Red Sonja

Red Sonja, "warrior woman out of majestic Hyrkania," is a fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith and first appearing in Conan the Barbarian #23 (Marvel Comics). She was loosely based on the character Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's short story "The Shadow of the Vulture" (The Magic Carpet Magazine, January 1934), which was rewritten as a Conan story for the Marvel comic.

Origin

The origin of Red Sonja, "The Day of the Sword", first appeared in Kull and the Barbarians issue 3 by Roy Thomas, Doug Moench and Howard Chaykin, and was later redrawn by Dick Giordano and Terry Austin for The Savage Sword of Conan, issue 78.

Related Topics:
Roy Thomas - Howard Chaykin - Dick Giordano

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Red Sonja lived with her family in a humble home in the Western Hyrkanian steppes. When she had just turned 17 years old, a group of cruel mercenaries killed her father Ivor, her mother and two younger brothers and burned their house and all their possessions. She survived but was raped by the leader of the group. Answering her cry for revenge, the red goddess Scathach appeared to her, and instilled in her incredible skill in the handling of swords and other weapons on the condition that she would never never lay with a man for the rest of her life, unless he had defeated her in fair battle.

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