Savage FINcast Retro – Episode 13: Savage Dragon 06 & 07

This was a great podcast I was in my living room this past winter I ordered the archive vol 1&2 and those were wild issues to me I was like holy fuck he’s losing the battle before 10 issues deep crazy as fuck I love this book it’s awesome thanks for this cast

Memories from issue 7

So I had been following Erik Larsen from issue 344 of the Amazing Spider-Man. The height of my fandom came from waiting for issue 347 to drop. This issue featured Venom and my only other previous venom issue I had was #317. I was absolutely stoked to see how Spider-Man would take out this seemingly unbeatable foe. So (spoilers for issue 347) Spider-Man is able to trick Venom into believing he was dead at the end of the issue. As an 11 year old I was somewhat confused by the ending. I thought that Venom had actually killed Spider-Man and he was the one standing on the boat at the end of the issue. I thought what the heck!??! They killed Spider-Man? For some context Transformers canceled the series at issue 80. I had picked up issue 79 and 80 just as I was getting into the series.

Even more impressive was the short Revenge of the Sinister Six series that Erik had done for the Adjectiveless Spider-Man series. I couldn’t believe how much Erik would throw into one issue. He tried things and moved on from things faster than most writers would introduce an idea. His villains seemed smart and seemed like they were going to do whatever it took to win. This made other artists and writers look weak in comparison.

I was hooked on Erik Larsen’s story telling and I started buying the Dragon whenever I would see it at my local Hastings. I had issue 1, issue 4, and I bought 6 and 7 on the same day. Issue 6 was good and I loved how fast the story developed. But then with issue 7 we would have the epic confrontation with the big bad. I was looking forward to how Dragon would inevitably taken him down and nothing bad would happen to the main character.

But to my utter shock Overlord just kicks the Dragons butt. And in my mind when Dragon landed on that spike, that was the definitive end of the character. I could see him surviving without an arm, but a spike through the body? That’s bucky dead!

And I said to myself, “Well that’s it. I don’t know how or why he did it but this is awesome. No ongoing book kills off his main character by the 7th issue. That’s insane. And I love it.” That was my realization of what the power of independent comics could achieve. Just where Erik would take a book named “Savage Dragon” without it’s main character I just didn’t know. It was exciting.

But then issue 8 comes out and you see Dragon pull himself off that spike. Oh wow. This dude is amazing. Burn all other comics. You don’t need anything but the Dragon now.