by Randy Lander

SAVAGE DRAGON #92-93 Recommended (7/10) Image Comics Writer/Artist: Erik Larsen Colors: Reuben Rude & Abel Mouton Letters: Chris Eliopoulos Price: $2.95 US/$4.70 CAN Savage Dragon is notable for several reasons, including being the only Image comic from their first batch of creations still done by its original creator and an approach to story that blends a mature sensibility with a teenager's enthusiasm. A short while back, Larsen threw the Dragon into chaos when one of his characters retro-actively altered time, and Dragon has been fighting to survive in a post-apocalyptic world ever since. These two issues are building up issues to a war that will change that status quo, as Dragon and a variety of super-villains gather and take on the architect of this dark future, and it's an engaging read, reminiscent of post-apocalypse epics like Kingdom Come or Days of Future Past. Larsen's work does suffer from some of the same difficulties as a book like Spider-Girl, however, in that the vast supporting cast and history that makes it so appealing to its regular audience makes it hard to approach for newer readers, and even the rebooting of continuity has quickly brought these familiar faces back, to the point where I wasn't sure who half the people were throughout a lot of the story. Larsen's artwork in general doesn't appeal to me on company-owned properties; his work on Defenders and Nova wasn't really to my taste. However, when he's working on Savage Dragon, it's hard to imagine anyone doing it better. The exaggerated anatomy, the heavy emphasis on Kirby-esque action and the gritty style blend together to create a very unique look for the book, and his work on company-owned titles never looks this good. There are some stunning panels in these two issues, including "Dragon's" fight with the death saucers of Khan or the violent and powerful battle between Dragon and Superpatriot. One of the best aspects of Savage Dragon has always been its mixture of Silver Age style with modern age realism. While heroes, villains and supporting cast can and do come back to life, there's also a real feeling of danger and death in the stories. Dragon isn't immune to death, serious injury or injury to his friends and loved ones anymore than the rest of the cast are. And Larsen is not shy about killing off characters, which makes the assault on the White House by Dragon and his allies all the more exciting. The stakes feel higher, and there's a visceral impact of seeing an ally get his head blown off, even if the character isn't one I'm familiar with. That's the weakness of the book for me, the vast history and enormous cast of characters that Larsen has built up. He's been working on this book for a long time, since before it was being published actually, and the scope of his universe is probably about the same size as that of Marvel or DC, all told. Unfortunately, when you get this many characters together, it's often hard to distinguish between them or give them any fleshing out, and while I get the sense that there are strange alliances going on from the way the characters talk to one another, I really don't understand all of the connections. The characterization and subplots of this book tends to fly under my radar, because I can't really relate to their convoluted histories. On top of the Silver Age meets dark age style lead stories, Savage Dragon has almost always been a showcase for other talent, and the backup strips are a real treat. Chris Giarrusso, the creator of Marvel's hilarious "Bullpen Bits," serves up a fun introduction to "Comic Bits," a more widespread version of that cartoon strip. Karl H. provides the strangely hilarious parody of Dilbert and Savage Dragon, blending two stories that don't seem like a natural mix into a strip that captures the humorous elements of both. And then there are the occasional bonuses, like a couple gorgeous pin-ups of Superpatriot by cover god Dave Johnson and unfamiliar name Cory Walker. These comic books were not part of this week's new releases. Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.