This scene is not in the comic. That barbarian guy's not in the comic. And don't expect an erupting volcano, either.
Red Sonja: Scavenger Hunt is a 1995 one-shot comic book from Marvel Comics, starring Red Sonja. It's written by Glenn Herdling with art by Ken Lashley, Harry Candelario and Glass House Graphics. Color art is by Chia Chi Wang.
The story deals with Sonja on a scavenger hunt for the pieces of a set of mystical armor that contains the soul of a Analee, a tribeswoman who was a prince's lover before she was killed. The prince has promised a reward for anyone who returns the armor and weapons to him. Sonja teams up with a Pict dwarf named Freyda and they find themselves both competing with and helping others who are after their coveted prize.
Despite previous comics establishing that Marvel's version of Sonja is part of the shared Marvel Universe, Scavenger Hunt itself has no direct connections to that wider setting.
Scavenger Hunt was the last Red Sonja story published by Marvel before the company lost the rights to the character.
Red Sonja: Scavenger Hunt contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer:
- The story opens just after Sonja has spurned the advances of a tavern thug named Borlech the Surly. Borlech refuses to take no for an answer and gets lethally impaled for it.
- As soon as she's resurrected, it becomes clear that Analee has always seen the prince as an unwanted obsessive admirer. He restores her to life via necromancy and talks of their love — and she promptly kills him.
- Amazon Brigade: All of the warriors seeking the enchanted armor seem to be women. Sonja and Freyda form a reluctant alliance with Khita, Bumala and Sieglinde to retrieve the armor and split the reward. They rapidly become a Dwindling Party, though.
- Ambiguously Gay: The resurrected Analee makes it murderously clear that she was never in love with the prince, saying there was a reason why their "love" was never consummated. A couple of pages later she asks how Sonja's Best Her to Bed Her vow applies to female opponents, in a way that has We Can Rule Together overtones.
- Armor of Invincibility: Averted. The enchanted armor itself appears to be indestructible unless pierced with one of the enchanted blades, but the person wearing it isn't safe from death. Analee was killed by bandits who simply ripped the armor off her and Khita is killed by a dinosaur while wearing the helmet.
- Batman Cold Open: The story begins with a tavern brawl, as Borlech the Surly picks a fight when Sonja rejects his advances. Within four pages he's Impaled with Extreme Prejudice, Freyda's robbed his corpse and the plot has moved on to other things.
- Big Bad Wannabe: The prince is a Treacherous Quest Giver with no intention of paying the woman who returns Analee's armor to him. Instead, he plans to use his necromancy to raise Analee's soul in their body, then rule alongside his resurrected love. The first part of that plan works, but the newly resurrected Analee immediately kills him and confronts Sonja alone.
- Bittersweet Ending: Sonja kills the resurrected villain Analee, the treacherous Sieglinde gets a Fate Worse than Death and the Treacherous Quest Giver prince is dead. But Sonja's also the sole survivor, and the rich reward promised for the armor was a lie — her friend Freyda and their allies Khita and Bumala all died for nothing.
- Caught Monologuing: After robbing Borlech's corpse, Freyda's chased through the streets by angry women from the tavern. Once she reaches her pony and starts to ride away, she's so focused on taunting her pursuers that she rides face-first into the flat of Sonja's sword.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover shows a muscular male barbarian smashing Sonja's sword into pieces, with an erupting volcano in the background. The only male opponent Sonja fights in the story is Borlech, a tavern thug she easily kills in the opening scene. Sonja's sword is never broken. And there isn't even a volcano...
- Cruel Mercy: After killing Analee, Sonja discovers that Sieglinde's soul now resides in the mummified remains of Analee's original body. Sieglinde begs Sonja to kill her, but Sonja refuses, deciding that death is too merciful a fate for her.
- Dies Wide Open:
- After Borlech gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice his corpse ends up face to the floor, wearing a surprised look, eyes wide open.
- Bumala falls from the rope bridge after being bitten by venomous snakes, and it's implied that she was dead before she hit the ground. Her body is seen on its back, eyes wide open and staring at the sky.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The titular scavenger hunt is seeking the different pieces of Analee's enchanted armor. The whole set must be reassembled to claim the prince's reward.
- Eaten Alive: Khita is eaten by the T-Rex while still wearing the helmet. After the T-Rex is killed, Sieglinde cuts open the animal's stomach to get the helmet.
- Eat the Summoner: The prince's necromancy successfully uses the power of the armour to resurrect Analee in Sieglinde's body. Her first act is to scorn his love and kill him.
- Enemy Rising Behind: When the band approach the cave containing the enchanted shield, Khita charges forward and kills a rabbit, mistakenly assuming that it's some sort of shapeshifting guardian. As she turns to face her comrades and proudly holds the corpse aloft, the huge tawny eyes of the real guardian are seen in the cave, behind and above her. She doesn't survive her mistake.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Khita assumes the enchanted helmet will let her command an attacking golem. When that fails, she doesn't even try to dodge the golem's attack, assuming the helm has made her invulnerable — which is not entirely true She's immediately established as liable to make wrong assumptions, and probably Too Dumb to Live. In a later scene, another implausibly wrong assumption gets her killed.
- Sieglinde abandons her allies and ignores their calls for aid, focusing on grabbing the enchanted shield they're seeking. It's not a huge surprise when she actively betrays them later.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The prince is only ever referred to as the prince. Not even the resurrected Analee uses his name.
- Eye Scream: Bumala stabs the T-rex in its eye. Sonja uses Sieglinde's mallet to drive the spear further into the dinosaur's head, finishing it off.
- Fate Worse than Death: As a result of the prince's necromancy facilitating Analee's Grand Theft Me, the treacherous Sieglinde finds herself bound into Analee's dead, mummified body. At the end of the story she pleads for Sonja to kill her, without success.
- Heist Clash: Sonja gets involved in the plot when she pursues Freyda who has just robbed the corpse of a man Sonja has killed. Freyda tells her that objects she stole are enchanted swords, which along with a suit of armor, contain the soul of Analee, a tribeswoman who was the lover of a prince. As Sonja and Freyda travel to find the remaining pieces, they come across three other women, Khita, Bumala and Seiglinde, who are after the armor for themselves.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Borlech, the thug Sonja fights in the Cold Open, gets her sword driven into his chest. It goes right through his torso, with the point protruding from his back and stretching his vest.
- The Lost Lenore: The prince was deeply in love with Analee, who was "violated and killed" by highwaymen despite the enchanted armor he'd gifted her. The reward he offers, and all of his other actions, are driven by his grief and loss.
- Mistaken for Transformed: Khita, who's already been established as Too Dumb to Live, proudly skewers a rabbit, thinking it's some sort of shapeshifting creature that's guarding the cave Sonja's allies are approaching. It's just a rabbit. Which leads to an Enemy Rising Behind moment while she's holding it aloft and boasting of her kill, as a Terrifying Tyrannosaurus appears from the cave behind her...
- Painting the Medium: Part of the final battle between Sonja and Analee (in Sieglinde's body) is rotated ninety degrees, and the reader is expected to turn the comic sideways to read it.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Analee's murder by highwaymen prompts the prince, who loved her, to announce a reward for the retrieval of her enchanted armor. That brings Sonja into contact with Freyda and sets them on a quest to retrieve it and claim the reward.
- Soul Jar: The enchanted weapons and armor preserve the soul of a tribeswoman named Analee. They were given to Analee by a prince who was in love with her and the preservation of her soul would last up until they settled down and consummated their love. Upon being restored to life, Analee kills the prince, telling him that she never loved him.
- Tough Spikes and Studs: Sonja's outfit includes a single spiked shoulder guard.
- Stripperiffic: Besides Sonja (who's outfit is only slightly more modest than her usual attire), Khita, Bumula and Sieglinde's clothing leave very little to the imagination. Then there are the prostitutes at the pub Sonja is first seen in, though their outfits are somewhat justified. Freyda comes across as the Token Wholesome of the story since her outfit covers all of her body, save for her legs.
- Treacherous Quest Giver: The prince has no intention of rewarding Sieglinde for returning the enchanted armor. Instead, he persuades her to put it on, then uses his necromancy to resurrect Analee in Sieglinde's body, leaving her own mind in Analee's mummified corpse.
- Weapons Breaking Weapons: The front cover shows a burly male barbarian with a two-handed sword, pictured as his blow shatters Sonja's sword into three pieces. This is a case of Covers Always Lie, as no such thing happens in the comic.
