Vampirella versus Red Sonja #1

History

Editor Nate Cosby originally approached Dan Abnett to devise a story incorporating both Vampirella and Red Sonja into the high-tech, multiversal world of the Project, with Abnett confirming that the two characters were 'baked into the concept from the very start' when the parallel prequel series were planned in 2020. Vampirella: The Dark Powers launched in December 2020 and Red Sonja: The Superpowers ran concurrently, each threading plot lines that were designed to converge; Vampirella vs. Red Sonja #1 is the formal payoff of that design. Abnett reunited with artist Alessandro Ranaldi — with whom he had previously worked on Immortal Red Sonja — and colorist Ellie Wright for the five-issue limited series, which shipped from November 2022 through early 2023 before being collected in a trade paperback in September 2023.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published by Dynamite Entertainment; written by Dan Abnett, art by Alessandro Ranaldi, colors by Ellie Wright; on sale November 2, 2022.
• The issue serves as the direct sequel and convergence point of two earlier Dan Abnett–written Dynamite series: Vampirella: The Dark Powers (2020) and Red Sonja: The Superpowers (2021), both also edited by Nate Cosby.
• A new character, Dyna Might, is introduced as the newest recruit to the Project and functions as the reader-surrogate point-of-view character for issue #1, walking into the crisis on her very first day with the team.
• The story's central conflict is structured around a multiverse-level threat targeting Black Terror's home Earth, with Vampirella — described as the first supernatural being the Project has ever recruited — wrongly suspected of being responsible.
• The issue features a large ensemble of Golden Age public-domain superheroes operating within the Project, including The Black Terror, Green Lama, Super-American, Professor Supermind, Black Venus, and others indexed in the catalog; their presence draws explicit critical comparisons to DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths.
• Cover A was painted by Lucio Parrillo; additional regular covers were by Joseph Michael Linsner, Joe Quinones, Jae Lee, and a cosplay cover by Rachel Hollon, with a blank Authentix variant also offered — reflecting Dynamite's standard heavy-variant publishing model of the era.
• The five-issue limited series was collected in a trade paperback (ISBN 978-1-5241-2377-2) published by Dynamite in September 2023.
• The series' world proved durable: a follow-up one-shot, Vampirella vs. Red Sonja: Red City, by writer Chuck Brown and artist Paulo H. Mel, was announced for August 2026, continuing the Project continuity with Dyna Might alongside the two leads.

Cast · 13 characters

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