Misogyny at its finest
This Red Sonja mini-series is a hateful misogynistic tour de force, showcasing the very worst of what comics can be and why so many consider them an immature media for boys that isn't worthy of being called art.
Frank Tieri has touched the Red Sonja character and left behind a dark stain that now can't be removed. I have no idea what Nicky Barrucci was thinking when this story was approved, it only serves to debase the character and comics as a whole.
To explain, this mini-series has one core idea to it, one nasty selling point aimed as low as possible at the most sexist elements of the audience in order to generate some incredibly cheap shock value and through that earn some quick cash. The premise is: "let's have Sonja meet something she can't defeat, then have it behead her in the most gratuitous manner possible", because of course all the male readership really wants to see are nude or near-nude pretty women having terrible things happen to them. Oh yes, it's all about the titillating peril and distress. Frank Tieri even gave an interview confirming this intention, pushing the point that he "got to chop off Red Sonja's head", as if the final goal in these sort of comics, the one everyone is apparently dancing around, is simply to stuff disposable women into refrigerators for jollies.
This is the sort of mindset that, when presented with the concept of something like the Star Trek holodeck, immediately skips to the thought "wow, so I'd be *allowed* to rape someone?" It's sick and childish.
We're not all misogynistic psychopaths Frank, and we don't read Red Sonja just in case there's finally that long-awaited issue where a man "gets to" kill her in graphic fashion (which you've now provided, gee thanks).
Having hit the big "look! Here's a strong woman being beheaded!" money shot back in issue #3, this brief and ambiguous final chapter doubles as a victory lap ("hey look, there's her HEAD! Are you enjoying seeing her head mounted as a wall trophy?!"), and a very abrupt resolution, which presumably is deliberately written to please both the misogynists and actual fans of the character.
It's a time plot, where someone from Sonja's future goes back to alter events before her death. Whether her action actually changes anything regarding Sonja's impending and possibly infinitely-looping doom is left completely unanswered by the final page, hence the point that whether you're insane and wanted her to remain a decapitated head, or you wanted the whole horrible mess to go away; the story can be interpreted to suit your wishes.
This series began very promisingly and I was entertained by how novel it was, right up until the point that the third issue answered the question of why it was launched at all. The answer is: to murder Red Sonja in a "sexy way", for boys to giggle at. Dynamite really should have known better, and Frank Tieri needs adding to the same watchlist as Matt Ward, for crimes against fictional women.
"Did I mention *I got to* chop off her head?" - Frank Tieri.
Yeah, thanks Frank. Next time keep it in your pants.