Red Sonja: Birth of the She Devil: Lucio Parrillo

Keeping with the covers theme, and particularly with the covers for RED SONJA: BIRTH OF THE SHE-DEVIL (2019), here is the set by Lucio Parrillo that comprised the main covers for that title.

They’re strangely (and almost certainly involuntarily) complementary to the Parel variants. Where those covers were peacefull, almost restfull, with only traces of blood telling about violent combat, this set by Parrillo is full of violent action, battlelust, blood and gore. Parrillo’s Sonja is the full-bodied buxom warrior we all know and love, and his style perfectly evokes the classic Marvel covers by Joe Jusko and Boris Vallejo. By looking at them one never doubts that Sonja could fight an army on that metal bikini, and the sword cuts on her body fully attest to it. Parrillo also chose to emphasize the barbarian nature of Sonja (particularly in the cover for #4), what with all the skull necklace, heavy earrings and tribal face-paint.  It is a magnificent set, marred only by Sonja’s pin-up expression on the cover for #3.

Dynamite offered another set of variant covers by Sergio Dávila that, at least to me, look perfectly indifferent, and yet another (again, to my taste) perfectly irrelevant set of cosplay covers.

Red Sonja: Birth of the She Devil, SubaComic Exclusive (Gerald Parel)

Well, it surely must be old news by now, but SubaComic also offered variant covers for issues #2, #3, and #4 of last year’s mini-series RED SONJA: BIRTH OF THE SHE-DEVIL; however, for completism sake, here they are.

Just as it was the case with issue #1, these variants are by French artist Gerald Parel, whose covers are pretty well known by Marvel readers. His take on Red Sonja is quite interesting, presenting us a more elfin she-devil, not as well-endowed or muscular as one would expect, but lithe and elegant as a feline. The use of color and light is quite striking, particularly in issue #2. As a set, the four covers present a quite bucolic, almost pastoral, interpretation of Sonja, as if Parel is more interested in the inner-state of the warrior right before or after moments of violence, than in the fight itself, thus relegating violence to a necessity, rather than a taste, in Sonja’s life. Be as it may, these covers make for interesting comparison to the main covers for the series by Lucio Parrillo.