Showing posts with label Savage Dragon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Savage Dragon. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Crowning Moment of Awesome: Big Barda vs. Dragon.


In a recent issue of Booster Gold, Booster has gone back in time to deal with a recently revived Maxwel Lord, the man who helped fund the Justice League for a while, and killed Booster's best friend Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle. However, his progress in said mission is stinted when he runs into Ted, and can't help but get swept up in a mission so that they can hang out. To help in said mission, the two recruit Mister Miracle and his wife Big Barda (but only on the grounds that only a lunatic would put the worlds fate in Blue and Gold's hands).

After going back further in time, the team are surprised to be attacked by a giant freaking dragon. Blue and Gold do their best not to get toasted or squished, while Miracle tries to figure out a strategy to use the beasts weight against it. Barda however asks, "What's all the fuss about it's just a dragon." Of course she is met from Booster with, "What do you mean it's just a dragon? What, you think you can just walk in and punch it?"

The answer, is yes.

Also, is it true that Barda was killed off recently? What a load of crap. The first time I see her awesomeness, and now she's dead. That's just great. Stupid time travel confusion.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

This Months Haul.

Today I thought I'd talk about the hoard of comics I bought yesturday. This probably won't take too long, but meh I thought I'd share some feelings. I can't be bothered putting up the covers, so heres a random picture. I'll mainly be talking about stuff that bothers me, but on a whole I'd say that this was a good month.



Deadpool.
Deadpool is still very much awesome as usual. The storyline at the moment of the main series is pretty good, and longtime Butt Monkey Weasel gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Unfortunatley this storyline has somewhat confused me in regards to Deadpool's current motivation. The last eight or so issues focussed on him deciding to help people, and now he's turned into a jerkass again. It is awesome, so I won't actually hold it against the series.
Merc with a Mouth has also been pretty good, but the zombie universe is getting a bit boring. Well maybe boring isn't the right word, but I'm not a fan of Marvel Zombies, and while I am definatley a fan of Headpool I guess I prefer my zombies Angry Mob style.
Finally, I like how Deadpool's been growing in popularity, but I have to say that I'm almost experiencing the same problem that we get with Superman and Batman. DP has yet another miniseries going on, which makes like what? Six series? And I'm buying all of them! They're good, but if I hadn't been in from the early days, I'd be lost as all hell!

Gotham City Sirens.
This is everything you'd want from a series staring Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. It's technically not a Villain Protagonist story, but more of a...Reformed but not friendly Villain Protagonist story. Okay, basically they're villains, but they don't do evil things any more,but neither do they activley fight crime.
This is going to put me in a very small minority but Ivy is really starting to bug me. She uses her seduction powers to get a high class job at S.T.A.R. Labs, then fires half the staff to show she means business. An employee tries to take revenge upon discovering her identity, but it dosn't quite work and now Ivy is working on threatening her for some purpose. This is the sort of thing I'd expect from the villainous side of a comic, which makes perfect sense, but I just want to punch her! Which would then get me killed, so it's a lose-lose situation!
And also, for some of The Goddamned Batman's greatest enemies, they sure get their asses kicked a lot. A while back they get their asses handed to them by a midget clown disguised as the Joker, they were just over equally matched by an old man with a walking stick, and in this issue they get the snot beaten out of them by Catwoman's Batshit crazy nun sister.
Also, it's not portrayed as such, but robbing a Church is what I'd use for a Kick the Dog moment Ms. Kyle.
Harley's doing fine though.

Savage Dragon.
This month's release is nowhere near as depressing as last months. It's pretty clever, especially how Larsen subverts the Big Bad status of Overlord. He's insanley powerful and actually managed to finally kill off the hero for good, but he's not really doing too well with the evil scheming and stuff. He also feels terrible about sending the mooks to their deaths in the previous issue. Larsen continues to make this a turning point by killing OpenFace, one of Dragon's more memorable villains, and a guy whose been with us since pretty much the start. At least he died trying todo something awesome. But I already said I'd be discussing the negatives, so here we go.
There's a major squick factor in the suggestion that Angel should hook up with her brother Malcolm. Granted, Angel recognises the squick and has no interest, and her dumb friends are he ones who suggested it, and it is pointed out that they aren't blood related, but good god this is Chicago, not a stereotypical Redneck town.
Speaking of Malcolm, good god when did he start taking steroids? I understand that it's Larsen's intention to have him take up the mantle of Savage Dragon, but I think he should have remained sort of lanky. I mean...dude! That does not look natural. I swear a few issues ago he actually looked like he was 13. If I saw him I'd assume his early twenties!

Invincible.
I bough the Invincible One-Shot 'Invincible Returns,' which is actually the real issue 71, but it's longr, while Issue 71 is technically issue 72, but lets not enter a loop here.
Okay, I don't actually have any complaints about this issue. Well, that's a lie actually. There's a few odd bits of dialogue, but that's more likley my opinion, I mean they have to get their exposition from somewhere, right? Next up is that it's shaking up the status quo so much. We're going to be spending like six or so issues in the Viltrumite War, which is set in space. I'm sure it'll be good, but I was liking what we had on Earth. Besides, I know it's been about ten months, but we're still recovering from the Invincible War. And finally Invincible switches back to his classic yellow costume. Man, I liked your blue costume! It kicked ass! This one makes your head look long. There's an instory explanation that I find hard to disagree with. Invincible recently stepped over the Moral Event Horizon by killing an innocent man possessed by the aliens known as Sequids. He's decided to not kill any more full stop, and switched to his old costume because blue one reminded him of the incident and made him feel disgusted with himself.
All on all, I'd say it was an excellent jumping point for new readers.

Booster Gold.
I stopped buying Booster for a while because I thought the series ended. As it turns out, I was wrong, so I started up again. You can't blame me, the current storyline concluded, it had a somewhat finalistic tone and it was issue 30, which would be a good number to end on. Anyway, complaints...during a fight with Skull Agents, Booster reflects a laser blast and kills a little girls dog. It leads to a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming at the end, but the way they react to it. You killed a dog. Not the Little Girl, the dog. You didn't mean to. The Dog didn't explode into a gory mess. And you have a Heroic BSOD about it, and they start hurling abuse at him. Seriously? There were evil super villains running around causing havoc, putting hundreds of people in danger, and you start telling the hero he's compleley worthless because of something like that? He stopped all the Agents, I mean come on! Yes, you should be upset, but you need to get your priorities straight!

I also bought five issues of Amazing Spider-Man (and I'm still behind). I'm going to read one weekly until my next comic Store Trip, so I haven't read them yet. However,I hear that they are awesome. Nevertheless, Deviling away twenty years of continuity cannot be patched up one very awesome storyline.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Savage Dragon 160


Wow. Just...wow.

Savage Dragon has recently been in a storyline concernining his origins. What happened, you see is, Dragon's brain was eaten by an alien called Virus. The creature mutated into another Savage Dragon and vice versa, but his personaliy was in tact, so it was sort of like a big joke. So, for a few issues they dealt with some other story lines, such as Dragon's kids getting kidnapped, and the aftermath of that. Then in issue 150, they celebrated by having Dragon's nemesis, Overlord, returning (someone new in the suit). The issue ended with Overlord incinerate Dragon, except for his legs, arms, and a crapload of blood. He had it taken back to the local super freak crime gang, The Vicious Circle, and created a chemical that would mutate them into Dragon-clones.
Dragon's son Malcolm went on a quest to revive Dragon's Virus body with a blood transfusion. It worked, but he came back as the evil Emperor Kurr, the man who Dragon was before the first issue.
This was okay because Dragon had a reputation for dying then coming back. However, Larsen had said, that by the final issue of the Dragon War storyline, if Dragon was dead, he would remain dead, and would then become a Legacy Character. I was a bit annoyed, but figured that whatever Larsen did would be best.

Wow.

The issue consisted mostly of a fight between Dragon, J. Jonah Jameson parody R.R. Richards (in a giant robot), the Vicious Dragon Circle, his kids Malcolm and Angel, and supporting character Flash Mercury, The Spectacular Dragon. Dragon slaughtered Richards and the Circle, and gave a pummelling to everyone else. Eventually after attacking Malcolm, Dragon was beaten to a pulp by an enraged Angel. I figured, "Oh well, I guess that's it then." But then I turned the page and, he was still alive, and punched her away, stating that since she and her brother nursed him back to health, he would spare them, then jumped off into the distance.

Seriously, wow.

I mean, I was never expecting the story to have a fully happy ending, I knew Dragon's tenure as hero was over, but, that story was just depressing. Perhaps its because I only recently entered the fandom, but I feel that this is probably one of the most depressing comics I've read. The odd thing is though, that it wasn't so much the issue itself though, but rather, what it implies.
Savage Dragon has survived exploding planets. He has saved hundreds. He has fought enemies twice his size and won, he is the only Image character aside from Spawn to still have his own residence in his original publication. Heck, he's written a book and raised two kids. And how does he meet his end? Not with a bang, but a whimper. In an alleyway. In a conversation riffing on Spider-Man. A scene anyone else would've just used as preparation for a later climatic battle. Dragon did not recieve such an honor, but instead got a single punch, then died...I have read only four issues starring the Dragon that the fans know. This only became truly depressing ten issues later.

He obviously knew how depressing it was, because he included a comedic backup story by another artist about Dragon meeting one of his rogues gallery while on a blind date. This did little to remedy this.

I'm not going to get all sappy and tell you that my world view has changed because of a comic book about a hulkish man with a fin on his head. But I am going to tell you that it reminded me that I need to enjoy what I have while I have it. I'm not going be a changed man because of it, I already believed in this, even if I do still feel that my life could be better. I am not going to say my life is bad. By all accounts, I have a very good life. Savage Dragon has just been a reminder of this fact.

Do I feel like mouthing off to Erik Larsen about ruining the book? No. Instead, I congratulate him on getting the reaction he was no doubt intending. I salute you Larsen, I have said that you are brilliant at what you do, and you have proven that.

This is ThatKidWithTheSideburns, asking you to have a nice day.