Red Sonja Volume 1: Queen of the Plagues by Gail Simone

Red Sonja Volume 1: Queen of the Plagues

by Gail Simone

Dynamite Entertainment, 2014

ISBN-13: 9781606904817

160 pp

When I last reviewed a graphic novel I panned Jodi Picoult's Wonder Woman in Love and Murder (witness the disappointment grow here) and it took a while to get that sour taste out of my mouth. I began looking for my next foray into comics written by women which is an incredibly small population (however, Gail Simone's name floats to the top like the proverbial cream). She is a heavy-hitter in DC Comics and manages to have her fingers the pies of almost all the major Justice League characters: Wonder Woman, Batman, Batgirl, Birds of Prey, the list goes on. Last year, she was given the opportunity to put her own spin on Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword. According to Simone’s introduction, Red Sonja became one of her favorite comic characters as a child—a barbarian, deep in the swords-and-sorcery genre, who doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her, and was a brutal and beautiful counterpoint to Conan the Barbarian.

There are a few problems inherent in looking at how female comic characters are presented to the audience, the first of which is, of course, the almost complete nudity and the highly sexualized drawing style. The second is the fact that the characters are frequently written by men and take on the quality of a romantic partner: Barbara Gordon is Dick Grayson’s love interest, Black Canary is Green Arrow’s love interest, Catwoman is Batman’s, (and so the Marvel crowd doesn’t feel neglected) Wasp is Antman’s love interest, Sif is Thor’s, Black Widow has slept with pretty much every character in the books (and now we’re pairing her with Hulk? Do you have a plan for this Marvel?). The list of pairings goes on and on—even when we see the female characters faction off (Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy come to mind), there is always a “three’s company” mentality with the perpetual omnipresence of the Joker. Bechdel Test-wise (assuming we adapt it for reading) even the Harley and Ivy combo frequently fails because they continue to talk about men: male superheroes, male love interests, etc.

However, as the Jodi Picoult review suggests, I’m not sure how women can be supportive to one another if they write comics (or stories) that perpetuate a “cat fight in the mud” mentality. It’s counterintuitive to set women up to fight as they continue to orbit around male characters. It actually forbids the female characters from growing stronger without the male influence.

Which brings me to the She-Devil. I have to applaud Gail Simone for finding a way to navigate these tricky waters and succeeding in creating a positive female environment within the fairly sexist constraints of the comic motif.

At first glance, Red Sonja: Queen of the Plagues falls into the same traps as Wonder Woman Love and Murder—the primary antagonist is another woman (we think) and she and Sonja are repeatedly set up in half-naked gladiatorial battles. However, this is a clever smoke screen: there is a lesbian undertone that Simone shows great restraint in using. She merely implies a deep, romantic love between Sonja and her once-friend-turned-opponent but never makes them a girl-on-girl feast for readers. Also, while Picoult actually had Amazons to use in her book, I found myself lacking the sense of female community in Love and Murder. Simone manages to create her own Amazon in this classically swords-and-sorcery setting via a plague that systemically destroys male soldiers in order to weaken the society. The big-reveal of the villain at the end was a huge relief to me—the presence explained why Sonja’s female “enemy” seemed so clunky and heavy-handed. Simone also encourages gradation in her female characters: not all are warriors, but neither are the non-warriors weak or cowardly. I especially liked the twins and how they rose to Romulus and Remus stature (minus the fratricide).

This is how you do it. This is how you show women comic writers using female characters without falling into stereotypes or appeasing a male audience. I was incredibly happy to see Simone’s take on Red Sonja and I will be pursuing her further down the rabbit hole of women comic writers—so I hope she continues to exceed expectations.

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Gail Simone is a comic writer best known for Deadpool, Birds of Prey and Batgirl. She is a lifelong comic reader and states that Red Sonja is one of her all-time favorite books. Simone came to attention through the website Women in Refrigerators which popped up in response to a gruesome issue of Green Lantern and dedicated itself to identifying female characters who had been killed, raped, or traumatized as plot devices for male heroes. Follow her on Twitter @GailSimone