The Further Adventures of Red Sonja
The Further Adventures of Red Sonja may be the only omnibus collection whose existence was necessitated by American copyright 
law. While originally created for Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian series as a pastiche of two of Robert E. Howard’s historic heroines—Red Sonya of Rogatino and Dark Agnes de Chastillon—Red Sonja has been run through her own LLC for several decades.
The practical upshot of this is that when Dark Horse Comics began printing omnibus editions of the classic Savage Sword of Conan magazines in 2008, they did not collect those stories starring Red Sonja. Stories where Sonja was a supporting character in Conan the Barbarian were apparently fair game, as she appears with regularity in the Conan the Barbarian reprints. So it was that, for a decade, the only way to enjoy those solo Sonja stories was to track down the original magazines.
Hither came The Further Adventures of Red Sonja, which collects all the Red Sonja tales originally presented in both Savage Sword of Conan magazine and the short-lived Kull and the Barbarians magazine. This would be good news for fans of sword-and-sorcery in general and the She-Devil with a Sword in particular if not for one issue; this is one of the most slap-dash reprints I have ever seen!
The chief problem is that Dynamite Entertainment elected to colorize every story in this collection. Presumably they feared modern comic readers would not want to read a Red Sonja story rendered in monochrome. While some of the colorized comics are not bad, the ones handled by Mike Kelleher are simply awful.
I have seen colorists whose work obscured the original pencils before. Kelleher is the first colorist who I have seen paint over the original inks! Beyond that, he clearly didn’t bother reading the stories he was working on. The text refers to Sonja’s horse as a black steed, and Kelleher renders it in brown. The narration refers to Sonja’s blue eyes closing, and Kelleher gives her green eyes.
It would seem the editors were similarly rushed in their work. Beyond nobody noticing Kelleher’s mistakes, there are two instances of pages being printed out of order in this book. Two of the stories in this volume; “The Road to Zamboula” and “Swordless Zamboula”—have their last pages placed immediately after their opening pages. That is a minor mistake, however, compared to this volume cutting the final page of “The Day of the Sword”.
“The Day of the Sword” is notable historically as the first telling of Red Sonja’s classic origin. It involves Sonja saving a man from being tortured by bandits, only to recognize the victim as the commander of the soldiers who killed her family and raped her. The final page of the original tale ends with Sonja abandoning the man to the wolves of the forest after realizing he’s lost his mind. There is no clear reason for this cut, apart from an apparent desire to make Red Sonja seem more heroic. It can’t be for the sake of content, as the flashback to Sonja’s assault is included in full and depicted again in a different story in this collection.
With all that being noted, I should say the Further Adventures of Red Sonja is not entirely without merit. Of note is “The Wizard and Red Sonja Show”, which writer/artist Frank Thorne adapted from his own stage show. Not even Kelleher’s bumbling can ruin this burlesque tale, in which a bumbling wizard summons multiple Red Sonjas and must determine which is the real one. The closing tale, a four-part adaptation of the first Red Sonja novel, The Ring of Ikribu, is also enjoyable. Despite this, I cannot recommend this volume to anyone but the most die-hard of Red Sonja completists.
The Further Adventures of Red Sonja is rated T+ for readers 16 and up. I would push that up to an Adults Only, should any librarian feel compelled to add this to their collection despite my warnings. While the bloodshed is on par with most OT manga, with severed limbs a common sight, it is the sexual content that is more problematic. There is a bare breast in one of the two comics depicting Sonja’s sexual assault and one provocative scene of her taking a bath. Beyond that, most of the stories open with a group of bandits threatening further sexual assault before Sonja teaches them a lesson. Empowering as this might be, it may also be triggering for some, though one of the stories does explore the idea of Sonja suffering from PTSD and the goddess who blessed her after her family died being a hallucination brought on by grief.
The Further Adventures of Red Sonja  Vol. 1
By Roy Thomas, Frank Thorne, Christy Marx, and Bruce Jones
Art by Howard Chaykin, John Buscema, Tony Dezuniga, and Esteban Maroto
Dynamite, 2018
ISBN: 9781524107994
Company Age Rating:Â 16+
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+)
Character Representation:Â Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
