The Fangirl

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

I was so excited for this run of Red Sonja, both as a long time fan of the character and an admired of Simone's work on other comic book titles (Wonder Woman and Batgirl). So while I was little disappointed in the first issue of the run, I remained hopeful and requested the first volume of the run through Netgalley.

Where to begin? 

It's wasn't horrible. The background given for Sonja as a pit fighter and the flashbacks to her childhood and death of her family were interesting. However, the main storyline of the Plague and her former pit fighter friend was...boring

I think it would have been more interesting if there had been some actual character development, but we barely get the back story (with a very off hand half assed lesbian-crush thing that annoyed me). Basically, the main villain is "crazy" and not in a very realistic, understandable sort of way, but just zealot, PTSD bonkers. Which can be done well, but wasn't handled with the care and detail to make it anything but "crazy bitch is fucking crazy, yo." So she ends up being this way over done victim!villain trope that I HATE!

There's a bit of a twist ending, two actually, but both feel flat and kind of pointless again, because it utilized stock bad guys  (aka under developed characters) that are very in line with the style of Sonja villains, but felt so hollow and tired after the main villain I couldn't find to fucks to rub together for either of them, much less their part of the plot. The entire story was a giant rats' nest of twists and turns, and throw away characters that felt like they should matter, but are so one-note they don't. 

By the end I just wanted it to be over, and wished I could have just had a comic that was all about Sonja's time in the pits. Or a more detailed story of her hunting down the assholes who killed her family. Either one of those stories would have made a great first volume in this run, and wouldn't have needed all the bells and whistles this story had, that ended up taking time away from the badly need character development that would have helped me get more invest in this story. 

Sadly, this was a dud for me and I won't be continuing to read the rest of this run.