Savage Dragon: A 1990's Masterpiece - The Overlord Saga

The Savage Dragon comic was first published in 1992 by Image Comics as one of the fledgling company’s founding books. The comic is a perfect example of what was great about early 90’s comics. It’s also a book, along with pretty much every Marvel comic published around this time, that foreshadowed the 1990’s as THE decade that either changed comics forever, destroyed comics forever or just plain ruined comics forever, depending on your point of view.

 (The) Savage Dragon was part of a wave of overpowered, over-muscled, overly grim, dark, and violent superheroes that were the comic book industry’s answer to the success of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Dragon, along with Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, rode the wave of popularity known as “the grim and gritty era” or “The Dark Age of comics”. Stories in this era were trying to be as deep as Watchmen, Dark Knight  Returns, and other notable books of the 1980’s, but rarely matched their  greatness. Savage Dragon is one of the few books that comes close. Sure, it doesn’t have the depth of the best 80’s work, but its darkness and psychological complexity make it feel like it belongs in the pantheon of the best (or at least most remembered) comics of its era. In other words, this comic comes closest to being a spiritual successor to the groundbreaking work of Miller, Moore and their contemporaries in tone, even if it lacks much depth.

The 3 issue miniseries that presents The Dragon’s origin combine with the first 21 issues of the Savage Dragon title to form what is probably the best overarching comic book story published in the early 90’s: The Overlord Saga. This beginning period of The Dragon’s title has still never been topped and remains the definitive Savage Dragon saga, according to many fans.  

The story concerns an armored crime boss named Antonio Seghetti, alias The Overlord. He has Chicago in a vice grip. Dragon, a Hulk-like, green-skinned man with a giant fin on his head is found by a cop named Frank Darling in a burning field and joins the Chicago Police Department because he has no memory of his past or who he is. Dragon combats crime and corruption, as well as Overlord and his band of mutant creatures and deformed freaks known as “The Vicious Circle.” Along the way Dragon meets the Image Comics version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, sees his girlfriend get shot in the head, battles a giant talking spider called Arachnid, and nearly dies several times.

So, there it is. The Dragon's a hulking, super-strong green guy with a healing factor and resistance to injury. He started out as a cop who’s just trying find his place in the world and make sense of his past while working to clean up the streets of Chicago. The story may not sound particularly ground-breaking by comic book standards, but it has just the right amount of intrigue and complexity to be as exciting as anything pblished by Marvel or DC.

The art is prime 1990’s in the best sense of what that means for comics. Lots of detail and cross hatching really serves the story well. The panels are well-placed and the pacing is near perfect. Some people might be put off by the 90’s style of hulking heroes and villains, incredibly busty and curvaceous women in barely-there clothing, giant unrealistic guns and even more unrealistic fight scenes, but hey, comics in the early 90’s had started to abandon subtly.

Erik Larsen came to prominence as an artist on Amazing Spider-Man, taking over from Todd McFarlane and, later, crafting some of Spidey’s best stories with David Michelinie. When Image Comics was founded, Savage Dragon became one of its first books and, along with Spawn, remains one of only two of the original books still being published, as of this writing.

Since this is a cartoon blog, I’d be remiss not to at least mention the animated series. I remember seeing the Savage Dragon cartoon in the mid 1990’s and being entertained, even if I was clueless as to what it was. It seemed like every superhero was ripe for a cartoon back then, and, while this show was terrible and not very faithful to the comic, it did feature popular voice actor, Jim Cummings, as the voice of Dragon. That’s really all that can be said about it. It was pretty generic Saturday morning fare.

All in all though, the Savage Dragon comic, debuted as a great series. The Overlord Saga remains one of the most well-told stories of the 1990’s and the high point of the series, in my opinion. While I don't think the series was ever as good after this first arc, it has managed to keep being published and has even gone into different iterations, with Dragon’s son, Malcolm, eventually taking over as star of the book. So, if you’re looking for over-the-top action, a decent police procedural, colorful villains and an interesting hero, track this book down. Give The Overlord Saga a chance. You never know, you just might become a fan.

4Kids TMNT (2003-2010) - Review and Analysis

The 4Kids TMNT series premiered on February 8, 2003 as part of  the FoxBox programming block (later branded as 4Kids TV) and ended on March 27, 2010. It was produced by 4Kids Entertainment in conjunction with Mirage Studios, and spearheaded by Lloyd Goldfine with significant input and approval by Peter Laird himself, co-creator of the TMNT.

Since Laird was so heavily involved throughout production, seasons 1-4 are probably the “purest” versions of the property outside of Mirage. In fact, the series is so Mirage inspired that seasons 1-4 are probably the best way to get a grip on what Mirage made without actually reading the comics themselves. Unfortunately, The stories for seasons 5-7, Ninja Tribunal, Fast Forward and Back To The Sewers are quite heavily removed from what came before, as the animation changed, characters were redesigned and the stories were less engaging. That said, season 5, the Ninja Tribunal Saga, is the best of the latter series.

The 2003 show was markedly different for mainstream, non-comic book, audiences because up to that time the turtles were remembered most as a childish, goofy cartoon of the 80's and 90's. And, again, while this show took a lot from the Mirage comic books, it is not a direct adaptation of those comics, because it never attempts to capture the grit and darkness that the original comic series had. It does however adapt several issues into episodes, so, in spirit, it is, as much as American children's cartoons can allow, the most faithful version.

The magic of this show is that it was able to blend the humor and wit of the 1987 cartoon with a more mature tone. The character portrayals were a very faithful blend of the Mirage turtles, the 1990 movie turtles and the 1987 turtles. Their take on The Shredder, however, was a new idea created specifically for this show. Firstly known as ninja-master Oroku Saki, as he was in both the original comics and the 1987 cartoon, he was later revealed to be an utrom alien known as Ch’rell. This revelation bugged me a lot at first, but later grew on me. Utrom Shredder works well for this series, but I would have preferred if he had remained a human ninja master. April not being a reporter confused me at first as well, but now, knowing the source material, I prefer her as the computer scientist/former assistant to Baxter Stockman.

There were also other major characters introduced for this show. Bishop, government agent for the E.P.F. (Earth Protection Force), Hun, leader of the Purple Dragon gang and eventual enforcer for The Shredder, as well as Angel, friend to Casey Jones. Each of these characters would go on to play major roles in the IDW comics and also appear in the later volumes of Mirage. Karai, the high-ranking Foot Clan assassin that debuted in the Mirage Comics City At War storyline, also appears here.

I remember watching a couple episodes as a teenager when this show aired but by the early 2000’s I had long been out of TMNT fandom. By the time I rediscovered TMNT and saw this show again I was blown away at how different it was from the turtles of my early childhood. When I later discovered the Mirage books I saw exactly how faithful a lot of this cartoon was to the source material.

The music of the show was very well done and fit the mysterious, action-oriented and sci-fi aspects of the show well. The majority of the show's soundtrack consists of moody oriental theme music. It's very fitting for a show about ninjas. Lighter musical cues signal when the show needs to be humorous. Occasionally, there will be lyrical songs sung during brief bits of action that give certain episodes a fun "teenage" flair too.The most annoying part of the show, however, is the opening theme, a hard-rocking piece of Saturday morning fluff that introduces the character and plot. It really undermines the otherwise mature nature of the show. In fact, once you've heard it about ten times it becomes unnecessary and painful to hear again. 

As of this writing there have been 4 cartoons. I would consider the 2003 4Kids Series to be the truest representation of what the franchise is outside of the Mirage comics. The show’s humor, action, maturity and characterization sets it apart from all other TMNT cartoons and makes the show feel less like it’s aimed at kids (despite the name of the production company) and more like it’s an all-ages show. It even went on to inspire the overall tone and atmosphere of the newer IDW comics too. My wife and I still try to binge watch this show at least every couple years, but we only really watch the first 5 seasons because the final 2 seasons were a major departure. If you’ve never seen this show, I would recommend watching it, particularly the first four seasons, and give the 5^th season a try. It will forever remain a treat for ninja turtle fans.