A Red Sonja Solstice Special With Torunn Grønbekk And Edson

Posted in: Comics, Dynamite | Tagged: Edson, red sonja, Torunn Grønbekk

A Red Sonja Solstice Special With Torunn Grønbekk And Edson

A Red Sonja Solstice Special with Torunn Grønbekk and Edson from Dynamite Entertainment in December #red

Published Thu, 17 Sep 2026 11:58:08 -0500
by Rich Johnston
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Last updated Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:04:41 -0500
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Article Summary

• Red Sonja Solstice Special arrives from Dynamite in December, bringing a brutal Hyborian holiday twist to the She-Devil.
• Torunn Grønbekk returns to Red Sonja after her acclaimed 18-issue run, joined by artist Edson for the one-shot.
• Set during midwinter celebrations, Red Sonja’s tavern feast turns into a cursed village nightmare of demons and carnage.
• The Red Sonja Solstice Special features covers by Francesco Mattina, Josephine Tomarchio, and Megan Random.

Dynamite Entertainment CEO Nick Barrucci tells me about the upcoming Red Sonja Solstice Special. "While Vampirella is going to Spain, Red Sonja is planning on spending the winter holiday in Hyboria. Man, she should expand her horizons. ;-) And who better to write this than Torunn Grønbekk, who returns to the She-Devil With a Sword, following her acclaimed 18-issue saga! The Norwegian scribe was able to channel a unique lens into the sword and sorcery genre, and she picks right up where she left off tapping into that here with this unique approach to a holiday special. Her partner on this quest is artist Edson."

"It is midwinter in the Hyborean Age, and people everywhere are celebrating the holiday season. Having come into some gold on a recent swashbuckling adventure, Red Sonja is herself celebrating in a tavern enjoying some feasting and drink. All that tranquility is terrifyingly shattered as the fiery-haired sword-swinger makes a trip to a cursed village, with demons, slaughter, and carnage in its wake. Holiday celebrations can often get hectic, but not quite as bloody and deadly as this!"

With covers by Francesco Mattina, Josephine Tomarchio and Megan Random. Red Sonja is a sword-and-sorcery heroine created for Marvel Comics in 1973 by writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith. She is often treated as a Robert E. Howard character because she lives in Howard's Hyborian Age and was built from one of his names, but the woman in the chainmail bikini is a comics invention. In 1934, Howard published The Shadow of the Vulture, featuring Red Sonya of Rogatino: a 16th-century Russian/Ukrainian fighter with sword and pistol at the Siege of Vienna. Thomas and Windsor-Smith adapted that story into Conan the Barbarian #23 in 1973, moved her into Conan's prehistoric fantasy world, changed the spelling to Sonja, and then immediately treated her as a new person. Classic Sonja is a Hyrkanian warrior: red-haired, lethal with a sword, wandering a world of warlords, wizards, and monsters. Brigitte Nielsen played her in Richard Fleischer's 1985 Red Sonja, with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Kalidor. A long-gestating reboot directed by M. J. Bassett, written by Tasha Huo, and starring Matilda Lutz finally arrived in 2025, which I loved and no one else saw, it seems.

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