CWR WEEKEND BLOG EXTRA

Welcome to the latest BLOG EXTRA! This week: seven new comics from Dynamite Entertainment.

Johh Layman writes, and Fabiano Neves draws, XENA #1-3. I probably come to a XENA comic in much different fashion than most; I saw a total of one episode of the television show. And as it turned out, the episode I saw was one that featured Xena being trapped in the body of her enemy Callisto, so I didn’t even get much of Lucy Lawless. That means the comic had to stand on its own for me, as I had no prior reference to build off of.

Fortunately, Layman’s script takes nothing for granted and gives the new reader an easy opening towards enjoying this series. The setup is simple; the Greek and Egyptian pantheons find themselves in dispute, and they decide to solve their conflict by picking a champion to represent them in battle. The Greeks, thanks to a lucky moment, wind up choosing Xena’s sidekick Gabrielle. Hilarity, and the entrance of the rest of the show’s cast, follows. The dialogue is crisp and witty, and when exposition is required, it never feels heavy. But the bigger delight is Neves; I’ve never seen his work before, but it’s a revelation. He’s a star in the making. And that makes XENA a lot of fun to read.

RED SONJA #12-15, written by Mike Oeming and drawn by Mel Rubi and Stephen Sadowski, brings arch-villain sorcerer Kulan Gath into the Dynamite version of Sonja’s universe. Gath originally appeared in the Marvel universe, battling Sonja, Conan, Spider-Man, and others, and it was well established that he is one of the worst of the worst… a complete evil. And changing universes hasn’t improved his disposition the tiniest bit.

First, though, he must gain a toehold in the real world, and he does so in one of the most gruesome sequences in recent comics memory (in issue #13). While he’s getting his act together, Sonja herself is meeting new allies and looking for ways to stop the encroaching evil. We learn more about how Sonja met the goddess she worships, and that she is not the only one who does. And the redheaded warrior also shows her more rounded side, not only displaying her mighty skills, but also genuinely caring for others and actually engaging in an intimate moment. This Sonja is human, longing for and remembering where she came from and who she was. And Oeming also rewrites the somewhat odious “a man has to beat her in battle in order to have sex with her” deal in a way that makes a bit more sense and makes Sonja into a little less of a character who deals with her world solely as a victim. This continues to be a surprising and solid series.

That’s it for this week! Be here through the week for site updates, and come back next weekend for an all-new CWR WEEKEND BLOG EXTRA!

/Mason