Conan Red Sonja- The Age of Innocence #1: Feminist liberal morality hole

Writers: Gail Simone & Jim Zub
Art: Dan Panosian
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 14th January 2015


The two writers of this book have achieved the impossible. They have made me dislike a book that is starring Conan the Cimmerian. How did they achieve such a momentous, incredible, reality shaking, thunderous, unprecedented feat? I’ll explain.

First off, the art is excellent throughout. The panels are lovingly detailed, the colouring is gritty, dirty and atmospheric and the individual characters are full of personality and character. The only problem is the characterisation of Conan himself. He’s drawn great, but he’s drawn as a male model, as a pretty boy. He is not Conan, he is Red Sonja’s boy toy, but more of that later.

The story itself, at this early stage, has two huge fundamental flaws to it. It begins with Red Sonja doing what she always do in Gail Simone’s books, using the victim status given to her by her gender to dish out some violent ‘justice’ to animal rights abusing, sexist fat rich (right wing substitute) men.

Sonja sticks up for poor, abused animals (before completely forgetting about them later) and beats up a man who dared to find her attractive and wanted to sleep with her. Don’t worry, the man is old and fat, so that’s okay.

Anyway, so far, so normal for your typical Gail Simone book. The first problem is that this surface reason for Sonja’s violence hides her true motivations, which are thievery. Animal cruelty and sexism are the moral get-ins for the character, allowing her to steal, because the people she steals from are bad people. Just think about that for a second. This comic book is telling you that stealing is okay, just as long as you are stealing from bad people. Who gets to define whether or not a person is ‘bad?’ That would be the political left, as epitomised by the animal rights, feminist crusader Red Sonja, of course.

After the animal rights and sexism excuses are discarded Sonja teams up with (a very pretty) Conan to rob a young prince as he is laying in his bedchamber. This completely innocent, blameless young man is then brutally murdered by Conan, and what is Red Sonja’s reaction to this horrific, unjustifiable murder? Surely a truly moral person who cares so deeply about animal suffering and gender equality would find murder abhorrent? Nope, not at all, she meekly comments that the murder ‘seems excessive,’ and then completely forgets about it. She then spends the rest of the book looking at pretty boy Conan (the murderer) with puppydog eyes, completely indifferent to the fact that she has witnessed him murdering a young man, who did absolutely nothing wrong.

What happened to morality? How are these two character heroes? Sonja and Conan have been commissioned by a third party to steal somebody’s possessions, entered a young man's bedroom late at night, murdered him, and stolen his box of jewels. That, in anybody’s eyes, makes Conan and Red Sonja the villains of this story, not the heroes, doesn’t it?

After commencing their spree of murder and robbery our two heroes/villains (SPOILER ALERT) deliver their loot to the man who commissioned them to steal it. He then, inexplicably, explains his evil plans to them, rather than simply paying them and continuing on his way. Why would he do this? It makes no sense whatsoever, as he has nothing to gain by revealing the truth behind his schemes. That information would be on a need to know basis and the two mercenaries would quite simply, not need to know.

If you reveal the truth behind your scheme your paid mercenaries might not like it. They might even want to stop you from completing your evil plan, which is exactly what happens in this book. This twit of a villain has barely finished boasting about his evil plans when Conan quickly snaps his neck, and once again Red Sonja is completely indifferent to the casual murder.

What we can take from this is that Red Sonja is perfectly happy with murder, just as long as handsome young men like Conan are committing it. I guess she cares more about animal rights and sexism than anything else, as murder doesn’t appear to be much of a concern to her.

I find it very telling that animal rights and sexism have been used as a framing device within this narrative, as an entry point into a story about murder and thievery.

This deceptive technique has many parallels with western ‘democracies’ invading numerous middle-eastern countries for declared reasons based on neo-liberal definitions of human rights. When the ‘heroic’ liberators of the west actually get to those countries reality kicks in, concerns for human rights completely disappear, and it’s all about murder and stealing resources. In that way this comic is very much in keeping with the liberal values of our times. Use surface issues to justify your actions, then ignore reality as you loot, maim, murder and plunder, all the while portraying yourselves as the good guys, as the heroes of your fantasy narrative of liberal values.

I really enjoyed the art in this book, apart from Conan being drawn as a pretty boy, but I can’t continue to read it after this morally fractured first issue.

If you want to understand why the liberal mindset is so flawed, so twisted, so deluded, then you need to buy this book. Left leaning feminist types will love it, and they’ll hate what I have to say about it in this review. I’m happy with that. They live on hate and the desire to shut people up unless they agree with them, so this review is just more fuel for their fire of delusion, intolerance and politically correct mind control programming. The phoney ‘liberal’ left needs to wake up, and if I can expose their delusional mindset in some of these reviews then at least I’ve achieved something. Some people will get what I am saying here, others won’t. I put it out there, make of it what you will.

Rating: 4/10 (Apart from the depictions of Conan himself, the art was very enjoyable)

Review: Red Sonja #10- Emasculated men and women in charge

Story: Gail Simone
Art: Walter Geovani
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: 18th June 2014

Gail Simone has been having a bit of fun with Red Sonja recently, and in issue #10 she continues to portray the scantily clad warrior as somebody having a bit of a laugh. That’s okay, but when this current story- arc concludes I hope that the book starts to offer something more than just another feminist liberal chuckle.

This issue of Red Sonja will be remembered as the one where Sonja has a bit of fun with a dandy swordsmen who call himself ‘the untouched,’ not just because no opponent can lay a sword on him, but because (to Sonja’s dismay) he has vowed to remain chaste until somebody bests him in battle.

You can tell where the story is going from the very beginning, with Sonja clumsily duelling with the fop before getting serious at the end and showing him who’s the star (and boss) of the book.  It was fun, although the art was sometimes a little inconsistent.

Some reviewers will laud this book as being a champion of women’s rights as it portrays female characters in a strong and dominant role. This claim would have more substance if that was something unusual in contemporary comics, but that is not the case.

Gender roles are not being reversed in this book, as women get the better of feminised, emasculated men in just about every mainstream comic book on the market today. It’s the same in television shows and movies as well. Women are in charge, and men are fools, sexless metrosexuals or evil villains. In that regard this is a book of its time, where men are a bit of a joke and women are in charge.

So why am I reading what I myself would describe as feminist liberal book? After all, doesn’t this portrayal of emasculated masculinity weaken traditional gender roles, confusing not only young men but women as well?

Yes, it does, and it produces an enfeebled society where ‘useless’ men are removed from the family, replaced by the state and an ‘independent’ women who is nothing more than a slave to the centralised control system. This book undoubtedly plays it’s role in making this happen, and I’m very aware of that.

So again, why am I reading it? Because I’m still reacting as programmed by my liberal education I guess, where male guilt commands me to applaud any female portrayed in a dominant, masculine role. That’s probably the real, honest answer to my own question. I have been programmed, and I’m very aware of that. My goal now is to break the programming, but it’s bloody hard to do so.

Gail Simone is subconsciously playing into a larger agenda that she is probably unaware of. I don’t deny that she is very good at telling a joke, and as the one feminist liberal comic book on my pull list I’m still laughing at it, even though it’s starting to get a little uncomfortable for me now.

Will I still be following this book in a few months’ time? That’s the question here. If all it’s offering is a politically correct joke, why would somebody like myself who is looking to expand his critical awareness and consciousness bother to hang around? For the time being I’ll follow this story through to the end and see where the next arc is going. If it’s just more feminist liberal jokes then I’ll say goodbye to Red Sonja, but I’ve followed Gail Simone for a long time now, so I’ll give her another chance before moving on.
Rating: 7/10