sweet zombie action in this issue and beyond.
Kanawt is a solid sidekick for Sonja, a man who can transmute objects from one thing to another, which is normally a pretty powerful ability to have but he’s limited in what he can change (only small objects). Still, he has great reflexes and it’s always good to have another person covering Sonja’s back. He reminds me of Joxer from the old Xena, Warrior Princess show, though thankfully he’s not as goofy as that character. The duo make a great team and I hope Kanawt survives the miniseries. Sonja, like Dirty Harry, loses a lot of partners.
Writer Jay Stephens deftly juggles sci-fi, high fantasy and horror elements throughout the issue. It’s always fun seeing Sonja dropped into a science fiction or horror setting, using her expert sword prowess here against the Martian’s futuristic armor and energy weapons.
I look forward to next issue as Sonja and Kanawt head north to continue their battle against the Martians and hopefully Sonja gets the chance to disintegrate a few of them with one of those handy dandy blaster rifles too.
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