Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing Red Sonja 7, originally released February 19th, 2014.

Shelby: I’m going to be real with you guys for a second. We’ve all had days where nothing seems to go right, and, speaking as a lady of grace and refinement, sometimes all you want to do is eat, drink, and get laid. Sustenance, a little booze to take the edge off, and a warm body to keep you company those cold Chicago nights can really do wonders for a shitty mood. As Gail Simone and artist Walter Geovani kick off a new arc in Red Sonja, our favorite devil warrior finds herself working a job she hates just for the paycheck, and looking for some creature comforts to get her through to the weekend. I think that’s something we can all relate to.

Red Sonja’s got herself a new gig; the dying pharaoh Samala has hired her to find the world’s  six greatest artisans for his big going-away bash. While his gaudy and materialistic ways are not to Sonja’s liking, she can’t say no to his fee. If she succeeds, he’ll free his 1000+ slaves. If she fails, he buries them alive with him. That’s how a hungry, sober, and horny Sonja finds herself in the swamp looking for Gribaldi, the greatest chef in the world. She scuffles with the bog people holding the chef hostage, but when she tries to bargain for his release, they give her to the chef to prepare for the chief’s dinner. Actually, he just tells his cannibalistic captors he cooks up people. In reality, Gribaldi frees the prisoners they give him, and serves up some delicious baby reptiles in their place. It’s a good plan, until mama comes a callin’.

Sonja drives the lizard moms off handily, though she feels crappy doing it, and she and Gribaldi escape while the lizards enjoy a little feast of their own.

It’s more than a little surprising to me how much I personally can relate to this issue of Red Sonja. As far as story goes, it’s the first issue of an adventure quest arc: pretty straight forward. But really, what we have here is an example of Sonja’s daily grind. She doesn’t like her boss, she doesn’t find her work rewarding at all, but the pay is decent so she puts up with it. This issue highlights what I like so very much about Simone’s work; she can write women in such a realistic way. This might speak more about the kind of woman I am (and the kind of women I hang out with), but as soon as Sonja started musing about finding herself a limber partner, I was completely on board with the issue.

It’s refreshingly frank; so often, female sexuality is either depicted as something that exists for men’s behalf, or wholly non-existent. But Simone writes Sonja as a real woman who sometimes just wants to get some, and that makes her both believable and relatable. Impressive, for a chain-mail-bikini-clad-warrior-woman.

Single gal commiserating aside, Simone continues to develop Sonja as something more than a mindless warrior. She’s not getting paid to be this miserable, she’s working to free slaves (also to save their lives). She feels bad for fighting the lizard creatures because they are just trying to protect their young. She’s got no problem stabbing a dude in the eye with a rabbit on a skewer, but when it comes to fighting creatures who are just following their instincts she’s got some qualms. It’s an interesting hierarchy of morals; Gribaldi thought he was doing the right thing by telling the cannibalistic bog people they were eating the people he secretly freed, except for the fact that he was killing baby reptile monsters to do it. In his mind, he was living the perfect “have cake, and eat it to” scenario. He got to practice his art for a very appreciative audience while “rescuing” poor travelers. In reality, he was just endangering himself and everyone around him. Sonja comes in as an eye-rolling dose of reality who’s got no time for any of this. That’s ultimately what I like so much about this book; Simone’s Red Sonja is frank, to-the-point, and totally over your shit. She’s got the same qualities I look for in my friends, and I kind of want to have a beer with her. What did you think of this issue, Patrick? I didn’t even talk about Geovani’s art; were you as amused by how much Sonja appeared to hate everything around her as I was?

Patrick: Geovani’s definitely got a knack for conveying Sonja’s disinterest for like 90% of this issue. That whole sequence where she’s preparing the rabbit, her face goes beyond bored – it’s no wonder she falls asleep roasting the thing. Look at her eyes, she’s half-asleep already!

That’s a pretty stark contrast to what she looks like when she’s told Samala’s offer. Sonja’s not always a passionless drone, but the only thing that really seems to trip her pleasure center is stopping something horrible from happening (y’know, like the live-burial of 1000 slaves). I’m not sure if it qualifies as character work necessarily, but there is something fascinating about her focus on the more utilitarian aspects of being a bad ass barbarian. As a handy point of comparison, we could consider Thor — a viking and not a barbarian, but let’s not get hung up on technicalities — Thor actively enjoys mead and mutton and booty. Not Sonja: she can be upset about Gribaldi spoiling a barrel of ale, but only because she sees it as a provision, something she needs to dull the pain and keep going.

Hey, speaking of Gribaldi – I don’t know who that’s supposed to be a reference to. While reading through the issue, I had my suspicions that the bog-people S’Kot and K’lap were based on comedians Scott Auckerman and Kulap Vilaysak. They’re married in real life, and both have popular podcasts on earwolf.com. There are two more named bog-folk that have names suspiciously like comedians on the same network: P’scheer is a reference to Paul Scheer and I believe H’wie is a reference to Howard Kremer (who co-hosts Who Charted with Kulap). The script included in the back of the digital copy of this issue confirms some of these, but Simone does so with sort of a shrug and the following explanation to Geovani: “They have given their permission, they are all good friends, and when they promote this on their podcasts, it should give a little boost to circulation.” I guess if it’s good for the numbers, I’m happy they did it, but it’s a little disheartening to see just how calculated a move this is. But, on the other hand, I like seeing Paul, Kulap, Scott and Howard in a comic book.

Plus, look, now I’m all side tracked!

I really like this set-up, Shelby, even if it does seem a little on the conventional side of adventure storytelling. Sonja doesn’t just need to collect six things, she needs to collect six people, which puts her in the weird position of trading people for other people. It’s not that she’s selling her collected artisans into slavery — in fact, this issue makes it easy in that she’s rescuing one from slavery — but future decisions might not be so easy. If Gribaldi was living comfortably in a small village with his family, it might be harder to coax him away to a dying pharaoh’s farewell barbecue. Simone already looks to be pressing the skewed morality of this simple fetch quest – how many weird little reversals are there in this one issue? First Gribaldi’s a cannibal, so he’s bad, then he’s not, so he’s good; then he’s murdering reptile-men children, so he’s bad; but then the reptile men are killing everyone, so they’re bad; but they’re just killing cannibals, so who cares? It all sorta flows in the same direction, and Sonja’s freed from any of the complexity of it all by the simplicity of her task – get that dude back to Samala.

Which brings me back around to limberness. Is that what women are looking for these days? What, do I do lunges to improve that?

For a complete list of what we’re reading, head on over to our Pull List page.  Whenever possible, buy your comics from your local mom and pop comic bookstore.  If you want to rock digital copies, head on over to Comixology and download issues there.  There’s no need to pirate, right?