Sha is a Franco-British comic story written by Pat Mills and drawn by Olivier Ledroit, originally published in Heavy Metal.
In fourteenth-century Europe, Lara is burned at the stake by the Inquisition for being a witch. In the twenty-second century, her reincarnation is awakened by the protector spirit of all witches, Sha, to hunt down the demons-in-human-flesh who previously killed her.
See also Requiem Vampire Knight for another Mills/Ledroit collaboration.
This comic provides examples of:
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Weirdly played with. One of the five main villains, who is obsessed with insects, is seen petting a Cute Kitten before casually feeding it to his arthropod friends while remarking that insects are the "superior species" on Earth. Of course, given What Measure Is a Non-Cute?, this is probably a straight example.
- Burn the Witch!: The comic is all about the spirit of a young witch who was wrongfully burned at the stake in the fourteenth century awakening in her reincarnation in The Future to seek revenge against the Knight Templar demons who killed her.
- Fat Bastard: The Duke who organized the witch hunt against Lara was obese and a Villainous Glutton.
- Religion of Evil: The Catholic Church is portrayed like this, since it was apparently run by demons posing as humans who used the Inquisition as a pretext to wipe out their enemies.
- Scarpia Ultimatum: The monk who interrogated Lara for her being a witch promised to spare her son's life in exchange for sex. After he had his way with her, he killed the boy anyway.
- Secondary Character Title: The main character is a witch named Lara; Sha is the protector deity of witches who makes Lara remember her past life.
- Straw Hypocrite: The Catholic quintumvirate that burned witches at the stake used the cover of religious motives to advance their own evil on Earth against the peaceful mages, given that they themselves were actually demons posing as Christians (or, alternatively, that Evil Makes You Monstrous).
- Vanity Is Feminine: The soul of a witch who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in the 14th century returns in the 22nd century to exact revenge on the five reincarnated demons responsible for killing her in their past lives. While the four men among them are all killed one by one, the woman who betrayed her is instead left alive with a debilitating disease that will slowly take away her beauty from her.
