A Red Sonja Cover Gallery XXIV:
Undead

This is the twenty-fourth installment in our Red Sonja themed cover galleries, continuing from the first gallery. Below, we present ten selected covers from various comic books, which feature Red Sonja amidst the undead. A previous gallery featured Red Sonja in the company of skeletons, so the undead here are of other kinds, including zombies, ghosts, ghouls and vampires.

1

  • title: Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword (1983)
  • publisher: Marvel
  • cover artist: Pat Broderick
  • writer: Bill Mantlo
  • artist: Pat Broderick
  • issue: #06 of 13
  • release date: February, 1985
  • episode: "The Endless Swamp!"
  • commentary: As noted above, there is another Red Sonja gallery devoted entirely to skeletons, which are typically regarded as the weakest of all undead foes. In this cover, Red Sonja has wandered deep into a marsh, where, by the light of the full moon, she finds herself surrounded by a village of undead. Based on their choice of habitat, these creatures are a variety of swamp mummy.

    We have featured various covers by Pat Broderick in galleries with themes including
    • Tentacles: #1
    • Undead: #1

2

  • title: Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword (2005)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Mel Rubi
  • writers: Michael Avon Oeming & Mike Carey
  • artist: Mel Rubi
  • issue: #02 of 80
  • release date: July, 2005
  • cover: Dynamic Forces cover
  • commentary: In this cover by Mel Rubi, Red Sonja faces a group of incorporeal wraiths.

3

  • title: Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword (2005)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Mel Rubi
  • writer: Michael Avon Oeming
  • artist: Homs
  • issue: #21 of 80
  • release date: April, 2007
  • cover: A cover
  • commentary: This cover is signed at the bottom right by Mel Rubi, although it is attributed in the interior to Joe Prado. In any case, it features two types of undead. However, lurking above Red Sonja are a pair of spectres, while dragging her down onto her knees are disembodied cadavers reaching out from the grave. While the arms stretching upward do not emerge from a break in the ground, it is clear that the hands are able to interact with the material world, as evidenced by their grasp of Red Sonja's armor.

4

  • title: Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword (2005)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Homs
  • writer: Michael Avon Oeming
  • artist: Homs
  • issue: #22 of 80
  • release date: May, 2007
  • cover: C variant
  • commentary: In this cover by Homs, Red Sonja finds herself aboard a haunted ship with an undead crew. There are a variety of undead associated with the water and particularly with the sea. These undead pirates could well be brine zombies.

5

  • title: Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword (2005)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Mel Rubi
  • writer: Brian Reed
  • artist: Walter Geovani
  • issue: #38 of 80
  • release date: October, 2008
  • cover: A cover
  • commentary: Ghouls are famous for their ravenous hunger for the flesh of men and their ability to move with great speed, in contrast to lumbering mummies or zombies. In this cover by Rubi, Red Sonja dashes headlong over several ghouls, while a larger throng chases behind her.

6

  • title: Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword (2005)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Walter Geovani
  • writer: Eric Trautmann
  • artist: Marcio Abreu
  • issue: #72 of 80
  • release date: December, 2012
  • cover: A cover
  • commentary: When a powerful necromancer summons a great cataclysm, the scale of dying can result in an extraordinary concentration of undead. Zombie hordes arise not from any drive toward self organization but rather appear simply due to the circumstance of many deaths brought about in close proximity in a short span of time. In this case, the savage sword of Red Sonja sweeps through them like a sickle through wheat.

7

  • title: Red Sonja (2015)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Pablo Marcos
  • writers: Gail Simone, Eric Trautmann, Roy Thomas, Michael Avon Oeming & Luke Lieberman
  • artists: Dave Acosta, Pablo Marcos, Taki Soma, Noah Salonga & Sergio Fernandez Davila
  • issue: #100 (one-shot)
  • cover: E variant
  • release date: February, 2015
  • commentary: Judging from the armor, these creatures were once a party of knights. Now in undeath they are doomed to a wretched existence as graveknights. This group appears to have ambushed Red Sonja. Her steed is lost. Her axes cleaves through the arm of one foe who had grabbed hold of her armor, while her sword decapitates another that crept up behind her and a third pounces upon her from above. The undergarment beneath the lower half of Red Sonja's armor is colored a bright red here for titillating effect. Red Sonja is usually portrayed as wearing the armor over cloth of a beige or tan color.

8

  • title: Red Sonja (2016)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: John Royle
  • writers: Amy Chu and Erik Burnham
  • artist: Carlos E. Gomez
  • issue: #19 of 25
  • cover: E variant
  • release date: August, 2018
  • commentary: Ordinary weapons, forged of steel or crafted from wood, have little effect against incorporeal undead, such as the ghosts portrayed here. The weapon must be blessed by a divine power or enhanced through magic in order to make contact with bodiless creatures. Here, Red Sonja has set her sword afire with flame from a candle set in the skull of a demon. With this unholy fire does she seek to slay those which are no longer living.

9

  • title: Prophecy (2012)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Paul Renaud
  • writer: Ron Marz
  • artist: Walter Geovani
  • issue: #6 of 7
  • cover: A cover
  • release date: January, 2013
  • commentary: In the Prophecy series, Red Sonja comes face to face with the original vampire, Dracula.

10

  • title: Vampirella & Red Sonja (2019)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Terry & Rachel Dodson
  • writer: Jordie Bellaire
  • artist: Drew Moss
  • issue: #1 of 12
  • release date: September, 2019
  • cover: A cover
  • commentary: There are several series, including Prophecy, Legenderry, Swords of Sorrow, Pathfinder Worldscape, where Red Sonja crosses paths with the interstellar vampire, Vampirella. One of the current such cross-over series, Vampirella & Red Sonja, features the two heroines joining forces to thwart a villain that cannot be defeated except by their combined efforts.

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