Super-Powered Comics: Savage Dragon

Savage Dragon has been around for over a hundred and fifty issues, but in the last half dozen issues the book has hit a creative stride it hasn't seen for a few years. Creator/writer/artist/everything-else-fans-will-him-do Erik Larsen is producing some of the best issues of this book ever.

In the mid-140’s, Erik made an interesting decision by putting Dragon back on the Chicago police force, the same role he occupied for the first forty or so issues of the book. Meanwhile, he is dealing with being the parent to two children for the first time, both his adopted daughter Angel (who has massive super-strength inherited from her late mother Smasher) and Malcolm (his son with Rapture with similar powers to Dragon’s own). He has a new ally in the Golden Age Daredevil (a character I have used myself over in Living Legends) and a new enemy in the second generation Dart. Oh, and Overlord is back too.

None of this probably means much to you if you have never read Savage Dragon. To you I say, for shame. Erik Larsen has regularly produced one of the most rip-roaring, exciting series of comics ever (and in the process produced the second longest uninterrupted run by a single creator, behind only Dave Sim and Cerebus). If you are unfamiliar with all the goodness, you should immediately check out Savage Dragon Archives volume 1 for a low cost intro to the series.

Sadly, Savage Dragon is one of several great “indy” superhero books that is woefully under-ordered. Anyone willing to try a great comic book should check Dragon out. Erik Larsen and I will both thank you.

Obscure Heroes: Wildstar

Wildstar: Sky Zero was one of the initial “second wave” of Image Comics. Created by Al Gordon and Jerry Ordway, it stood next to Dale Keown’s Pitt, Sam Keith’s The Maxx, Larry Stroman’s Tribe, Keith Giffen’s Trencher, Mike Grell’s Shaman’s Tears. Like most of those stories, Wildstar lasted for only a four issue run. Unlike the others, that was all that was planned.

Al Gordon’s previous writing credits included fill-ins on Legion of Super-Heroes and Timber Wolf, so a story about time-traveling metahumans seems right up his alley. He comes in alongside legendary Superman artist Jerry Ordway to produce a new book about an aging hero from the future known as Wildstar. It seems he is stuck in a time-loop, but for most of the series, we are not sure why. But once again he travels in to the past in an attempt to stop the post-apocalyptic badlands of his current existence.

In the past, he comes across a government agency responsible for alien tech as well as Mickey, the son of the agency’s head. But Wildstar didn’t time-jump alone and he has a half-dozen other metas to make his way past. Wildstar and Mickey become inexplicably linked as he tries to escape attack from the other time travelers and their duped government allies.

By the end of issue three, our hero is dead, but as in so many comics, it is a death that won’t last.


Wildstar would later return for a ongoing series that would last only three issues and a guest shot in Rob Liefeld’s best Image title, New Men, before returning again fairly recently in the pages of Savage Dragon under the new name of Soulstar. It seems a copyright dispute left the character without a name... and those old issues unsaleable. It’s a damn shame too. Whatever his name, he was a damn fine comic character.