There’s a big, orange gy bursting through the well. He’s got horns. He’s shouting something about his queen. He’s come for her. Kurt says that he just KNEW something like this would happen. Kurr’s not delusional or anything. He’s a ridiculously big green guy with a fin coming out of his head. He’s been through a lot. His idea of “normal” is going to be a bit strange. Naturally he’s going to expect a big orange guy to burst through the wall like Kool-Aid Man demanding to see his queen. Things only get weirder from there in Savage Dragon #273. One of the longest-run creator-owned characters in the history of comics gets another entry courtesy of writer/artist Erik Larsen.
The large, orange gentleman wearing purple boots and underwear is after a smaller orange woman who is entirely dressed in purple as well. (She wears it much better than he does.) She’s als not at all interesting in going away with him even if she IS his queen. Dragon’s going to have a hell of a time helping defend her from the guy, but he’s certainly going to try. The queen in question might have to take matters into her own hands if she is to survive the whole ordeal.
Larsen’s story certainly is...weirdly cool in its own way. There’s a strange mix of sex and violence that works oddly well under the circumstances. And as weird as it is for an action series to lean quite as heavily as this particular issue does on the sex, it IS nice to see a slugfest resolved in a way that doesn’t actually hand victory to the more effective killer on the field of battle. It’s a novel solution to the concept of a battle between powerful forces on the comic book page.
Larsen’s art really felt like it’s gone full-Kirby over the years. Early on in his career he seemed to have a bit more of his own voice a nd vocabulary for action and drama. Certain aggressively sexual parts of the 273rd issue aside, this issue feels a lot more blocky and Kirby-esque with its framing and its angles than Larsen’s work had been back in his heyday. It’s fascinating to watch the strange exaggerations and amplifications that Larsen is pounding into the page from all the different angles that he’s approaching it from.
It’s not brilliant or anything like that, But Larsen’s long-running series continues to find novel approaches to the standard sort of superhero fare that’s been hitting the page in the course of the better part of the past 100 years. Larsen’s clearly having fun with a series. Larsen really needs to move in big, dramatic directions in order to maintain his personal interest in the series. It’s been nice seeing him evolve as an artist and a storyteller over the decades. With any luck he might find an approach to everything that could really turn into something tat would capture the attention of everyone once more.
