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A review by all_hail_grimlock
Savage Dragon Archives, Vol. 1 by Erik Larsen
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.