Marvel Feature #1
Published and © by Marvel, November 1975
Title: “The Temple of Abomination!”
Synopsis: Red Sonja investigates an ancient temple within the Darkwood and soon finds herself battling an “unhuman horde.”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Dick Giordano
Review: This short lead story is slight, and the narrator dumps in awful lot of Hyborian detail. But the art by Dick Giordano – making a rare Marvel appearance – is a real treat. Giordano’s Red Sonja is realistically rendered – even if she is clad in that silly-but-iconic chain-mail bikini.
•••
Title: “Red Sonja”
Synopsis: After betraying a certain barbarian in Conan the Barbarian #24, Red Sonja returns to Pah-Dishah to find herself betrayed, too.
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artists: Esteban Maroto, Neal Adams and Ernie Chan (as Ernie Chua)
Review: This story, reprinted from Savage Sword of Conan #1, is visually quite sumptuous – not surprising given the artists involved.
Grade (for the entire issue): B+
Cool factor: The first of Red Sonja’s many solo books.
Not-so-cool factor: This reviewer has always found Red Sonja’s chain-mail bikini to be, well, impractical.
Notable: This issue also includes “Of Swords and She-Devils,” a one-page introductory essay by Roy Thomas.
Character quotable: “It doesn’t look to me as if the gods give a good damn about that miserable pig’s life.” – Red Sonja, she-devil and straight-talker
A word from the writer/editor: “Red Sonja comes to this issue of Marvel Feature as doubtless one of the most-requested female solo stars in the history of Marveldom.” – Roy Thomas, in this issue’s introductory essay
Editor’s note: This review was originally published by Comics Bronze Age on Nov. 12, 2012.
