Last week saw the release of Savage Dragon #262, which pits Malcolm and Paul Dragon against a vicious circle, while the rest of the cast deals with something a bit darker: the death of Horridus, a longtime member of the Freak Force who had refused to vaccinate against the COVID-19 virus. After she died as a result of a COVID infection, the treatment intended to save her – a shot of Malcolm Dragon’s blood, along with some Freak-Out – was instead given to another hospital patient… and the end result was catastrophic, with the “dragon type” of the virus making its way Through the entire hospital and exploding hundreds of casualties.
Yeah, yak. We spoke with Eric Larsen about the decisions made in making one of the bloodiest issues in a mainstream superhero comedy…maybe ever? Certainly in terms of total casualties.
future spoilers wild dragon #262.
Given that the pandemic has basically hit just as well as Malcolm has moved on, will we start to see a reintroduction of some of those characters we met in the early days of the Toronto race?
some yes. Not many make a real strong impression but the idea going forward is to reconnect with some of these characters and embody some of them. Unless things go seriously wrong in the real world – there are unlikely to be many epidemic events to talk about. It was annoying enough not being able to draw the full faces of the characters at times, which is especially difficult with characters we barely know.
Did Malcolm intentionally hit a guy who looked like Thanos in a two-page splash, or was this just a happy accident?
This was not the intent. It was initially designed as kind of a proper abomination but once purple was created – I can see the resemblance but it was never a deliberate hypocrisy on Thanos.
When you know you’re going to cut out a room of goons, is it super fun to choreograph a big messy fight choreography like this? There is almost black humor to some of them.
It’s not particularly fun. There’s a lot to keep track of from determining who’s in the room to defining the boundaries of the room and in cases where there’s a mass massacre, there’s always a problem of who’s dead and who isn’t dead yet. Then there are the characters themselves, some of which have barely appeared before and have body parts that are not poorly defined or not portrayed at all.
It involves a lot of combing through old comics and trying to find each character and see what has been identified and what has not. It’s a lot easier with the well-established villains I’ve drawn a hundred times. This ended up being a real nightmare. It’s fun to do some visual gags and drawing characters sliding and sliding in guts is fun enough, but the logistics are crazy.
On that note, are we going to run out of bad guys outright at some point? Looks like we’ve sold entire rooms from them a few times recently.
There is no danger of that. Part of the reason to clean the house is simply to clean the deck so we don’t have too many Dragon sr. Bad guys hang around. The stick must be passed in all respects. This motivates me to create some new villains. It shouldn’t be too much trouble. Additionally, most house cleanups consist of characters who haven’t distinguished themselves terribly, notable exceptions being Brawn and Chaos and Control.
Once he finishes his raging revenge rampage, what’s the end of Mako 2.0? What does he really want once he kills the people who anger him?
Before injecting himself with Mako’s blood, Benedict Milhouse, the executioner, was a serial killer. So he is a killer at heart. I don’t see him as having lofty ambitions beyond doing whatever the hell he wants. He is not a leader. It is not really affiliated. It is more powerful than the forces of nature.
On the other side of that, we lose Larry, Ann, and Sarah this issue. These characters have been around for years. Is it just time to go, or is the Dragon Variant Building just getting bigger?
Part of it is simply to change things up. Both Ann Stevens and Larry have been out of the picture for years, so losing them doesn’t really change things other than what it does to their daughter.
With Sarah, she was at a point where her naivety seemed a little ridiculous — she was pushing 50, after all, and it’s been a lot. Her story seemed to fade anyway and I wanted a big Covid death. Since she has a daughter who has many of her traits, and little by little Freak Force has been passed down to a younger generation, I decided to go with that. The Dragon Covid-19 version sounded like a fun idea, and it might lead to paranoia in and around the Dragon family,
What does this mean for the great man in particular?
Well, Betty Bradford is 12 years old, so while she’s not a baby, she’s far from an adult. I suppose there is some kind of inheritance there and possibly a chain of custody. The other members of Freak Force are sure to step up to help in some way.
The variable seems to have burned itself out… does that mean it’s not likely to come back? It seemed like this was a very interesting way to cut the whole “Use Dragon’s Blood to Heal Everything” thing.
I wouldn’t rule out an outbreak again, but the idea, at least at first, was for it to end here. As with everything, it will depend on the odds of the story. If a great idea comes up, I have it in my back pocket. And yes, blood therapy became convenient whenever things went wrong and seemed like a good way to remove this deity from the machine.
The case also saw the destruction of the remaining energy gauntlet, which had been a semi-regular weapon since it was introduced again wild dragon No. 23.
It really seems like Billy can’t get a break. How many Dragon Guardians will it need to pass before he stops seeing them die horribly?
Life was not easy for the little boy.
On that note, though… is this just an assumption that all of these characters should be working with at this point? That in the end everyone, even if it’s Malcolm and Paul, probably won’t go peacefully in their sleep?
Something everyone gets eventually. Nobody lives forever. But, you know, Sarah walked in relative peace, all things considered. The thing is, most of these characters are relatively young, so getting them to die peacefully in their sleep could mean getting past my age, and where’s the fun in that?
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