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revisins's review
3.0
Big, stupid, 90's fun. Seriously, just a bunch of 90's all over the place. Of the Images books...this one has probably aged the best--only because it was full on taking the piss of the comics industry. Erik Larsen is a trickster and just a wee bit too wry for his own good. Is it high art? No, but it doesn't have the airs of that appeal anyway. The book and it's creator know exactly what it is and pulls it off decently.
As for the low rating...it won't stay with me. Like the best empty calorie reading--feels great at the time, but it won't linger for me. Still nice to revisit every so often.
As for the low rating...it won't stay with me. Like the best empty calorie reading--feels great at the time, but it won't linger for me. Still nice to revisit every so often.
dantastic's review
4.0
An armored crime boss named Overlord has Chicago in an iron grip and super powered freaks are bleeding the town dry. A finheaded man is found in a burning field and joins the Chicago Police Department as... The Savage Dragon! Can the Dragon end Overlord's reign of terror?
Savage Dragon Archives volume 1 contains issues 1-3 of the Savage Dragon miniseries and issues 1-21 of the regular series.
Like a lot of guys my age, I was all over the Image books when they launched and Savage Dragon #1 was one of the first ones I picked up. It was a fun book but I was soon out of comics in favor of Dungeons and Dragons. Now, years later, I've decided to read the series in its entirety in these inexpensive archive editions.
Erik Larsen came to prominence on Amazing Spider-Man, tasked with filling Todd McFarlane's shoes. When the Big Seven left Marvel to form Image, Larsen was one of them. The Dragon is a big brute of a super hero, green, strong, and with a big fin on his head. I've seen some people dismiss him as a Hulk ripoff but he's much more like Ben Grimm, personality wise.
Anyway, Dragon's a cop that beats the shit out of a lot of super powered criminals. That doesn't sound particularly innovative but the series happens in real time, more or less. The Dragon experiences his share of ass kickings and deaths, starting with his girlfriend getting shot in the head while answering the door.
The book is basically a two year arc of Dragon trying to take down Overloard, suffering lots of setbacks along the way. Dragon is like Ben Grimm as a beat cop in the worst city on earth. Larsen introduces character after character, killing off a fair percentage of them. Larsen has a great sense of pace and really knows how to put a page together. The art is prime 1990s, complete with cross hatching all over the place. Some people might be put off by the b&w artwork but I think taking away the color lets Larsen's skill and sense of design shine through.
Make no mistake about it, this isn't Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. There aren't any big concepts or flowery prose. Savage Dragon is a pure distillation of "beat the shit out of the bad guys" super hero comics. Four out of five stars.
Savage Dragon Archives volume 1 contains issues 1-3 of the Savage Dragon miniseries and issues 1-21 of the regular series.
Like a lot of guys my age, I was all over the Image books when they launched and Savage Dragon #1 was one of the first ones I picked up. It was a fun book but I was soon out of comics in favor of Dungeons and Dragons. Now, years later, I've decided to read the series in its entirety in these inexpensive archive editions.
Erik Larsen came to prominence on Amazing Spider-Man, tasked with filling Todd McFarlane's shoes. When the Big Seven left Marvel to form Image, Larsen was one of them. The Dragon is a big brute of a super hero, green, strong, and with a big fin on his head. I've seen some people dismiss him as a Hulk ripoff but he's much more like Ben Grimm, personality wise.
Anyway, Dragon's a cop that beats the shit out of a lot of super powered criminals. That doesn't sound particularly innovative but the series happens in real time, more or less. The Dragon experiences his share of ass kickings and deaths, starting with his girlfriend getting shot in the head while answering the door.
The book is basically a two year arc of Dragon trying to take down Overloard, suffering lots of setbacks along the way. Dragon is like Ben Grimm as a beat cop in the worst city on earth. Larsen introduces character after character, killing off a fair percentage of them. Larsen has a great sense of pace and really knows how to put a page together. The art is prime 1990s, complete with cross hatching all over the place. Some people might be put off by the b&w artwork but I think taking away the color lets Larsen's skill and sense of design shine through.
Make no mistake about it, this isn't Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. There aren't any big concepts or flowery prose. Savage Dragon is a pure distillation of "beat the shit out of the bad guys" super hero comics. Four out of five stars.
craicerjack's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
justinsdrown's review
3.0
I understand what this comic represents. The author seems like a good person. But this comic isn't for me. Savage Dragon is praised for it's slow burn storytelling. I think that's not the full picture. The storytelling is slow paced because action sequences take up 80 percent of each issues. I understand that this is what a lot of people would like. I don't personally feel that this high octane action gels with the tone the drama is trying to set.
jl_shioshita's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
zachb's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
all_hail_grimlock's review
So, man, I love this series. I was also so confused the first time I saw it in color: I hadn't known about it until the Humble Bundle, which I bought for other series, and got hooked. But they gave us the black and white archives. I don't mind. The art, I think, stands up well in black and white, and I actually read so much of it in such a short time, I got used to the black and white aesthetic and ended up not liking the colored versions as much, in fact.
Dragon is a green-skinned man with a fin on his head and a type of amnesia where he remembers facts about the world - who's the president, who won sports events - but nothing about how he is at all. When he's found by a police officer, Frank Darling, Dragon shows extraordinary abilities: his strength, his healing factor, his ability to withstand almost any damage caused by explosions, fights, and whatever firepower villains bring to the fight. Darling tries to recruit Dragon to the police force, and eventually manages to do so, a necessity given the super freaks - often simply called freaks - who have overrun Chicago and mostly turned into lawbreakers as they find they can take what they want.
Along the way, Dragon finds allies, on the police force, in the hospital where he often ends up after a particularly brutal fight, and other freaks who also want to fight on the side of the police force. He makes enemies as well, including Overlord, the ruler of the Vicious Circle, which is really the mafia morphed as freaks joined the ranks of organized crime. Not all the people in Chicago are charmed by Dragon either; as much as he helps against the super powered organized crime, he also attracts those he wants to fight - Bedrock to test him for Younblood membership, villains who want to prove their strength by defeating Dragon - and his fights tend to end up with casualties - including civilians and fellow police officers - and damage to the city.
I'm rereading this, so a lot wasn't a huge shock to me like it was the first time around. On the other hand, I'm really enjoying this as a re-read. Especially the detailed backgrounds of a lot of the characters. I wasn't going to knock down one star, but Larsen has an... issue writing women. Oddly enough, it gets worse at some point - I picked up current issues during grad school, and it got so sexual to the point that the character development and plot were sacrificed. I ended up buying an issue on a whim later on, and it seemed to have leveled out, but I wasn't super invested so I never picked it up regularly.
I'll probably stick with these six volumes I own via a Humble Bundle, then see if I can pick up later volumes on sale, or better yet, via my library, to be honest. I also don't tend to complain about sexualization as much as some do in comics (between the visual medium and the history and the fact that sex sells comics, I realize it's going to be part of the industry for the foreseeable future and I actually enjoy the pretty people in the comics) but this gets super weird at some point in the future. Looking back, I should have realized it would go this way: there were a couple signs that I waved off as anomalies/Larsen trying to use hyper sexualization of women to sell comics, but it showed.
Weird isn't necessarily bad: some people may enjoy it, it got too weird for me. It also highlights that despite the characters being distinct instead of carbon copies of each other, the weakness in that level of writing is that women tend to throw themselves at Dragon, making them too same-sy when it happens again and again. It has a couple flaws, but overall, Larsen gets comics and superheroes and the tropes that go along with it: he plays with them enough to make this a lot of fun.
Dragon is a green-skinned man with a fin on his head and a type of amnesia where he remembers facts about the world - who's the president, who won sports events - but nothing about how he is at all. When he's found by a police officer, Frank Darling, Dragon shows extraordinary abilities: his strength, his healing factor, his ability to withstand almost any damage caused by explosions, fights, and whatever firepower villains bring to the fight. Darling tries to recruit Dragon to the police force, and eventually manages to do so, a necessity given the super freaks - often simply called freaks - who have overrun Chicago and mostly turned into lawbreakers as they find they can take what they want.
Along the way, Dragon finds allies, on the police force, in the hospital where he often ends up after a particularly brutal fight, and other freaks who also want to fight on the side of the police force. He makes enemies as well, including Overlord, the ruler of the Vicious Circle, which is really the mafia morphed as freaks joined the ranks of organized crime. Not all the people in Chicago are charmed by Dragon either; as much as he helps against the super powered organized crime, he also attracts those he wants to fight - Bedrock to test him for Younblood membership, villains who want to prove their strength by defeating Dragon - and his fights tend to end up with casualties - including civilians and fellow police officers - and damage to the city.
I'm rereading this, so a lot wasn't a huge shock to me like it was the first time around. On the other hand, I'm really enjoying this as a re-read. Especially the detailed backgrounds of a lot of the characters. I wasn't going to knock down one star, but Larsen has an... issue writing women. Oddly enough, it gets worse at some point - I picked up current issues during grad school, and it got so sexual to the point that the character development and plot were sacrificed. I ended up buying an issue on a whim later on, and it seemed to have leveled out, but I wasn't super invested so I never picked it up regularly.
I'll probably stick with these six volumes I own via a Humble Bundle, then see if I can pick up later volumes on sale, or better yet, via my library, to be honest. I also don't tend to complain about sexualization as much as some do in comics (between the visual medium and the history and the fact that sex sells comics, I realize it's going to be part of the industry for the foreseeable future and I actually enjoy the pretty people in the comics) but this gets super weird at some point in the future. Looking back, I should have realized it would go this way: there were a couple signs that I waved off as anomalies/Larsen trying to use hyper sexualization of women to sell comics, but it showed.
Weird isn't necessarily bad: some people may enjoy it, it got too weird for me. It also highlights that despite the characters being distinct instead of carbon copies of each other, the weakness in that level of writing is that women tend to throw themselves at Dragon, making them too same-sy when it happens again and again. It has a couple flaws, but overall, Larsen gets comics and superheroes and the tropes that go along with it: he plays with them enough to make this a lot of fun.
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