Red Sonja

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For other uses, see Red Sonja.

Red Sonja is a fictional comic book heroine from Marvel Comics.

Biography[]

Red Sonja lived with her family in a humble home in the Western Hyrkanian steppes. When she had just turned 17 years old, a group of cruel mercenaries killed her father Ivor, her mother and two younger brothers and burned their house and all their possessions. She survived but at the cost of her own virginity after she was brutally raped by the leader of the group, leaving her in shame. After all this, the goddess Scathach then appeared to her, and instilled in her incredible skill in handling swords and other weapons on the condition that she would not allow herself to be loved by another man unless he defeated her in fair combat.

Physical appearance[]

Red Sonja has long wavy red hair and wears an iron, armored bikini.

Powers and abilities[]

A sword-master in peak human physical condition, martial arts expert, as well as knowledge and experience of fighting the supernatural.

Concept and creation[]

The character is loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino, a sword- and pistol-wielding heroine of the late Renaissance, in Robert E. Howard's 1934 short story "The Shadow of the Vulture", which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for the Marvel Comics run of the same name. Thomas also drew inspiration on another Howard character, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, a sword woman in 16th-century France.

Red Sonja deviates somewhat from Howard's original Red Sonya. Besides the alternate spelling of her name, Thomas transformed her backstory from a Renaissance figure to a primitive sword figure to align with Conan's prehistoric Hyborian Age.

Titles[]

Red Sonja first appeared in issues 23 and 24 of the Conan the Barbarian series in 1973. She then appeared in all seven issues of the second volume of Marvel Feature in 1975 before getting her own self-titled series Red Sonja which ran from 1977-1979.

Red Sonja met Spider-Man in issue 79 of Marvel Team-Up in 1979, a story that was later retold in the 2007 Marvel/Dynamite co-publication Spider-Man/Red Sonja.

Red Sonja starred in a brief two-issue self-titled series in 1983, and in another self-titled series that ran from 1983-1986. She continued to appear occasionally in Conan, with her final appearance there in #250 in 1991.

Read more about all of Red Sonja's Marvel Comics adventures on the Marvel Comics Appearances article.