Lil Sonja #1
Written by Jim Zub
Art by Joel Carroll
Colors by Andrew Elder
Letters by Simon Bowland
Covers by Art Baltazar & Agnes Garbowska
Activity Sheet by Roger Langridge and Andrew Elder
Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: January 29, 2014
Cover Price: $3.99

Lil Sonja #1 is not only enjoyable for people who read the regular title, but it’s the PERFECT gateway for younger readers (both girls AND boys) to be introduced to the character. There’s only problem….

Writer Jim Zub pulls off a writing assignment that I can only assume was pretty daunting. Turn the She-Devil with a Sword into a playful little girl that goes on adventures. While clothed. Thankfully, he pulls it off quite successfully, all the while not dumbing down the character to make it unreadable for guys like me who’ve been reading Red Sonja since the early 1980s. It really is a classic “kid’s comic” like the old Harvey comics that could be read and enjoyed by both children AND their parents.

I wasn’t sure why I’d never heard the name Joel Carroll before, but then after looking him up, I found out that unfortunately, I’ve never read any of the books or online strips that he’s done. THAT will change. He does a fantastic job with art on this book. Making it appealing to the kid in all of us, and comes up with some really clever ways to draw mild violence without making it look like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I look very forward to following him in the future.

The problem that I spoke about in the opening is, where do younger readers go after they’ve picked up this one-shot? They REALLY shouldn’t be reading the regular Red Sonja title, it’s a little on the mature side. Hopefully this book sells well enough that it warrants another one-shot or quarterly specials so that kids (and me!) can keep enjoying this title.