Savage Dragon #150, a 100-page monster of a comic book, was released to shops last week and saw some huge revelations. The introduction of a mysterious new Overlord (the “Who is Overlord?” question teased in promos was not, in fact, answered in this issue), the death of one hero the the apparent death of another were just some of the many twists and turns that this epic, sprawling issue took. With a 30-plus page main feature followed up by a number of supporting stories and reprints featuring everything from The Savage Dragon’s and the Golden Age Daredevil’s origins to new stories featuring Thor, Vanguard and G-Man, plus a ton of guest-artists and a Savage Dragon pinup by Spider-Man superstar John Romita, Jr.
So it’s a HUGE issue.
In order to keep comments manageable, we’ve decided to break down the commentary into two chunks: the first (today’s installment) on the main feature—Dragon’s first confrontation with the new Overlord—and the second, coming tomorrow, looking at the backup features, what they mean and why they were chosen.
Oh yeah–and SPOILERS ON, folks. Remember, this is a commentary piece and assumes that the reader has read Savage Dragon #150.
Blog@Newsarama: Whoa–there is a LOT of content in this issue, but I’m going to focus
Mainly on the central feature. I guess the first big question has to be—is Dragon, or are being led to believe that he is, dead at the end of the issue?
Erik Larsen: I can’t possibly answer that question. I need to avoid spoiling things which may occur.
Blog@: Some of the “chapter shifts–where the action moves from one group of characters to another–seem kind of abrupt. Is it just a matter of trying to maintain the suspense from scene to scene?
EL: Yeah. There’s a great deal of thought put into placement and pacing. One page may need to be on a left hand page and that may necessitate generating a spacer page on the right. It’s a careful balancing act. I’m very aware of the order in which pages fall. Readers see an entire spread when they turn the page and I take a lot of care not to spoil things. A lot of writers try to treat a comic book like a movie and write it as though they’re writing for the screen but in a movie you aren’t seeing a lot of scenes simultaneously–in comics you are, and if you have a big reveal in panel three of a right hand page you can’t count on a reader’s eye not to wander that direction and find out early what’s coming up. Writing for books, comics, TV and movies requires different approaches because of the different format restrictions and advantages. In TV you pace it to build to ad breaks. In comics it’s ideal to pace it to the flip.
Blog@: Why didn’t Daredevil and the Little Wise Guys bring Alison to a hospital? If they had no idea she needed to be hid from society, wouldn’t that make the most sense?
EL: This was something that came out of the old Golden Age Daredevil comics. They would routinely take in strangers and try to help them. Had she had broken bones or obvious problems that were beyond their ability to deal with–they might have taken her to the hospital but they tended to deal with problems themselves.
Blog@: So is it safe to assume that Octopus and Openface DO NOT know who the new Overlord is, or he’d have dispatched them?
EL: Yes. They don’t know.
Blog@: Should we read anything into being dismembered after saying “You never know when I might need spare parts?”
EL: Pretty much every line I write is deliberate. I like to plant seeds and let the readers mull things like that over.
Blog@: Part and parcel of the memories stored in the damaged brain–could we see a return of a villain like Emperor Kurr?
EL: There are a lot of unanswered questions there. The body is in some kind of liquid–what is that and what is it doing? Given that months have passed–is it even possible for there to be life in that withered husk?
The Emperor Kurr persona was wiped clean, or so the scientists believed–could there be any residual memories buried in there? Certainly that was enough of a fear that Kurr’s body was dumped on Earth.
Blog@: Has the Overlord armor gotten an upgrade here, or is he just using it with more abandon? It seems like just about everybody takes a single shot to obliterate!
EL: There’s been some work done, as stated, and visually, we are no longer seeing eyes through the eye holes or a human mouth where there was one before. This new Overlord is better shielded than his predecessor once was. Overlord states that the armor has been “given a complete overhaul. Power boosted–fail-safes eliminated.”
Blog@: In this first conversation–Overlord makes some valid points, he makes some
comic book references…are you trying to set up the readers for a fall a little bit by saying, “Hey, look, he’s not an entirely mad, evil bastard?” He really is–to use one of his own references–a bit more Magneto here than the old Overlord.
EL: Purely evil characters can be fun too but most folks tend to have shades of gray. A character can mean well but go at things in such a wrong way that a conflict arises. Overlord may “mean well” but in the context of the story he still killed three people. It’s that classic conflict, really, of saying that “if you’re going to make an omelette you’re going to have to break some eggs.” Dragon has the, perhaps naīve, notion that he can make the world a better place without doing any harm. Overlord accepts that there will be collateral damage–there will be casualties but that the end justifies the means. If Dragon is in the way of his ultimate goal, no matter how much the two may see eye-to-eye on a number of things, he’s expendable. For the “greater good” –he’s expendable.
Blog@: Is the Dart subplot–well, frankly, it’s looking like it may end up pitting Daredevil against his sidekicks ultimately. Am I reading that the wrong way?
EL: It’s just possible. Time will tell, eh?
July 16th, 2009 at 5:44 am
I love these post game interviews. Was worried you were going to stop doing them since it’s been a few weeks since the issue dropped. Really curious now what’s going to happen with Dragon’s memories during whatever resurrection process they attempt.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:30 am
I love these Larsen interviews! I hope this turns into a monthly thing.
Issue 150 was awesome. Until Erik mentioned it in this interview, I didn’t notice that this version of Overlord has his eyes and mouth shielded. A previous version of Overlord was defeated with a shot to the mouth.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
That’s just smart thinking. I think artists tend to forget about facing pages when they’re designing the panels per page. It’s tough when you see the work all together and you’re not exactly sure how the ads are going to be placed.
I remember a double-page spread that Lee Weeks had done for Captain America and it was absolutely ruined. The second page printed on the back of the first.
=s=
July 16th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I really liked this issue. There was a lot of surprising stuff going on as the interview above testifies, and the offhand manner Dart switches between faked innocent babysitter, and offhanded “2-second offhanded chopping the children into pie ingredients, and immediately back to the facade with a cleaned up kitchen” sequence was downright creepy. Glum, Dart, and Overlord are all smart and completely ruthless villains; the world thinks Dragon is a bastard, his wife was killed from slave work, his daughter was corrupted and ran off with a genocidal warlord, and now his head was blown off like it was nothing. And Spider-Man thinks that he’s got it tough…
July 16th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
The plan is (and has been) to make these a monthly thing. Like the “Manhunter” Q&A that dropped almost a month late, this one was my bad–something that was supposed to head out to Erik just never did and it wasn’t until he wrote to say, “Hey, are we still doing this?” that I got it up and running. The second half of the interview is off with Larsen being answered now, and will be online within MINUTES after I receive it tonight or early tomorrow, depending on Erik (since I sent it late–the guy’s a pro)!
July 16th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
I’m going to go ahead and say the new Overlord is Obama…just sayin’.
July 17th, 2009 at 7:37 am
It’s great to hear that this will be a monthly thing!
oh, and can we stop with the “Obama” comments already. It’s annoying that someone has to mention it every time there is a story about Savage Dragon or Erik Larsen.
July 17th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Hey Erik has been priming us the entire time introduced Obama as a character, and now bringing back Overlord? It’s actually pretty genius.
If anything its a way for him to back-peddle his support should he so see fit. Besides, Obama as a villian? They’ll fly off the shelves as quick as they are printed and he’ll get national attention, interviews, book deals, Savage Dragon will get a movie deal. All Larson sees is dollar signs. Well done sir.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Do you even read Savage Dragon or do you just like to troll around?
Do you also comment on the Obama issue of Spider-man every time there is a Newsarama story dealing with Spider-man?
“All Larson sees is dollar signs” couldn’t be further from the truth. If that was so, Savage Dragon would have rebooted at #1 at least three times by now.
July 18th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Craig, try not to let guys like this get you worked up. If he knew what and who he was talking about, he would at least have spelled “Larsen” correctly.
July 18th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
That idea might work if Obama’s approval ratings sink more.
July 19th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
What the hell is wrong with you people? Obama was in one issue– for a grand total of six panels. It’s not as though the guy has been a huge part of the book. George W. Bush had a more substantial appearances, years ago.
What’s the point here? Presidents have appeared in this book from its inception. The first president Bush was mentioned in the first issue and Bill Clinton appeared as well.