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"Know also, O prince, that in the selfsame days that the CIMMERIAN did stalk the HYBORIAN KINGDOMS, one of the few swords worthy to cross his was that of RED SONJA, warrior-woman out of majestic HYRKANIA. Forced to flee her homeland because she spurned the advances of a king and slew him instead, she rode west across the TURANIAN steppes and into the shadowed mists of legendry."
The Nemedian Chronicles

Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, is a low fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith. She first appeared in Conan the Barbarian #23 (Marvel Comics, February 1973). The character was loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's short story The Shadow of the Vulture (The Magic Carpet, January 1934), which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for the Marvel comic. Hence "Sonja" is supposed to be pronounced "Sonya", not with a J sound.

The character now appears monthly in her own series, as well as a series of mini-series and one-shots, all published by Dynamite Comics. The first main Red Sonja series features a wide array of cover artists as well as the regular creative team of writer Michael Avon Oeming and artist Mel Rubi. Subsequent volumes were written by Gail Simone, Amy Chu, Marguerite Bennett and Mark Russell.

Red Sonja has become the archetypical example of the fantasy figure of a fierce and stunningly beautiful female barbarian in the utterly impractical Chainmail Bikini (though in her case it's technically scale armor).

Red Sonja lived with her family in a humble house in the Western Hyrkanian steppes (modern Ukraine/Russia). When she had just turned 17 years old, a group of mercenaries killed her family and burned down their house. Sonja survived but she had been brutally raped by the leader of the group, leaving her in shame. Answering her cry for revenge, the red goddess Scathach appeared to her, and instilled in her incredible skill in the handling of swords and other weapons on the condition that she would never lie with a man unless he defeated her in fair combat. (The "fair" part is sometimes not included.)

    Comic Book Reading List 
  • Red Sonja: Scavenger Hunt
  • The Adventures of Red Sonja vol. 1-3
  • The Further Adventures of Red Sonja
  • Red Sonja: The Ballad of the Red Goddess
  • Savage Red Sonja: Queen of the Frozen Wastes
  • Queen Sonja vol. 1-6
  • Red Sonja Travel vol. 1-2
  • Red Sonja Omnibus vol. 1-5
  • Red Sonja: Atlantis Rise
  • Gail Simone's Red Sonja Omnibus
    • Queen of Plagues
    • The Art of Blood and Fire
    • The Forging of Monsters
  • Conan/Red Sonja
  • Legends of Red Sonja
  • Red Sonja: Blue
  • Red Sonja Unchained
  • Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle
  • Red Sonja: The Falcon Throne
  • Red Sonja: World's Away 1-5
  • The Invincible Red Sonja
  • Hell Sonja
  • Unbreakable Red Sonja
  • Red Sonja/Hell Sonja

    Crossovers 
  • Red Sonja / Claw: The Devil's Hands (2006)
  • Spider-Man / Red Sonja (2008)
  • Witchblade / Red Sonja (2012)
  • Prophecy (2012) - First crossover starring Red Sonja and Vampirella
  • Red Sonja / Tarzan (2018)
  • Red Sonja / Vampirella (2019)
  • Red Sonja and Vampirella Meet Betty and Veronica (2019)
  • Red Sonja: The Superpowers (2021)
  • Vampirella versus Red Sonja (2022)
    Novel Reading List 
Sonja has been featured in several novels by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney with covers by Boris Vallejo:

  1. The Ring of Ikribu (Ace 1981) (Adapted to comics by Roy Thomas and Esteban Maroto in The Savage Sword of Conan issues 230-3)
  2. Demon Night (Ace 1982)
  3. When Hell Laughs (Ace 1982)
  4. Endithor's Daughter (Ace 1982)
  5. Against the Prince of Hell (Ace 1983)
  6. Star of Doom (Ace 1983)

    Spin-offs 
  • Red Sonja: Red Sitha (2022)
  • Samurai Sonja (2022)

On television, Red Sonja makes an appearance on Conan the Adventurer, in the episode, "Red Sonja". She is on a mission to rescue a young wizard who was kidnapped. When one of Conan's partners sarcastically asks why the village didn't send their best warriors, Sonja replies, "They did send their best warrior, mulebrain!" She was played by Angelica Bridges.

She was played by Brigitte Nielsen in the 1985 film Red Sonja. A reboot film project has been in Development Hell for quite some time until it was reported in October 2022 that a new film adaptation was being produced at Millennium Media, with Matilda Lutz playing the heroine and M.J. Bassett as director.

An animated movie, Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues, was released October 3rd, 2016.


Tropes:

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     Comics 
  • Ancient Egypt: Represented by Stygia: pyramid as mausoleum, slave labor, stereotypical dress, and a Nepharious Pharaoh.
  • Alliance of Alternates:
    • In Hell Sonja, we have an alliance of several Sonjas fighting against a demonic version of themselves.
    • In Unbreakable Red Sonja, Sonja begins a new journey whose new partner is a child version of herself.
    • In Red Sonja/Hell Sonja, Sonja forms an alliance with the demonic version of herself to fight a common enemy.
  • And the Adventure Continues: Most individual arcs as well as the end of Simone's run ended on this note, with Sonja riding off into the sunset to find more battles to fight.
  • Bar Brawl: A common trope in Red Sonja stories, usually at the start of a story and leading to Sonja getting into trouble. There were a couple of instances in Frank Thorne's run at Marvel and a great one early in the Dynamite reboot, with a fantastic cover by Adam Hughes. There have been instances of Sonja starting brawls because she's been out of sorts but usually trouble will occur when another character hits on her or when they are bullying another character. In such instances, Sonja usually comes out on top, relying on any available weapons. She's cut off the wandering hands of would-be admirers with her sword, she's smashed guys with tankards and she's flattened groups of men with her bare hands.
  • Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Has happened to her more than once, when some Evil Overlord decides to make her part of his harem. See the Sonja Goes East one-shot for one such example. Birth of the She-Devil also opens with a Sultan making this fatal mistake. Probably in homage to her first solo comic appearance.
  • Black Magic: Occasionally used by villains. To be fair, it's probably their only hope against the She-Devil with a Sword.
  • The Caligula: When she wasn't killing evil sorcerers, Red Sonja was often killing mad kings, many of whom attempted to imprison her in their harem.
  • Celibate Hero: Until the Gail Simone's run retconned it, Sonja was defined by her celibacy vow unless if a man defeated her in fair combat. The nature of her vows and whether or not she would lose her skills should she ever had sex depends on who is writing it. She does show attraction to certain men from time to time, but these never develop into true relationships, though according to her past narrated in Queen Sonja, she did have a boyfriend during her teenage years after her rape without losing her abilities. Its implied that in addition to her vows to the goddess, she also refuses to love any men because she still grieves her beloved's death and wants to Never Be Hurt Again.
  • Cool Old Lady: Gerd, the blacksmith and retired adventurer who gives Sonja her very first Chainmail Bikini in a story by Rhianna Pratchett in Legends of Red Sonja. She cut an impressive figure herself before she settled down.
  • Crossover: Red Sonja has crossed over with a number of others from Claw the Unconquered (a Barbarian Hero from a different publisher) to Spider-Man and Wolverine. She was also a major figure in the Dynamite Swords of Sorrow event, which included Dejah Thoris, Vampirella, and Snow White among others.
  • Evil Overlord: Many of Sonja's enemies are warlords or dictators bent on military domination, such as the king of Zamora.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Kulan Gath, the brothers Kalas-ra and Katharas-ra, and many others.
  • Fanservice: Not just our female protagonist provides this. Named male characters are often depicted shirtless with excellent muscle definition such as Lord Ariok.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: She is thrown into modern times with frequent regularity such as her crossover with Spider-Man, the Dynamite crossover Prophecy, and the 2017 run where she was magically displaced in time and is trying to adapt to modern times.
  • Full-Frontal Assault:
    • On a few occasions, Red Sonja has broken out of a harem and fought while clothed only with shadow.
    • In the third Smith/Tierney novel, When Hell Laughs, her Chainmail Bikini is torn off her in the middle of battle. She fights on, and makes no attempt to cover herself even when the danger is past. (For the remainder of the novel series she wears more practical armor, though the cover art keeps the bikini.)
    • It also happens in the first act of Red Sonja: Blue; during battle with a monster to save a young man from being a virgin sacrifice, her top is ripped away. This, naturally, just pisses her off, and after defeating the monster (berating the boy not to look all through the rest of the battle) skins it to wear its blue fur as a makeshift tunic.
    • A male example happens in Queen Sonja when Ariok is ambushed by a couple of nobles while taking a bath and he is forced to beat them all up while naked.
  • Go-Go Enslavement: A frequent trait of bad guys. The King of Zamora is shown having multiple slaves of both genders from kingdoms he's conquered, including at least one queen whose husband he murdered.
  • Human Shield:
    • Sonja uses Rudus' body to as a shield to close against archer Haron in the final issue of The Forgiving of Monsters.
    • Used tactically by Sonja whenever she's outnumbered. She'll maneuver around frontline fighters to keep a body between herself and arrows/bolts.
      Sonja: Basic combat. When surrounded, as the arrows start flying, it's not a matter of how you stand. It's where.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: Done to Sonja constantly, whether it's by mad kings and dark lords trying to add her to their harems or turn her into a Hot Consort, or by barbarian brutes looking forward to defeat her in combat to take her as their prize. Not even female villains (like the Queen of the Frozen Wastes) are exempt from pulling this to. Of course, this is always a bad idea.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: Red Sonja has always been a boozer and this probably reached its zenith under Gail Simone, where she was a full-blown alcoholic who could barely function without booze.
  • Kangaroo Court: Sonja finds herself before one in the Red Sonja: Berserker one -shot after maiming two young hotheads who mistook her for a prostitute and then attacked. One of them was the son of the justicar who sat in judgement on her.
  • Low Fantasy: Usually, with some variation depending who's writing. Sonja isn't often motivated to take down a Big Bad or Ultimate Evil, nor does she often work alongside other adventurers. She's taking on quests to earn money to get drunk and fights whenever she feels like it.
  • Man-Eating Plant: Savage Tales #5.
  • Master Swordsman: Red Sonja is dangerous with a bow or improvised weapons, but she's most deadly with her sword.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: A villainous version of this appears in the 2nd issue of Red Sonja: The Black Tower. After maiming the thug Fengar Tolt in the previous issue, he becomes a mighty warlord and captures Sonja. Not only that, he also has one of her eyes cut out. None of these events are shown on-panel.
  • Oh, My Gods!: "By Ishtar and Mitra!"
  • Our Dragons Are Different: One dark wizard shows off by conjuring wyrms to devour his enemies.
  • Pirates: Just as with Conan the Barbarian, pirates feature prominently in the Red Sonja stories: both as enemies and allies.
  • Poison Is Evil: Zigzagged. Poison is evil if used indiscriminately, but acceptable if targeted and used by someone otherwise physically incapable of murdering them. For example: the poisoned daggers of Utro are treated as evil since they subject victims to excruciatingly painful death.
  • Poisoned Weapons: Utro the Needle uses daggers covered in dung to cause lethal infection from a scratch.
  • Psycho Lesbian: Not Sonja, but some of her foes fall into this category, such as the Queen of the Frozen Wastes.
  • Savage Piercings: Katharas-ra wears facial jewelry: two nails driven through his right eyebrow and eyelid and spacer earrings in his nostrils.
  • Straw Misogynist: Red Sonja is constantly getting mocked by men for the fact she's a swordswoman rather than a wife or concubine.
  • Sword and Sorcery: One of the genre-defining works.
  • Til Murder Do Us Part: Implied to be how Laranda-fa took the throne as Empress Dowager.
  • Torches and Pitchforks: Used defensively by the town when evil wizard Katharas-ra comes hunting injured Sonja.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Sonja's opponents all too often make the mistake of thinking they can outsmart or outfight, with many making this assumption because she is a woman. Time after time, Sonja proves them wrong, usually with fatal results for them.
  • Warrior vs. Sorcerer: Like Conan, Sonja frequently finds herself pitted against Evil Sorcerers, the most recurring of which is Kulan Gath. Sonja has occasionally expressed a dislike for magic due to bad experiences.
  • The Women Are Safe with Us: In Queen Sonja, she finds out that her soldiers are used to killing women and children, and were attempting to rape a rebellious noble's little sister. Even though said noble sent assassins to kill her, Sonja is completely horrified with learning this due to being a rape victim herself, and while she doesn't punish the men for threatening to do this (due to the leader that suggested it being already dead), she warns that she will not tolerate them trying it again.
  • Worf Had the Flu: Sonja defeats a fighter believed to be really strong almost once per issue. They use this excuse.
    Sonja: Every spoor of a mud village has an unbeatable local swordsman. They often say they "slipped" after I thrash them.

     Marvel Comics (1977-1995) 
  • Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: In What If? v2 #16, a crossover with Wolverine, Red Sonja is beaten by Wolverine and essentially gives up and waits for him to rape her, but he walks away, disgusted by the idea and saying "Sorry, darlin', that ain't my style." Sonja is both perplexed and slightly insulted, so she follows him. After their next meeting he warms up to her, and she eventually becomes his queen.
  • Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Her first solo comic has this as the plot. King Ghannif offered her his "greatest treasure" and then said it was his bed. Oh and she had best comply or be put to death.
  • Best Her to Bed Her: Introduced in this run and inspired by Roy Thomas being a fan of Greek mythology with things like the story of Atlantea.
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Invoked — when Roy Thomas decided to create a Distaff Counterpart for Conan, he wanted to make her a redhead, as the established warrior women in Conan lore were Valeria (blonde) and Belit (Brunette).
  • Breakout Character: Red Sonja rapidly rose to become one of the most popular characters in Marvel Comics in the Seventies, not just among Conan the Barbarian fans.
  • The Cake Is a Lie: Due to the fact she's a woman, Sonja's employers frequently believe they can cheat her.
  • Canon Foreigner: Red Sonja herself when she first entered the comics and now many individuals think that Robert E. Howard created her.
  • Chainmail Bikini: Subverted in the earliest stories actually as she initially wore a metal cuirass.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Sonja has no sense of honor in battle and uses whatever methods to win as she can from stealth to trickery.
  • Crossover: Red Sonja would frequently have these with Conan the Barbarian in his own comic as well as made a couple of trips to the modern age where she hung with Spider-Man.
  • Distaff Counterpart: Subverted actually. According to Word of God, Red Sonja was actually created as a counterpart to Belit and Valeria who were unusable for various continuity reasons.
  • Dolled-Up Installment: Sonja's first appearance was an adaptation of Howard's non-Conan story The Shadow of the Vulture.
  • Dramatic Irony: Roy Thomas was the creator of Red Sonja's infamous oath but had a lot of fun with it even in the earliest issues. One of these facts is the fact that Red Sonja is certainly attracted to men and desires them but she's not attracted to big burly hulks like Conan. She actually prefers soft pretty boys that could never defeat her in combat.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Sonja's second appearance has her dancing on a tavern table to get Conan's attenton.
    • Sonja's first outfit was chainmail that covered her front and hot pants. Roy Thomas said he found it weirder than the Chainmail Bikini.
  • Enigmatic Empowering Entity: The "red goddess" Scathach (known as "The Lady" in some accounts) who grants Sonja her fighting skills in the Marvel Comics version of her origin.
  • Fauns and Satyrs: Sonja slaughters a temple full of Always Chaotic Evil ones in her second solo story.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: The very first solo story has Red Sonja dealing with this and King Ghannif.
  • Mercy Kill: Sonja gives one of these to a Priest of Mitra that had been tortured horrifically by a bunch of satyrs.
  • Only in It for the Money: Trollus seems to have Undying Loyalty to the late King Ghannif but it turns out he was only upset at losing his meal ticket.
  • Royal Harem: Many of the rulers of this time keep these. Sonja often ends up trying to rescue the women of them or dumped in one of herself.
  • The Tease: Amusingly, Red Sonja is this to Conan and deliberately baits him every chance she gets.
  • Undying Loyalty: Trollus seems to possess this for Pasha Ghannif.
  • War Elephants: In the 1970s Marvel run, Sonja allied herself with the young ruler of kingdom whose major military strength was its war mammoths.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Red Sonja's preferred type of man as seen with Dunkin, the only time she's actually oggling and regretting her oath.

     Dynamite Comics (2005-Present) 
  • Androcles' Lion: In Red Sonja: Beserker, Sonja rescues a polar bear cub from a pair of sadistic hunters who were tormenting it. The bear stays with her through winter. Years later, Sonja has been sentenced to die in the arena and a bear is unleashed against her. It turns out to be the same bear and refuses to attack her. The two team up and escape the arena.
  • Animal Assassin: Sonja sets the arena animals on their masters in Red Sonja: Berserker.
  • Bodyguard Babes:
    • The Red Sisters serve as the Praetorian Guard to Sonja as Queen of Songaria.
    • Ayla and Nias from the Gail Simone's run also serve Sonja.
    • Amy Chu introduces Taya and Leera.
  • Broken Pedestal:
    • In the Brian Reed's run, Scathach reveals that Sonja was created from the blood of Kulan Gath, saying that and that his hair is red due to the blood of Gath that runs in his veins with each reincarnation and to make matters worse, Sonja discovers that Scathach let her family be massacred and she be raped purposely only to use it as a weapon to destroy Gath forever. Sonja renounces the your devotion to Scathach for her betrayal is revealed by the goddess herself.
    • Ozzyus in "Birth of The She-Devil" is the man who raised Red Sonja after her family's death and helped her become a thief as well as drunkard (not that he's proud of these things). Red Sonja turned against him when he and she robbed their employers, genuinely nice people, resulting in the father's horrific demise as well as the enslavement of his daughter. Ozzyus eventually quit drinking and turned to Mitra but it was too late to regain her respect.
  • Decadent Court: Despite Songara appearing to be peaceful and isolated from the rest of Hyboria, Sonja quickly finds out their nobles are a cutthroat bunch that do not take kindly to a foreigner (and a woman, no less) being on the throne and they attempt to find ways to remove or subvert her.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
    • Evil Sorcerer Thulsa Doom slays an Elder God in Queen Sonja #20. Overlaps with Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?, as he first tricks it into giving him enough power to allow him to kill it.
    • Sonja herself gets this a lot; in one mini-series she kills Woden, Loki, the Fenris Wolf and the Midgard Serpent. She also becomes a Witchblade wielder in another mini-series and defeats a fallen archangel.
  • Emergency Transformation: It happened to Sonja in the crossover event Prophecy when she is fatally poisoned by a Mayan demon and in order to save her life, Dracula turns her into a vampire. She was still a vampire at the end of the story and for a short time in her regular series, until it was reversed.
  • Evil All Along: The thief Jubal, who personally trained Sonja in her youth, was revealed to be a Kulan Gath's follower who tried to resurrect his master before Sonja stopped him.
  • Evil Counterpart: Crimson Katherine from Giant-Size Red Sonja #2. She is a woman with a backstory virtually identical (orphaned, made a compact after her family was killed, redheaded female barbarian hero) but was empowered by the Goddess of Vengeance. They initially team up before Sonja realizes she's just too extra.
  • Eyepatch After Time Skip: In issue #2 of The Black Tower arc, it is revealed that Sonja lost one of her eyes after spending years being forced to fight as a gladiator and is shown wearing an eye patch.
  • Eye Scream: Sonja gets an eye removed by a vindictive warlord in Black Tower, due to some timestream repairing when a possible clone/bastard daughter or whatnot of Sonja went back to the past, losing the eye was undone.
  • The Fagin: Jubal in Queen Sonja was a criminal that trained children to pickpocket and "conscripted" Sonja during her teenage years.
  • Gladiator Games: Commonly overlapped with slavery.
    • Sonja is sentenced to the arena in the Red Sonja: Berserker one-shot.
    • In The Black Tower arc, Sonja spends years being forced to fight as a gladiator before breaking free.
    • Queen of Plagues has a flashback to when Sonja and Dark Annisia were gladiator slaves together.
  • God Is Evil: Odin and Loki from the Norse pantheon in Wrath of the Gods are monstrous beings that rule the realm of Aesir with iron fist and aim to wipe out the Bundini people off from existence and return to Earth just to re-establish their control over mortals. Thor, on the other hand, averts this trope, being half-Bundini and being genuinely heroic and kind towards humans.
  • Gold Digger: Laranda-fa, the Empress Dowager, was a common peasant until she married the emperor. It's implied she murdered him to wield his power.
  • Great White Feline: Issue #50 of the original Dynamite run has Sonja accompanying an Egomaniac Hunter known as Lord Kinzara on a hunt for a mythical beast known as the Cloud Tiger which takes the form of a large, terrifying white tiger. Sonja convinces him to journey to the top of a mountain with just her and leave his hunting party behind. When they are confronted by the Cloud Tiger, it is revealed that Kinzara was the leader of the bandits who murdered Sonja's family and raped her when she was a child. Sonja has spent years tracking him down and used his obsession with hunting to lure him to his doom. Sonja leaves Kinzara to be killed by the Cloud Tiger and avenges her family.
  • A Handful for an Eye: Sonja pulls this trick on Raven in the Red Sonja: Raven one-shot.
  • Heel–Faith Turn: Ozzyus turned to Mitra to regain control over his life. It actually worked out for him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Ozzyus attempts this in "Birth of the She-Devil" but fails. It's enough to make him a Rebuilt Pedestal for Sonja, at least partially.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Jubal leaves Sonja and her boyfriend to die before sacrificing all of his former child thieves to Kulan Gath.
    • Laranda-fa forces a slave to brush her hair, then has her executed when the brush shows the girl broke off too many hairs.
  • Laser-Guided Karma:
    • In issue #49 of the Brian Reed's run, Sonja, now reincarnated, confronts Scathach without knowing who she really was, let alone about the revelation made in the issue #29 and kills her without first, the witch making Lucan her champion and tell him to kill her and drinking his blood and and then get killed by her.
    • In The Black Tower arc, Thraxis chooses one of the your Sisterhood of Thraxis girls and after he tells her his origins, she gets her revenge for Sonja's death without first confronting him, because everyone messed up about her origins.
  • Mama Bear: In Mirka Andolfo's run, she protects her adopted daughter Sitha, who carries a great curse and everyone wants to kill her.
  • Retcon: Happened partially when Dynamite first re-introduced Red Sonja. While almost all the other details have been kept the same, her age had been reduced to tweeny-hood in her origin (perhaps to increase the believable length of her adventuring career) and she was made to be the youngest child not the oldest.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: In Brian Reed's run, Sonja's sister Verona sides with Lord Lucan Martur with whom she has been having a secret affair and they send a crew of pirates to kill Sonja and her husband Daniel Dorn. Lucan ends up selling Verona and their baby into slavery for money and Verona is ultimately murdered by Sonja after her treachery is revealed, with her baby being given by Sonja to a kindly woman who wanted a daughter of her own.
  • Royal Bastard: TheVulture's Circle story has Xoana who is one of Sonja's students. She is the daughter of King Xoan of Zingara and his favorite concubine. When Xoana's mother died, Xoan, suspecting she was actually murdered by his jealous wife Queen Isaura, sent Xoana to Sonja's school for young female warriors to protect the girl.
  • Series Continuity Error: Luke Lieberman has Sonja leaves Ozzyus' service twice under different circumstances. Notable because Luke wrote them both.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Single-Minded Twins: Ayla and Nias, the two hunters sent to track Sonja. They're always in the frame together and complete each other's sentiments if not sentences.
  • Sibling Team: The Red Sisters in Queen Sonja are the daughters of the old king of Sogania.
  • Sleeping Their Way to the Top: Laranda-fa was a commoner girl until she caught the attention of the emperor with her beauty. Shortly thereafter they were married, and shortly after that he was dead.
  • Spiked Wheels: She acquires a Boudicca-style chariot, complete with spiked wheels, for leading troops into battle in Queen Sonja #4.
  • Too Dumb to Live:
    • Fengar Tolt in the Black Tower, not only was this thug trying to rape a woman in front of Sonja (this is the hugest Berserk Button for her), he also jabs his finger into an exposed part of her breast. He loses a finger as a warning.
    • Sultan Bashir in "Birth of a She-Devil" knows 18-year-old Sonya as a mercenary and killing of kings already but insists on ordering Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me. This, of course, leads to his horrifying demise.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Virtually the entire kingdom wishes to avenge Sultan Bashir in "Birth of a She-Devil" despite the fact he was a Fat Bastard Hate Sink.
  • Virgin Sacrifice: Sonja saves a young man from this fate in Red Sonja: Blue.
  • Waterfall Shower:
    • Sonja takes one (surrounded by strategic Censor Steam) just before she is captured by an Evil Sorcerer at the start of Red Sonja Annual #4.
    • She has a similar experience in Thulsa Doom.

     Gail Simone (2013-2014) 
  • Adaptational Dumbass: Red Sonja is a great more often drunk, confused, and easily fooled than she normally is in Gail Simone's run. It is usually played for humor and she often shows startling insights when not drunk (which isn't often).
  • The Alcoholic: Gail Simone gave Red Sonja the status of being almost continuously drunk throughout the story and when she wasn't, annoyed by this fact.
  • Annoying Arrows: Notably averted, at least in the Simone run. Sonja recognizes archers as a threat (having been one herself) and will write off any plan that requires charging them.
  • Anticlimax: With only a day remaining before her deadline Sonja bashes into an inn and declares she's taking Rakaua with her and slaughtering everyone who gets in her way. The innkeeper happily informs her that they've heard of her quest and are honored to assist. Rakaua still requests he be carried out over her shoulder (for dramatic reasons) but Sonja is underwhelmed by the whole experience.
  • An Arm and a Leg: At one point Sonja's hands are burned to the point of being permanently crippled to prevent her from ever holding a weapon again.
  • Armed with Canon: Gail Simone had Sonja encounter Osric the Untouched, a seemingly invincible swordsman who has his skills given to him by the gods and who can only have sex with the person who defeats him in battle. Sonja declares that she has never heard of anything so stupid.
  • Astrologer: Samala believes "the greatest stargazer in the world" is an astrologer, but defined target Plaitius is an astronomer.
  • Avenging the Villain: After the death of Kalas-ra, his brother Katharas-ra comes hunting for his killer.
  • Back for the Finale: Not quite the finale, but the penultimate plot has Sonja's friends show up to say goodbye as she lies on her deathbed. Ayla and Nias, Gribaldi and Avena, Plaitius, Rat, Rakaua, Osric, and even Annisia all appear in addition to a mob of nameless extras claiming to represent villages that Sonja protected.
  • Back from the Dead: Dark Annisia joins Sonja's friends for their Back for the Finale mourning party.
  • Badass Boast: In the Gail Simone version she throws these before or halfway through almost every fight. Apparently it's much more successful offscreen.
    Osric: Do they always run?
    Sonja: I'd say it's about half and half.
  • Band of Brothels: Aneva's brothel is an abusive one in that Captain Ferox protects them from outside violence but no one protects the workers from him and his men. Aneva's stated dream is to create a prostitute-run band.
  • Beastly Bloodsports: Kalayah the Beastmaster oversees these in the Art of Blood and Fire arc.
  • The Beastmaster: Kalayah claims the title but his assistant Rat does the actual work. She frees herself by setting the gladiator animals loose on Kalayah knowing their love for her will leave her safe. Later she's seen asking a gorilla to break a jail cell and sending her hawk Windsong into combat.
  • Bookends: Gail Simone writes them for her run on the character: the first page of Queen of Plagues shows Sonja sleeping in the woods about to be attacked by three men while the last page of The Forgiving of Monsters shows Halayah recording the same encounter for posterity.
  • Butt-Monkey: In the Gail Simone run; she's been thrown in the mud by bouncers, has a chef turn her down when she's practically begging him for sex, and a swordsman spanks her in the butt before she falls face first in the mud. Finally a barbarian who saw her get humiliated gives her the nickname Mud Sonja. Stuff like this would never happen in the previous Dynamite incarnations.
  • Captured on Purpose: In The Art of Blood and Fire Sonja makes an assassination attempt against Kalayah, motivating him to capture and imprison her, which allows her to break free (with Rat's help) within his compound and set his own animals against him.
  • Carnival of Killers: The Gray Riders, a group of twelve mercenaries and assassins hired to hunt down and kill Sonja in the Legends of Red Sonja mini-series.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Especially in Gail Simone's run on the series.
    • Sonja uses her Chainmail Bikini to distract male opponents.
    • In Legends of Red Sonja she tells a former adventuring partner to spread lies about her cowardice and lack of prowess so a group of hunters tracking her will be caught off guard.
    • When it comes to a straight-up fight, she's perfectly willing to put on a suit of full plate armor and pull out all the stops with her swordfighting skills.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Sonja arrives in the bogmen's camp to rescue the chef Gribaldi. Gribaldi foraged some eggs and lizards a few weeks ago and has been cooking them for the tribe. Those eggs and lizards were actually the offspring of lizardmen who chose to attack the bogmen within hours of Sonja's arrival, slaughtering the bogmen so she and Gribaldi can escape.
  • Curse: With his dying breath Kalas-ra curses Sonja to be incapable of forgiveness. His intent is that her inability to control her rage will see her killed by an angry mob or at least exiled.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Dark Annisia endured the fighting pits alongside Sonja. Annisia was driven mad, hearing the ghosts of everyone they were forced to slaughter to stay alive and constantly promising to deliver more company to them.
  • Death by Irony: Kalas-ra's vengeance against Sonja is for her to lose control of her rage, resulting in her attacking innocents and allies to turn them against her.
  • Defiant to the End:
    • Plaitius the stargazer. He faces torture and execution for his observations defying the divine writ of the rector, but refuses to recant even to save his own life.
    • Death offers Sonja a job as Death's personal enforcer, seeking glory in battle for eternity. Sonja refuses, mostly to prove that she can.
  • Discontinuity Nod: Gail Simone's relaunch dispenses with the "can't have sex unless the man defeats her in battle" aspect of her origin. Instead, a very horny Sonja meets a swordsman who won't have sex with anyone unless they defeat him in battle. She declares it to be the stupidest thing she's ever heard.
  • The Dog Bites Back:
    • In the first arc of Simone's run the queen of the king killed by the mad King of Zamora gets even with him by feeding him the very poison he'd used to decimate the countryside in his drink, resulting in an extremely messy death as all his organs fail at once.
    • Both metaphoric and literal examples in the Art of Blood and Fire arc: the apprentice Rat releases all the caged animals at once on their abusive trainer Kalayah.
  • Duel to the Death: Invoked by Sonja to beat Osric, the greatest swordsman in the world. Turns out he is a better swordsman in a duel, but if death is on the line her steely nerves hold up where his fail.
  • Evil Counterpart: Dark Annisia in Queen of Plagues. She is a gladiator who befriended Red Sonja in the battle pits of Zamora before they both escaped. Dark Anissa was driven to madness by the deaths of all those fellow slaves she killed, however, and coped by becoming a Knight Templar.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: The Art of Blood and Fire arc has Sonja collecting six artisans. As they journey with her they band together so that when she is captured, they all contribute to her escape (except for the dancer, who was the last to join).
    Sonja: They could have lived lives of endless surplus. They chose friendship instead.
  • Forgiveness: Obviously, a heavy theme in The Forgiving of Monsters arc.
    • Kalas-ra curses Sonja to be unable to forgive, intending that this will lead to her being cast out and/or murdered by the people she protects.
    • A barkeep who suffers Sonja's rage as a result forgives her publicly, nullifying the curse's effect in that town.
    • Sonja asks Death's forgiveness for opposing her in a literal Duel to the Death. Death, who understands Sonja's nature and is barely inconvenienced by the encounter, agrees.
    • When Sonja catches up to Fellan, she tells him that he is forgiven since he is no longer the man who sinned against her.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: When Sonja meets Death in her fever dream, Death appears as Sonja-but-more-so: ten feet tall in a chainmail bikini with prominent skull motif. Death intends it as a compliment after all the people Sonja has delivered to her arms.
  • Funny Background Event: While Gribaldi, Rat, Aneva, Osric, and Plaitius are fighting for Sonja's freedom, Rakaua is lost in his dancing in the background.
  • Gladiator Games: In the Gail Simone run, she and Dark Annisia used to be slaves fighting in an arena for the King of Zamora's amusement until they were rescued.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: Sonja is charged with collecting six of the greatest artisans in the world. Four need rescuing from hostile forces, but the other two only need convincing.
  • Great Big Library of Everything: The nuns' Citadel of All Knowledge aspires to be this, but it's really quite small in that context. Considering the time period and the practical difficulties of travel, it may well be the largest collection of knowledge in the world.
  • Healing Potion: The alchemist of Queen of Plagues develops one, but is killed shortly thereafter. The last few drops he manufactured are delivered to Sonja as she lies dying.
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Aneva. When introduced, her dream is to unite the prostitutes into a guild for their own protection. She agrees to join Sonja to save the lives of slaves who will be freed if Sonja succeeds.
  • Kick the Dog: Kalayah the Beastmaster not only runs a savage arena pitting animals against each other, after he captures Sonja he puts her horses into the ring — hamstrung, so they can't run or fight back.
  • I Lied: Though never directly stated, this was Samala's plan all along. Sonja is unsurprised but still pissed.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: The bog people delight in consuming outsiders who enter their swamps as a delicacy.
  • Important Haircut: In the final few pages of The Forgiving Of Monsters Sonja cuts her long red hair short, symbolizing her learned control of her rage.
  • I Should Write a Book About This: The final page of Simone's last issue shows Halayah carefully chronicling Sonja's adventures (starting with Simone's first) for the Citadel of All Knowledge.
  • I Surrender, Suckers: Rare heroic variant: when Rudus offers injured Sonja the chance to kiss his blade to earn a swift coup de grace, she uses it to get inside his reach and stab him.
  • Lizard Folk: There is a tribe in the bogmen's swamp, secret enough that Gribaldi doesn't recognize their young as an intelligent species. Sonja dubs them mindless predators, but they are intelligent enough to coordinate an attack on the bogmen (who were prepared for such), to use the table for their feast, and to speak at least a few words.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: Kalas-ra, who pulls his cavern sanctuary down on top of himself as he's dying of bloodloss. Sonja sprints to the exit.
    Sonja: I'll say this about wizards. They are very poor losers.
  • Lost Food Grievance: Sonja likes ale, and does not like absence of ale.
    • She objects vehemently when Gribaldi uses Cimmerian ale to cook instead of drink.
    • It's reversed when Sonja uses Gribaldi's artisanal soup as an improvised weapon.
  • Lower-Class Lout: Red Sonya may not be stupid when she's drunk but she's rude, crude, and considerably less dignified than previous installments of the character.
  • Magic Feather: Havan the Fire Maker loses his ability to summon fire. He sought out other magic users to find what he was missing. Sonja re-empowers him by claiming to be a witch princess and commanding him to restore his fire.
  • Mark of Shame: In the Queen of Plauges arc Sonja's face is marked with one after she contracts the plague.
  • Master Swordsman:
    • Dark Anissia, who is every bit as good with a sword as Red Sonja.
    • Osric the Untouched, a duelist so named because he's never been touched by his opponents' blades.
  • Mercy Kill: Sonja shoots a mortally injured bear in Kalayah's arena, drawing his ire.
  • Nepharious Pharaoh: Emperor Samala of Stygia is a Fat Bastard who is prone to I Lied. He plans to have a thousand slaves Buried Alive with him.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Plaitius the stargazer is learned in physics to conduct his craft, but he also claims to be an expert in "potions and powders", i.e. biology and chemistry. Amusingly Averted when the Pharaoh asks for him to tell his fortune and Platius has no idea what to do despite this being a common practice of astonomers at the time.
  • Playing with Fire: Havan the Fire Maker can conjure and control flames.
  • Plot Coupon: The six artisans Sonja collects in The Art of Blood and Fire.
  • Poison Is Evil:
    • Poison is used by the villains of Queen of Plagues to kill off enemy militaries before a fair fight even starts. The men in question are depicted as cowardly and unnatural.
    • The same arc sees one of them heroically poisoned by his own attendant at risk of her own life.
    • In the next arc, a chef poisons an evil king when he reneges on his bargain with Sonja.
  • The Problem with Fighting Death: Referenced but handwaved. Sonja goes toe-to-toe and is unabashedly disrespectful when she fights Death herself. After the fight Death communicates that she's not displeased and there's no bad blood between them.
  • Psycho Lesbian: Dark Annisia is a lesbian and in love with Sonja but also insane as well as evil.
  • Redemption Earns Life: Fellan the woodsman was the only survivor of the band that killed Sonja's family. He fled and escaped her wrath until she hunted him down decades later. She forgave him since he gave up raiding and went into self-imposed exile.
  • Retcon: In the latest Gail Simone version, her origin seems to be retconned again, this time making her successful revenge against the killers of her family come from her own childhood skills as a hunter rather than being powered up by a goddess and there seems to be no rape.
  • Really Gets Around: In this iteration, Sonja achieved her warrior prowess on her own and thus took no vow of celibacy, so she's free to do the nasty as she pleases. And she doesn't seem particularly choosy either, only requiring that they're "limber."
  • Retool: The Gail Simone series, with an eye toward Reconstruction.
  • Sanity Slippage: Over the Queen of Plagues arc Dark Annisia transitions from a competent and fearsome general protecting the world from a dangerous plague to a bloodthirsty executioner driven mad by the weight of deaths she's caused.
  • Scarecrow Solution: Played by Gravaha the Clever in her in-universe children's book when she dressed a field of cornstalks as an army to intimidate an enemy with terrible eyesight.
  • Schmuck Bait: Gribaldi announces his first appetizer to his captor as Khitaian mushroom pate, which the man happily eats. Minutes later Gribaldi announces that any gourmand would know Khitaian mushrooms are poisonous.
  • Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Samala empowers Sonja to get the cooperation of the six greatest artisans in the world for his party by offering any amount of money. None of them accept the money, but Sonja persuades them by other means.
    • Gribaldi the chef is just happy to repay Sonja for his rescue from the cannibal tribe.
    • Rat the beastmaster likewise repays Sonja for ending Kalayah's Beastly Bloodsports.
    • Avena the courtesan is willing to help secure the release of Samala's slaves.
    • Osric the swordsman agrees after Sonja defeats him in a duel.
    • Plaitius the stargazer wants a platform to educate people on his observations of physics.
    • Rakaua the dancer finds Sonja's quest noble and interesting.
  • The Secret of Long Pork Pies: Inverted by Gribaldi among the cannibal bogmen. By day they captured travelers and brought them to him to cook for dinner. Instead he cooked foraged foods and released the travelers.
  • Sibling Team: Ayla and Nias who are also Sonya's Plucky Girl sidekicks.
  • Supreme Chef: Gribaldi, renowned as the greatest chef in the world. It's implied that his skills were either the reason the bogmen allowed him to live as a slave or else why they captured him in the first place.
  • The Straight and Arrow Path:
    • This is shown as the first weapon Sonja used when she avenged her family, having practiced hunting rabbits.
    • Ayla and Nias are also expert archers due to their hunting backgrounds.
  • Through His Stomach: How Gribaldi earned survival from the bogmen. It helps that they have palates sensitive enough to appreciate his work; Sonja certainly doesn't.
  • True Craftsman: Gribaldi the expert chef, who cannot prevent himself from turning forage into gourmet meals.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Dark Annisia is dangerous as the general of an army cleansing plaguebearers. When the plague is cured, she refuses to believe it and executes healthy people violating quarantine. When the plague's true cause is finally revealed she snaps completely into bloodthirsty madness.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dark Annisia is fighting to stop a mysterious plague from spreading throughout the land. She does so by massacring any population with signs of infection.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Gribaldi cooks and eats eggs and baby Lizard Folk without realizing their intelligence. He is genuinely penitent when he realizes his mistake.
  • Where It All Began: Queen of Plagues quickly flashes back to Sonja's past as a slave gladiator in the king of Zamora's arena with Dark Annisia. The end of the arc sees them return to the same arena to fight with the king of Zamora watching.

     Amy Chu (2016-2019) 
  • Armed with Canon: Amy Chu prefers the bonkers "Vampirella is a alien from the planet Drakulon" origin to her being the daughter of Lilith.
  • Artifact of Doom: Kulan Gath's amulet as always, functions like a Lich's Soul Jar.
  • Bar Brawl: There's a short but neat bar brawl in the modern day, where Sonja picks up a table with one hand and hurls it across the bar like a softball, taking a gigantic thug off his feet ... Chu's Sonja is a cut above most Sonjas and Word of God is that she is pretty much superhuman.
  • Big Bad: Kulan Gath returns to this role and serves as the main antagonist for the first three volumes.
  • Book Dumb: Averted. Sonja demonstrates the ability read English signs within 24 hours of arriving in 21st century New York.
  • Breaking the Fellowship: Leera loses Sonja's trust due to keeping Kulan Gath's amulet and is sent away with her best friend.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Amy Chu's take on the character in the current run is probably the most physically impressive yet. She can take a fall onto bare rock from 30 feet up and jump straight up again, and can leap 15 feet straight up to slash a sauropod-sized demon; she is also swiped by the same demon and hurled hundreds of feet away and immediately jumps to her feet unscathed. She can catch a thrown knife by the hilt in the dark without even looking and can necklift a 250lb man with one arm, with him being unable to break her grip with both hands. Amy Chu has said in a Reddit chat that Sonja developed her abilities through sheer bloody determination and training (i.e. without divine intervention, unlike Oeming's version) but that she has the strength of several men and is powerful enough to topple a horse with a punch.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Sonja encounters a group of mercenaries on a quest and demands to join them. When their hulking leader mocks her in front of a crowded tavern and tells her there's no more room in the party, she calmly chops him in the windpipe and punches him out, before telling his group that she'll be taking his place.
  • Crossover: Red Sonja and Vampirella Meet Betty and Veronica brings the two Dynamite antiheroes to Riverdale.
  • Cult: Kulan Gath has one of these that seeks his resurrection whenever he is killed as well as hassle Sonja.
  • Dare to Be Badass: Sonja tells Lord Skath that he can recover his former glory if he just chooses to embrace it.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: Max ends up returning to New York at the end of the book without Sonja or the other women who took a fancy to him during his time in the Hyborian Age.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Red Sonja and Vampirella Meet Betty and Veronica is about how the pair visit Riverdale in order to solve a bunch of murders by a Chaos cult. It is actually Vampirella's sister Draculina.
  • Expy: Lord Skath is one for Conan the Barbarian himself. He's a Cimmerian warlord who became King by his own hand but he's fallen on hard times unlike his inspiration.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water:
    • Red Sonja is hurled into the future (again) by Kulan Gath and has to explore present-day New York.
    • Max ends up hurled to the Hyborian Age at the end of the first volume of the Worlds Away series.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: Dialed back from Gail Simone but Chu's Sonja still loves a drink. In the storyline where Kulan Gath transports her through time to modern-day New York, her first priority after escaping captivity is food and her second is ale. Sonja pretty much says the trope title while walking around Harlem looking for a bar.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Amy Chu's Red Sonja has no problem with casual nudity.
  • Like a Duck Takes to Water: Her ability to learn new skills is practically a superpower. Arriving in New York, she quickly figures out how to use a remote control to operate a television and becomes almost fluent in English in 24 hours ... a faster learning curve than Wonder Woman. She somehow also learns how to read English without being taught and even picks up how to drive a motorbike just by riding on the back of one (with a nasty hangover, to boot).
  • Magic Feather: Lord Skath's sword is certainly a fine blade but it's clear it's also a psychological crutch for Skath.
  • Never Gets Drunk: Having been transported through time and space to modern-day New York, Sonja finds herself a bar, makes friends quickly despite her inability to speak English and ends up in a big drinking session with her new buddies. When her cop friend Max comes by to pick her up, he finds her passed out drunk with a bar tab of 837 dollars to settle. The bartender tells Max it’s all her’s. Word of God is that there was a glitch with the calculations … based on the price of beer on the wall, 837 bucks would’ve bought nearly 300 beers but Amy Chu ‘only’ intended Sonja to have gone through 120 beers, equalling the personal best of André the Giant. Bear in mind that Andre was about 7’0’’ and 450lbs at the time and Sonja’s 6’0’’ and 140.
  • One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: In the ‘Lost In New York’ storyline mentioned under Bar Brawl, Never Gets Drunk and I Need a Freaking Drink above, Sonja finds a seedy bar and while she’s knocking back a couple of beers, she notices a big guy called Luis crushing his friend in an arm-wrestle. Luis then invites the statuesque female barbarian in the chainmail bikini to step up, hoping to Best Her to Bed Her and figuring he’s got an easy win on his hands. Unfortunately for him, Sonja immediately smashes his arm down without blinking. With the other patrons laughing at him, Luis complains that he wasn’t ready, so Sonja offers to take him on again. Once more, she immediately and effortlessly beats him, with Luis saying he thinks she broke his wrist. The next panel shows Sonja beating a huge bald guy with ease in an arm-wrestle and this particular bout goes viral on social media and alerts her enemy Kulan Gath to her presence. The strong implication here is that the She-Devil beat every single challenger in the bar without breaking a sweat, although we only see her taking on two. Now factor in that Sonja was sporting a nasty head-wound in the scene and also had a nasty gunshot wound to her arm-wrestling shoulder, suffered in the previous issue. Word of God is that Red Sonja is as strong as six normal men. We also get instances of her destroying huge guys at armwrestling in the Red Sonja Halloween Special (2018)and in Invincible Red Sonja #1 (2021)
  • Super-Strength: Red Sonja explictly has power far beyond that of a normal woman and Amy Chu says via Word of God that she has the strength of six men.
  • Those Two Girls: Taya and Leera are this for much of the run and eventually graduate to being Lovely Angels with Sonja.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Leera steals Kulan Gath's amulet and intends to sell it despite the fact it is a object of ultimate evil.


Alternative Title(s): Red Sonja Marvel Comics

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