Red Sonja: Age Of Chaos #5 - Dynamite Entertainment

RED SONJA: AGE OF CHAOS No. 5, July 2020

For those readers who enjoy an abundance of decapitations or grisly bodily dismemberments inside their comic books, Erik Burnham’s script to Issue Five of “Red Sonja: Age Of Chaos” must have entertained them enormously with its seemingly endless carousel of sword-hacking and arm-ripping shenanigans. In fact, many within this twenty-page periodical’s audience would probably struggle to recall another title the safe side of a Teen-rated publication which contains quite so many flying heads and severed limbs as the “Minnesotan writer” manages to weave throughout this mini-series’ particular instalment.

Happily however, such graphic violence isn’t simply gratuitous nonsense either, and actually helps progress a truly pulse-pounding plot which predominantly focuses upon the titular character’s headlong dash across the Great Desert of the East towards a long-hidden temple in order to “resurrect an infamous Necromancer.” True, Chasity’s shocking beheading doesn’t surprisingly keep the “half-breed” vampire out of the action for too long, but the gruesome demise of Red Sonja’s travelling companion certainly spurs the Hyrkanian warrior on to some truly breathtakingly brave moments whilst fighting “a newly powered Purgatori”.

In addition, the death of Brian Pulido’s mohawked co-creation, alongside that of Jade, provides the hilarious Evil Ernie with two ready-made puppets with which to claim Kulan Gath’s highly-sought after talisman. Indeed, the green-glowing drones’ attack upon Purgatori and Sonja produces some of this comic’s most memorable actions sequences, including a genuine laugh-out-loud moment when the “She-devil with a Sword” unflinchingly dispatches her resurrected friend with a merciless sword-swipe much to Chasity’s chagrin; “Just make it fast, huh? And then put that amulet on my corpse… Geez, didn’t take much convincing…”

Imbuing this book’s impressive “Chaos! library of characters” with plenty of animated life, even those which are noticeably Undead, is artist Jonathan Lau, whose pencilling goes a great way to depicting the sheer speed of the events which Burnham has penned. One moment Red is furiously fighting off a frenzied horde of blood-drinking thralls, and then in the next a revitalised Jade is making more martial art moves against Lucifer’s bride-to-be than the human eye can possibly follow before the four thousand year-old vampire-sorceress has her limbs vividly torn out from their sockets.

The regular cover art of "RED SONJA: AGE OF CHAOS" No. 5 by Alan Quah