Set Description:
An extension of my Marvel Red Sonja sets – Dynamite Entertainment’s Red Sonja Vol 1, really is an amazing modern set. I know that many collectors aren’t all that excited about variant covers and all the options that are available – but what other modern set includes covers by in the first 25 issues by Dick Giordano, George Perez, Pablo Marcos, Alex Ross, Adam Hughes, Jim Lee, Frank Cho, and Mel Rubi, as well as bringing in classic Red Sonja artists like Art Adams, Frank Brunner, and John Romita Sr.? Artists who drew Red Sonja for Marvel.
Dynamite also made excellent use of existing art by Neal Adams and Estaban Moroto, which must have been included in the Red Sonja license, for incentive covers on issues 2 and 3 (that I am aware of)
On top of that, this run has more that twice as many issues as all the Marvel Red Sonja runs combined – including Marvel Feature Vol 2, and great storylines.
I’ll never be one to try to chase down 9.9s or all the RRP editions of the early issues, but I do love a good run – and this is definitely a good run.
As to my interest in Red Sonja – well, I love red headed swordswomen so much, I married one. Together with my love of cover art and my 25+ years of stage combat, jousting, & teaching swordsmanship for stage, left me with some strong opinions on how you stand, how you wear armor, and how you hold your damn sword. So, hold on to your sword, keep your shield up, and let's cut to the bone.
This is fun and interesting - so, originally, CGC said that they were not going to differentiate between the various 1:1 ratio covers that Dynamite put out. You can clearly see in the notes on the right side of issue 1 that 5 different covers exist by Ross, Turner, Rivera, Cassady (that's a typo - it's Cassaday), & Linsner. Technically, I think that Rivera cover is cover 1C. But if you look at the other books in this set, you'll see that I have the Cassaday cover of issue 1, which is labelled as "Cassaday Variant" and when the set listing gets updated I'll add the Ross cover of issue 1, which my copy is labelled as cover 1E (I know the set has to be updated, it won't let me put that book in the slot for issue 1). So sometime in the great scheme of things, CGC grading and labelling has decided that they *will* differentiate the different 1:1 covers, which is going to make an absolute mess out of this set listing as issues 1 through 3 have at least five 1:1 covers and all the issues up through 51 have at least three 1:1 covers and most have four. Additionally, they're not even labelling them the same - with Cassaday variant in one instance, but 1E in another, later instance. What do you do when some of the books are graded and labeled one way, and other books are graded and labeled a completely different way, which is incompatible with the set listing as it was originally set up? I wonder what happens if I send my books back in to be re-labelled.
In addition to this fun - CGC also mixed up the Giant Size Red Sonja issues and the Red Sonja Annual issues - as the book I have uploaded as Red Sonja Annual 1 is actually Giant Size Red Sonja 1.
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