Red Sonja: The Superpowers

Dynamite has, for quite a while now, been pulling off crossover comic book miniseries with their licensed characters -- most recently in the very entertaining zombie epic, Die!Namite. But with Red Sonja: The Superpowers (in conjunction with Vampirella: Dark Powers), it appears that Dynamite is building up something larger, and much more audacious: they're creating a cohesive multiverse, with Red Sonja a part of it.

The story opens as your typical sword-and-sorcery tale: Red Sonja has been approached and hired to remove an evil wizard who has been subjugating people who don't have the means to fight back. Sonja vows to do the deed, and battles the wizard's henchmen who have been sent to stop her. As she rages her victory cry to the sky, declaring that she is coming for him... things get weird. A strange lightning streaks across the night sky, and Sonja realizes that perhaps this wizard isn't your usual charlatan with tricks.

But the lightning was something different entirely. It was the visual effect of dimensional teleportation, heralding the arrival of four members of Project: Superpowers -- Vana, Captain Future, Mr. Raven, and The Sword. Each of them comes from a different Earth -- a different "plural world" to use Dynamite's unique vernacular -- but all belong to The Project. They've come to Sonja's Earth -- Plural World 2709 -- because they have detected the signature of a metahuman, making the world eligible for a first contact despite it's "pre-industrial" stage.

Sonja sees their arrival and believes them to be demons summoned by the wizard. Even when the heroes engage their omniversal translators so she can speak and understand, she fights -- to the dismay and painful humiliation of the heroes!

This first issue closes on a jaw-dropping cliffhanger that will definitely have you wanting to come back and see resolved. Dan Abnett weaves and exciting and intriguing tale, exquisitely rendered by Jonathan Lau and Andrew Dalhouse. The dialogue is unique to each player, making them interesting and distinct from each other rather than interchangeable generic heroes. And despite my misgivings as to the "down the road" impact of having Red Sonja be part of a pluralverse with superheroes interacting now and then -- those of you who've seen Conan join The Avengers know what I'm talking about -- I heartily encourage you to pick up this issue and jump on the ride. This one's worth it.