Monday, April 4, 2022

Red One (Xavier Dorison and Terry Dodson)

 Red One, by Xavier Dorison and Terry Dodson, is a series of large size European graphic novels which answers an important question: what if there were a real Wonder Woman and she was a Communist creation? Unlike many of my fellow citizens, when I say Communist, I mean Communist. 

In the Seventies, the Soviets looked on America and saw naught but corruption. They did notice, however, that Americans loved their action heroes and their superheroe. They therefore created a perfect woman, a combination of Diana Prince, the Six Million Dollar Man, and Captain America (but not the Seventies television Captain America). They called her Red One. If they could persuade Americans to love Red One (nee Vera Yelnikov), then perhaps they could persuade Americans to love life, industrial progress, and the Soviet Way. As usual with such projects,  Yelnikov was considerably more idealistic than her handlers/ Her American handler was a diminutive horny Russian plant reminiscent of Doctor Sivana crossed with the more cynical and potentially abusive interpretation of Billy Batson's trip across America with Mentor. Red One's headquarters are naturally the nadir of American depravity, the place where dreams are made and fade, Hollywood. Her signature weapon was a device which can only be described as a cyber-sickle, farcical to Red One. Her handler, however, assured her that it was the ideal prop for the right propaganda.

Red One's primary opponent was a Puritan-themed serial killer called the Carpenter (because subtlety was lost long one). The Carpenter represented the fundamentalist basis of a portion of American society. 

The comparison of Red One to Wonder Woman is particularly strong in her initial misadventures in a New World, although I suspect theat the authors are exaggerating how sexually conservative Hollywood was behind the scenes - too much has been revealed since that decade.

If you like Yelena Belova in the MCU, this might be a book for you.

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