Red Sonja New Year's Special 2025

We have yet another New Year's special with the redhaired warrior from the Hyborian age that compliments her Holiday special from last year. Written by Dan Panosian and illustrated by Valeria Burzo, in this new one-shot we see Sonja being hired by a pair of townspeople who seek the she-devil for her skills in combat to face against some giants who terrorize the town, once there she will meet the people of the town, who are celebrating the eve of a new moon, an event that requires the sacrifice of a fire woman.

The initial set-up of the storyline seems incredibly trite at first but the writer knows how to spin things around a bit and never allows it to become generic or forceful, from the start the somewhat skeletal story begins planting questions and intrigue that will eventually pay off later in the story. It is somewhat predictable if you are familiar with this type of plot but you actually enjoy it because of the small twists that keep things moving without fat or rest, while the mostly visual storytelling also carries a great deal of the baggage very effectively. The snow white surroundings contrast appropriately with Red Sonja's fiery red hair, something that aids the storyline and feels relevant to it, while the action portrayed moves and looks fluid enough from panel to panel.

Recommended for Red Sonja fans.

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Red Sonja: Holiday Special (2018) Comic Review

Here we have a very peculiar comic book Holiday Special featuring one of the toughest redheads in fantasy: Red Sonja. A one-off special from 2018 featuring two stories. Illustrated by Ricardo Jaime (Crackdown, Godslap), written by Erik Burnham (Lady Hel, several works with the TMNT, Ghostbusters and Red Sonja) and Amy Chu (Ana and the Cosmic Race and several Red Sonja issues).

Sonja travels through a snowstorm and finds an unknown cloaked woman who reminds her of a place she visited previously. She tells her the story of her time in our modern civilization, traveling throughout New York City with Max and getting a taste of Christmas, the most human celebration.

Then they find a man in a Santa costume running from mobsters, Sonja predictably takes them out without much effort, but the trio flees when the goons take out their guns. The guy in the Santa costume is finally safe and the goons lose them among the crowd at a Christmas celebration.

It's a funny story that plays with the usual "fish out of water" gags and dynamic whenever Sonja is taken out of her realm and inserted in New York City or something. Not a horrible one-off but it's also far from a highly memorable one. The resolution was done a bit too quickly and too easily but you can forgive it because of the time and space constraints. I think it's perfectly fine for Sonja fans, as it is short and sweet.

The second story isn't christmas related but it's drawn in a very retro style and looks quite wonderful, so I don't recommend you skip it, we might look at it some other time.