For those unfamiliar with Red: she is the creation of "Pumpmonger". (At this time, his DeviantArt site has been deactivated; formerly you could find many, many pieces of art featuring Red, both commissioned and fan art (including a couple of pieces by yerz trooly.)

More info about Red herself - including why she never wears anything over her chest - is here.

This story is very heavily influenced by the plot of the 1964 Italian movie Maciste e la regina de Samar ("Maciste and the Queen of Samar"); you may know it better as Hercules Against the Moon Men. It's probably my favorite "Hercules" movie because of the inclusion of science-fiction elements into the strongman-sword-and-sandal formula. In a nutshell, what I've done here is taken the bones of the plot (legendary strongman must rescue an oppressed people from a tyrannical queen who regularly sacrifices a number of her subjects to the extraterrestrial alien who helps her maintain her reign), and switched the gender of the hero, so that she's a legendary strongwoman and warrior.

There are also other changes I've made along the way, in an effort to a) distinguish this as much as possible from the original source, and b) address what I see as "missed opportunities" the original film could’ve done. And along the way, I'll pop in at the bottom of a page to detail these changes...

...starting right here on the first page! Whereas Hercules Against the Moon Men (or HATMM) begins with a prologue that "bludgeons you over the head with the blunt end of the movie's premise" (to paraphrase Strong Bad), I decided to jump right into the story: with Demitros braving the sandstorm that always seems to be raging at the peak of the "Mountain of Death".

Oh, yes - "Sandstorm! SAAAAANDSTOOOORRRM!" HATMM was the victim subject of one of the better episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the episode that featured "Deeeeeep Huurrrting!"

©2014 David C. Matthews