Red Sonja

Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel Comics in 1973, Red Sonja is partially based on Robert E. Howard's character Red Sonya of Rogatino, a female swashbuckler from his 1934 short story "The Shadow of the Vulture", and to a certain degree also based on Howard's character Dark Agnes de Chastillon.

Marvel Comics published stories featuring Red Sonja until 1986, and returned to the character for a one-shot story in 1995. In 2005, Dynamite Entertainment began publishing stories of the heroine, during which the original Sonja was killed and replaced by a "reincarnation". The series was rebooted by writer Gail Simone in 2013, telling an altered version of Red Sonja's early life story via flashbacks. Subsequent writers of Red Sonja have included Amy Chu, Mark Russell, Luke Lieberman, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner, among others.

Red Sonja has appeared in numerous titles, both as a solo protagonist and together with Conan, as well as in crossovers with characters from Marvel Comics and Dynamite Comics. A Red Sonja novel was published in the 1980s written by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney, and in 1985, a feature film starring Brigitte Nielsen in the title role, Red Sonja, was released.

Sonja's signature clothing is her bikini armor, consisting typically of scale mail. In 2011, Red Sonja was ranked 1st in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.