Red Sonja (Marvel Volume 1)

Red Sonja (Marvel Volume 1) is the first volume of Marvel Comics Red Sonja comic series. The first issue in the volume was originally published in January of 1977.

The volume includes issues 1-15.

Issues[]

Plots[]

Issue #1[]

"The Blood of the Unicorn" - In the forests of Argos, Sonja saves a precious unicorn from being slain by a furtive religious cult. Sonja quickly befriends the unicorn, but the duped Andar wishes for both woman and unicorn to suffer death.

Issue #2[]

"The Demon in the Maze!" - Sonja reaches the port of Venzia in Argos. After witnessing strange events, she is abducted and later finds herself in a mystifying maze. Sonja learns from an old wizard that the Hidden One and a demon are prisoners of the maze, and need Sonja's strength and the Heart of an Ancient Holy Creature in order to be freed and rule the world. While the wizard uses his powers to insure that the heart never arrives to the maze, Sonja proceeds to end the terror of the two prisoners.

Issue #3[]

Sonja ventures into the city of Athos, where she quickly learns the cruel nature of the inhabitants. After befriending Mikal, a local wanderer, Sonja decides to compete in the Games of Gita, where the citizens of Athos contest the mistreated Zotozian slaves.

Issue #4[]

Sonja and Mikal come to a lake just outside of Athos, where they witness reptile-like beasts emerge from the murky waters. The grotesque forms make their way to the Theatre of Monsters to entertain the morbid Athosians.

Issue #5[]

Sonja and Mikal venture to the Singing Tower in order to free a captured individual of Cyphax's race. Their mission is not untroubled, as they face dilemmas along the way.

Issue #6[]

Sonja treks toward the Singing Tower on a mission to rescue Mikal. However, she becomes captured herself and is unwillingly prepared to become the new queen of the bee-men.

Issue #7[]

After barely evading death, Sonja runs into a man named Oryx, son of Quillos. They journey into Skranos, where Sonja is able to rest from her travels. Oryx finds out that Sonja killed the king of Hyrkania and prepares an army of bowmen for her capture.

Issue #8[]

Red Sonja is hanging from a noose with Oryx demanding she be hanged as well as other onlookers, and she is “RECOGNIZED AS THE WANTED SLAYER OF AN OVERLY AMOROUS HYRKANIAN MONARCH, RED SONJA FINDS HERSELF UPON A HASTILY-CONSTRUCTED GALLOWS AS A SWEATING, BLOOD-THIRSTING CROWD GATHERS ROUND.” One of the onlookers Lepidor, gets one of Sonja’s heels in his mouth. Suumaro looking from above plans an escape and rescue for Red Sonja as he quite possibly desires her for his harem. As Suumaro’s dagger thrusts in the air, it releases a rain of bleach skulls thus the superstitious crowd quickly disperses. As they escape Red Sonja learns, that Oryx is actually a half brother of Suumaro , and Suumaro learns of Sonja’s swordsmanship. As Suumaro enters his camp, Tala, a free monkey as well as a leopard Raza freely greet him. The splendid tents of his itinerant dwelling with his ivory and ebony is displayed, and in the midst of it, an ornamental large throne that is surrounded by a large serpent. The serpent encircles Red Sonja, and eventually erupts in a non-consuming fire around her, and all the while Suumaro tells her to throw down the sword. As beads of sweat form on Sonja’s brow she declares ”TRUST YOU? EACH TIME SOMEONE HAS SPOKEN THOSE WORDS TO ME, IT WAS NOT LONG AFTERWARD THAT I FELT THE METAL SLICING AT MY FLESH.” She does drop her sword, and the serpent bites her arm; it is also revealed as the branch that saved her from her fall previously. The tour of his Barricks and harem continues, and Sonja meets his general Jimodo. Sonja is enraged at the chained women, and declares that she cares not for men who let their animals run free while chaining their women. She breaks the chains with her blade freeing the women. This leads to a contest between Jimodo and Sonja. As they insult and banter one another, they are eventually positioned on top of the rotting corpse of a mammoth. Jimodo states “WHEN JIMODO FINDS HIS BETTER, IT WILL NOT BE A VIXEN-TONGUED WENCH WHO SMELLS LIKE THE BACK- ALLEYWAYS OF SHAPIZAR”. Through cunning, Red Sonja leads him and his massive frame over the rotting corpse, and he falls through, with Red Sonja slaying him as she is engulfed in the carcass as well. She is promoted to replace Suumaro’s lost general and request that she have a bath, as she had never been in more need of one.

Issue #9[]

When drawing a sword on Suumaro for ignoring her scared vow of being disengaged from men, the sorceress Apah Alah confronts Sonja. Sent under the depths of the earth, Sonja is forced to compete against the giant Amparo in a chariot race around the flaming lake.

Issue #10[]

Red Sonja is back outside of Skranos and notices some flying gargoyles like creatures flapping down to attack her and Suumaro. He says they look like they’re hellish creations from Apah Alah his mother. It turns out that he was the product of the union of Apah Alah and a general, his father, Quillos. Red Sonja is about to slay the last gargoyle like creature, when she is stopped by a man claiming to have had a friend stolen by these creatures in the castle like building that they’re standing outside of. He entreats them to help him retrieve his friend. There they find a Sagittarius/Centaur like creature Blowing what appeared to be glass eggs out of a pipe. This man who enlisted the help suddenly attacks the Centaur. The dying creature applies blood to the eyes of Red Sonja, and she loses her eyesight. Suumaro now leads the blind, but with heightened senses, Red Sonja out of the castle, when they are picked up by a rather large prehistoric, looking Peacock. The large animal takes them through the roof of the castle.

Issue #11[]

The large peacock, like creature, apparently arose from one of the small eggs, and carried away, Red Sonja and Suumaro to a place of safety. There was an archer who called herself, Narca, and using a crossbow shot down the giant flying peacock like creature that just saved Sonja. Again, the gargoyle creature now takes Sonja and Suumaro to meet the man Marmo who was responsible for bringing them into the tree castle. He brings her to Narca, that then has one of her ape like minions blow a bubble, that encases Red Sonja. The bubble drops into the puddle of blood where they were putting the carcasses of the slain giant peacocks. Suumaro keeps trying to rescue and save Red Sonja despite his own safety. In the end. Red Sonja is spared by an unknown source and Narca kills another giant peacock, like animal, and the blood drips down onto the eyes of Red Sonja healing her of her blindness. With her eyes now open, she and Suumaro attack Narca and Red Sonja slays Narca. The secret one and perhaps the one who allowed Red Sonja to live now appears enlisting their help to find an emblem that will set them free from the sorcery from Suumaro’s mother Apah Alah and also make them rich.

Issue #12[]

Continuing on, Suumaro and Red Sonja are face-to-face with a demon dragon that is requesting them to find an emblem to allow them to escape the power of Suumaro’s mother, Apah Alah. Suumaro uses some of his sorcery skills from his mother and a clock at the emblem to figure out the location of the emblem. As they set out on their journey, they don’t know exactly what it looks like. When they come to the castle where it resides, there are no guards. There are five objects, but both Suumaro and Red Sonja know if they pick up the wrong one they will be reduced to ashes. None of Suumaro sorcery skills tells him which object to take, but Red Sonja tells him take the chalice. He does and all the others vanish. Suumaro wonders if Red Sonja has some sorcery gift of her own. With the chalice, they are transported to the nether world, or hell, where his mother is. There are plants that tried to eat Red Sonja. The demon that sent them to the place appears looking for the emblem. In the fight with Red Sonja, she causes him to be slightly injured, so the plants consume the demon. In the end, as Suumaro discusses the chalice or emblem with his mother, Apah Alah, he transports himself to another place that Apah Alah cannot go, and ask Red Sonja to find him. It seems that Sonja is trapped, but she thinks about the little peacock eggs and the new birth, and remembered the word birth. When she thought of the word birth, she found herself in a place with a horse and a sword ready to resume her quest for Suumaro.

Issue #13[]

Red Sonja is keeping her pledge to her friend Suumaro, to bring him back from the netherworld, and to make him king of Scranos. Red Sonja is not certain what she will find there, but knows sorcery will be a foot, and as she comes into a city that is in decay, she makes her way into a harem and switches clothes with one of the dancers to walk about in the city. She meets an old foe oryx, but he does not recognize her, which is surprising because of her notable red hair. He tries to kill her and an albino woolly mammoth herdsman aids her by calling the wooly mammoth, Dom, to actually kill Oryx, who is the rightful heir to the throne, but not the legitimate heir as is Suumaro. She then goes with the albino and many woolly mammoths to the palace, where the dying father of Suumaro lies. She tells him of the death of his would be heir, to which he replies he was not his favorite, and was rather a strutting buffoon. The Crown is too strong for Red Sonja, and reduces her to a skeleton. Suumaro’s father makes a deal with the sorceress, Apah Alah, that he would, indeed give his love to her. She releases the curse, which allows Suumaro to come back from the netherworld, and she goes off with her husband, Quillos, the father of Suumaro. Apah Alah Still loves him and wants him even in his decrepit state. As his life ends, he seems to go with a smile. This leaves Suumaro, who is now king of Scranos with Sonja, but Red Sonja interrupts him with his proposal for her to be his queen, she even stated at some point she might consider marriage and children, but not now. And he understands the nature of Red Sonja and bids her farewell. He states “do what you must Red Sonja of Hyrkania wander strange byways and leave a trail of legend and glory that the chronicles will scribble of for a thousand centuries. But always remember that once in a distant land somewhere far behind you, a man loved you. Perhaps that memory will make some cold cloudless night just a little bit warmer, and, if it does, then it will all have been worth it, after all.”

Issue #14[]

Red Sonja now appears walking on a dirty coastal Street north of Aqua Bologna. She runs into a character that has a glow at night and offers her diamonds for a small duty of her. She quickly finds herself in a canoe, going down the river that transports her to a place of no return. There are creatures that come up from the stream, and it becomes clear that the man was a nobleman who has sold his soul to another world demon in exchange for another soul, which would be Red Sonja. Obviously, she does not go quickly, but is overpowered, and finds herself in a giant clam. The clam could make her one of the undead water dwellers. She uses the diamonds that she was given to slash and kill a giant transforming clam. As she breaks out. The rest of her diamonds are thrown in the face of her monstrous kidnappeders, and they began to fight over the diamonds. She recovers her sword and makes her way back into the unnamed city, where she finds Gonzalo, the man who had sold his soul in exchange for hers. She kills him swiftly with her sword and wonders: was that his first death since he died earlier that day or was it his second chance just now.

Issue #15[]

Red Sonja encounters a strange shrouded mummy while riding through the winter snows in the south of Aquilonia. She sees three strange kings on horseback, riding away from the mummy, each one representing each of the three races of men as categorised by the Nemedian scholars. In a tavern in a nearby town she gets into a fight with a group of gambling roughnecks who get the best of her, take her winnings and her sword, and throw her into the snow outside. She is knocked unconscious, a simple blow to the head with a little tussle! After sleeping off her injuries in another inn she returns to the scene of the fight the following day and takes revenge on her assailants. Here she encounters another enemy wearing a poppy mask that makes her drowsy. She falls unconscious and the man (Lord Sharlo) spirits her away to a castle where he lays her body in a glasshouse filled with weird plants. Here she meets Lord Flurdelie who has been transformed by the three dead kings into a half plant-half man beast who hungers for human flesh. The man in the poppy mask, Lord Sharlo is revealed to be the son of Flurdelie, and rescues Red Sonja from his father only to place her before the tombs of the three dead kings. They burst from their tombs and it is revealed that they are vampires. Red Sonja slays Lord Sharlo and tosses his body to the vampire-kings but they have no interest in it for they drink only the blood of women. She flees on horseback through the snow but she is followed by the three dead kings on their own stallions. She returns to the castle of Flurdelie who refuses to help her destroy the vampire kings and attacks her, hungry for her blood. Red Sonja sets Flurderlie on fire and as he burns the three dead kings arrive. However they disintegrate before her. Having been tied mystically to the mortals Lord Flurderlie and his son Lord Sharlo, they cannot now survive. Red Sonja is left alone, the only living being in the castle of the dead.

Locations[]

Trivia[]

Issues 1-7 are collected in the Adventures of Red Sonja, Vol. 2 trade paperback.
Issues 8-15 are collected in the Adventures of Red Sonja, Vol. 3 trade paperback.
Issue 12 The story of the chalice and a birth reminds one of the Holy Grail and new life in Christ. The story is millennia before that time.

References[]

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