Number 1 Barbarian Award; And the Winner is
Red Sonja

Gail Simone has taken our Raven haired heroine and shown her strength and vulnerability in a wonderfully crafted story. Its gruesome when it needs to be but the real skill is showing a Sonja who is at times at real risk due factors outside of her control.
Its the points when she is at her weakest that the strength of the character within the armour pours out and this for me is the triumph of the story. Although Conan also had his moments of weakness within the Hour of the Dragon series. The writing and the fact it was the old king telling his own story never let you worry about where the story was heading.
Simone's other Red Sonja piece Legends of Red Sonja is also showing a lot of promise but with only two issues I can not really put that up for this fight.
We only officially reviewed one issue of the series so far on the site but it is a series I have in digital and a few print copies to boot which you can read here but we will be adding more as time goes on.
All I can say for now is all hail Red Sonja Queen of the Barbarians for 2013.