The Savage Dragon 7

The Savage Dragon 7  

Summary :

Dragon and Frank ride up the elevator, heavily armed to arrest Overlord.

Frank wanted to accompany Dragon taking  Overlord down, because he wanted to go out on a high note.

Dragon thinks this a really, really bad idea. 

Dragon and Frank confront Overlord, who tells them to leave or face his wrath. 

Frank and Dragon decline, so Overlord obliterates Frank. 

Dragon is naturally pissed at this and ready to take Overlord down. 

Unfortunately  he is outclassed by Overlords armor.  

In the police  station Cyberface lies dead.  Somehow the Vicious Circle got to him and  poisoned his food. 

The police got nothing, their testimonials are now worthless.

In the Vicious Circle headquarters, things  go badly for Dragon, who is  thrown around  like a toy. 

He gets  one  good  punch in before Overlord decides to end the  game. 

Overlord  obliterates Dragon's right hand, blows a hole through Dragon's chest and then sends him flying  out of the window. 

Dragon falls  the long, long way down before he gets impaled  on the spire of a church,

seemingly dead.  

Standing in front of the broken window Overlord suggests that the next  time somebody tells them to leave or  face their wrath, to leave.

Josh Eichorn's title  : village idiot. 

Notes : All pages are splash pages or spreads, so the summary is rather short. 

Credits :

Writer\Artist: Erik Larsen 

Letters : Chris Eliopolous

Colors : Reuben Rude

Editor : Jannie Wong

Review :

This is it, the big one.

This is the second part of the climax  Erik Larsen has been  building towards  for  7 months and the mini series. 

Issue  6 was  the  conclusion of  all the  major plot points, up to this point 

and  issue 7 is the climatic confrontation with Overlord.

And Larsen pulls no punches, while taking a  leaf from Walt Simonson's book. 

It's an all splash pages issue. 

This means that  the  issue reads  quite  fast,  despite the dense opening page, but the repercussions of this issue wil be felt  far and wide.  It's an issue  that has the most  impact on the  run, it's story beats  and stylistic choices will be referred to again and again. 

In an  uncharacteristic move, Frank decided  to  go along with Dragon to apprehend  Overlord  and just the two of them. Which seems like  bad planning on Frank's part

Dragon seems to agree with me, he think sits a really bad  plan.  

Upon confronting Overlord,  he muhahahahaha's in their face and suggest  they leave.  When they don't ..off course, Overlord blows Frank up. 

I repeat  that, he blows Frank up  ! 

Remember when I said that  this comic isn't afraid to  shake up the status  quo  ?

Well here is  your first  big example of that. 

The rest of the issue is Dragon getting  absolutely destroyed by Overlord, before he blows his hand off. Blows a hole through Dragon's chest and then tosses Dragon out of  the  building, only to be impaled on a spike.

...Ouch.  

As if things aren't bad enough, the Visceous Circle somehow got to Cyberface  and he lies dead in his cell. 

There isn't much  to say  about issue 7 to be honest. It's wall to wall action with splash pages and spreadsheets, which this time  actually have  some meaning. It's a stylistic choice, instead of trying to look "kewl".

But that means issue 7  is a breezy read through and there isn't a whole lot to talk about  in terms of subplots. Other then showing that Overlord is indeed all that and more because he also, somehow got to Cyberface, who lies dead in his cell.  ( Which as  subplots go is rather perfunctory, as we'll will find out.)

It is however a mayor shake  up and game changer. At this point in time Dragon's  healing abilities were still unknown and it was unknown, if he could have survived this  or recover from this. 

The series was in fact so  new, that it might have been possible for Larsen to kill Dragon out right and focus on the recently departed Freak Force. 

This may seem unlikely now, but  not so much  23  years ago when this issue was released. 

Frank's death is about as shocking and unexpected as dragon's ignominious defeat  and while his decision  to accompany Dragon, to arrest Overlord without any  back up,  is as  Dragon said a very bad idea and comes totally out of left field.  

His reasoning to do so, does have a bit of logical merit, if barley. Frank's career is over  and he wanted to go out with a bang, taking out Overlord himself. 

Still, doesn't make it any less of a bad idea though. 

But there is a sting to this tale, however we will get there in due time. 

Right now things are at their bleakest  and have never been as bleak before in this comic.

And it would take a  while before things look as bleak, as they do here again. 

Issue 7  is a springboard for the next batch of  storylines, that will carry us in to and around issue 16.

So will Dragon survive  in  issue 8  ?  *

(*Spoiler, course he does. This series is still ongoing you know ? )