Broken Frontier

Dynamite revives the fantasy anthology format with a quartet of stories from the world of Red Sonja and other fantastic, archaic settings.

I’m too young to remember the halcyon days when Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja headlined magazine anthologies at Marvel in the 1970s. However, having been introduced to these characters through their latest comic book revivals, I was quite intrigued when Dynamite Entertainment announced plans to return to that anthology tradition. The new Savage Tales expands on and draws from the ongoing Red Sonja series while also heading in a few unique directions of its own.

First up, we have Ron Marz’s contribution, a Sonja tale called "The Witch’s Familiar." Marz’s boisterous take on the Red One is something to behold—a brash, tough-as-nails, hard-drinking warrior woman who makes no apologies for anything. The writer really seems to get the heroine and makes her a blast to read about. Her rescue of a witch-woman introduces a character who could potentially be either kindred spirit or deadly new foe (perhaps both?). Illustrator Adriano Batista blends the right amount of polish and grit, though I felt his depiction of the witch seemed a bit inconsistent at times.

Leah Moore and John Reppion’s "Battle for Atlantis" gives us a glimpse of the lost continent in its glorious heyday. The story is largely set-up, structured as a meeting of the isle’s ruling council as they discuss their plans for the mainland. The contrast of the council’s pompous austerity and the reality of what’s really going on is amusing and the painted art by Pablo Marcos and Stjepan Sejic is the richest in the issue.

Luke Lieberman and Sonja writer Michael Avon Oeming inform us "Where Walks the Hunter," focusing on a villain from the ongoing. This is the weakest tale in the issue, as it is little more than a recap of recent events from the Hunter’s perspective. I expect this segment won’t really find its legs until future chapters. Kevin Sharpe does a fairly solid job on the art, though his Hunter is stronger than his depiction of Sonja.

Finally, we delve into the Cthulhu mythos with "The Elder Things That Fell to Earth" by Mike Raicht and artist Pere Perez. This is the quirkiest story in the lot, an eerie tale of a primitive society, dinosaurs, aliens, and ancient malevolent powers. Such an odd combination makes for a fun story and Raicht is already setting up an intriguing conflict between his characters.

On the whole, Dynamite seems to have a winner with Savage Tales and the potential for good old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery should satisfy genre fans looking for a bit of the fantastic.