By Marc Mason

This coming Wednesday, I am making my comic book debut on the stands.

There. I said it. Okay, I’ve been saying it since November on my Twitter feed and my Facebook account, but I’ve never really been quite sure of how to talk about it here. CWR was something I started in order to talk about other peoples’ comics. I wasn’t sure of how self-serving it would be if I spent a lot of time talking about mine. Thus, I have hesitated on it. But now I’ve reached the “fuck it” point- my book is on stands next week and it is something I am incredibly proud of.

I first pitched RED SONJA: RAVEN to Dynamite Entertainment in September of 2009. The story went through a long gestation period, until late this past August, editor Joe Rybandt asked me to pitch a slightly altered version of the story. I did, and it got the green light. I spent the next couple of weeks working on it, getting some excellent early notes from Joe that really guided me in the right direction, then it went out to the amazing hands of artist Lui Antonio (he’s done Sonja before, as well as TERMINATOR and WARLORD OF MARS stuff) and he put my words to page. I’m serious when I tell you this: Lui is a terrific talent. He can do stunning action, quiet moments full of emotion, and everything in-between- and do it well. I couldn’t ask for a better looking book for my first time on the stands. Lui made RAVEN better than I could have hoped for, and I would write something for him again at the drop of a hat. Really, the entire crew at Dynamite is awesome- there is a reason that huge names like Garth Ennis, Alex Ross, and Kevin Smith do books at DE. From Nick Barrucci on down, the place is filled with smart people dedicated to making great comics. The entire process was pain-free.

The genesis of RAVEN came one evening when I was at the grocery store. I was looking at the covers of the awful tabloids at the checkout counter and almost all of them were talking about men leaving women for younger, more attractive mates and/or offering ways for women to make sure that their men never leave them for younger, more attractive mates. It was appalling, a stunning reminder of just how terribly we treat women in our society. As progressive as we like to believe we are, this is still a patriarchal society that is politically and financially dominated by males. Women are making progress but still facing a stacked deck.

Anyway, I went home that night and was reading some comics, and an issue of RED SONJA was one of them. I have a solid history with Dynamite’s version of the character; when I resurrected The Aisle Seat for the magazine version of CWR, the first column was was a lengthy look at the character and the series. A number of outstanding talents have been writing her adventures over the past few years- Mike Oeming, Brian Reed, Eric Trautmann, Arvid Nelson, Luke Lieberman- and the stories have been excellent. So as I read that evening, the thought popped into my head that at least Sonja never had to worry about being replaced by a younger woman…

And then it hit me- what if she was?

Since she doesn’t have a husband or steady lover, it would have to mean that she was replaced in another way. Sonja was resurrected and made into a warrior by the goddess Scathach. What if the goddess found another girl in the same situation she had found Sonja and turned her favored eye to her instead?

What would that mean for Sonja? And what kind of warrior would the new girl turn out to be? Dynamite’s version of Sonja is an intelligent, clever warrior, and though she isn’t exactly enamored of men, she has taken a lover in the series. She accepts that there must be peaceful coexistence between the sexes, even as she proves time and again that a woman is the greatest warrior in the land. The previous Marvel incarnation of the character was more militant about gender issues, which was one of the reasons I never cared much for her. The nuances of that idea were never fleshed out particularly well. Then my nerd side kicked in hard- I had this particular thought roll through my head:

“Dynamite Sonja is kinda like Professor X and Marvel’s version was a little more Magneto.”

That’s when I knew I had my story. Sonja’s replacement was going to turn out to be militant, but with good reason (much like Magneto is, really). She would repudiate Sonja’s ability to live and work alongside men. She would rip Sonja for her costume. She would be the flip side of the coin to the legendary redheaded heroine. She would also be a brunette, just to set the physical differences up as well.

I went back through my Sonja comics and noticed that her primary villains were men. Kulan Gath. Thulsa Doom. Even Loki in these past couple of years. One miniseries did set her up against a sorceress, but it really felt like I had some room to create someone new for Sonja’s rogues gallery: a dark mirror of who Sonja could have been had things turned out slightly different. I named her Raven, wanting to symbolize that dichotomy. From there it went to laying out the details. The one thing I knew was that I had a story that was about something. There was an underlying theme to the action, and a hero’s journey for Sonja to take – as well as one for Raven – for the first time, I genuinely felt like I could step across the line and write the comics instead of just write about them. It was a damned fine feeling.

So I went to work writing the pitch and waited to see how it would all fall out. Some time passed, but now here I am, four days from the book hitting the shelves. I’m not harboring any illusions- I’m an unknown name to most comics readers so it’ll be easy for RAVEN to get lost on the shelves. But I am hopeful that those that find the book enjoy it and see that I did my best to give them their money’s worth.

I’ll share this with you: writing action sequences is not easy. I went into the scripting figuring it would be the easiest part, but it turned out to be far more difficult than I could have ever imagined. But the moment I was most worried about turned out to be my favorite panel in the book. Here is the script for the top of page thirteen:

Panel one:
Let’s go for the iconic shot here, a panel taking up two-thirds of the page, showing why Sonja is the deadliest warrior in the land. On the left side of the panel, which is SONJA’s rear flank, she is being attacked by an ELITE FOLLOWER- and SONJA has blocked the woman’s attack by using the previous ELITE FOLLOWER’s dead body to catch the sword being thrust at her from behind. She is holding the body up by the neck with her right arm. On the right side of the panel, she is blocking the swords of the other two ELITE FOLLOWERS using her own sword in her left hand.

Here is Lui’s incredible version of that panel:

RED SONJA: RAVEN goes on sale Wednesday, January 18th. If your shop doesn’t have it or is out, ask them to reorder. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.