Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, is a fictional character, a high fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith, and loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's 1934 short story "The Shadow of the Vulture". She first appeared in the Marvel Comics book Conan the Barbarian#23 (February 1973).Red Sonja became the archetypal fantasy figure of a fierce and beautiful female barbarian.
She was ranked first in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.
At the 2013 Emerald City Comic Con, Dynamite announced that Gail Simone would be writing a new ongoing Red Sonja series. Simone noted in further interviews that her version is slightly "rebooted," showing the character's beginnings. Issue #1 of Simone's run was released in July 2013, and reviews were positive. As of February 2014, the series had run seven issues, with the first six collected in a trade paperback.
Red Sonja's origin story, "The Day of the Sword", first appeared in Kull and the Barbarians #3 (September 1975) by Roy Thomas, Doug Moench, and Howard Chaykin. The same story was later redrawn by Dick Giordano and Terry Austin for The Savage Sword of Conan, issue 78 (July 1982).
In this story, Red Sonja lives with her family in a humble house in the Western Hyrkanian steppes (this seems to be in modern Ukraine/Russia though historical Hyrcania on the borders of modern Iran/Turkmenistan). When she is just 17, a group of mercenaries kills her family and burns down their house. Sonja attempts to defend herself, but can't lift her brother's sword. She is brutally raped by the leader of the group. Answering her cry for revenge, the red goddess Scáthach appears to her, and gives her incredible fighting skills, on the condition that she never lie with a man unless he defeats her in fair combat.
In the Dynamite comic book series by Michael Avon Oeming, Sonja's origins are portrayed in "flashbacks" within each issue beginning with issue #8. The goddess makes her first appearance in this series in issue #12, which also marks the return of the deadly sorcerer Kulan Gath.
In the Dynamite series by Gail Simone, Sonja's origins are again told in flashbacks. Sonja is a young teenager in a Hyrkanian village which is attacked by bandits. After her family is killed, Sonja lures the bandits into the forest and kills them one by one. No goddess appears in this version, and Sonja makes no vow of chastity. While she is threatened by the bandits, she is neither raped nor seriously injured. Another set of flashbacks shows Sonja as an adult, and indicates that she learned many of her fighting skills from a fellow prisoner when she was captured and forced to fight as a gladiator.
In other media
The character was played by Brigitte Nielsen in the 1985 film Red Sonja, which also starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as High Lord Kalidor (originally intended to be Conan). The film was directed by Richard Fleischer.
Angelica Bridges portrayed the character in the "Red Sonja" episode of the 1997–1998 TV series Conan.
There was a planned Red Sonja TV series in the works with Sable as Red Sonja.
Actress Rose McGowan was originally intended to portray Sonja in 2010's Red Sonja film, but these plans were squelched by injuries that permanently damaged the mobility and strength of her right arm.[13] In a February 2011 interview, film producer Avi Lerner stated that Simon West was hired to direct the film and also mentioned Amber Heard as the frontrunner to star in the lead role. On February 26, 2015, Christopher Cosmos was hired to write the film's script.
