Savage Dragon's History
The Dragon was found in a burning field by Lt. Frank Darling. At the time, Chicago was being terrorized by villainous "superfreaks" (Larsen's collective term for superpowered characters), namely the criminal gang called the Vicious Circle, led by the mysterious Overlord. Realizing that the Dragon's super-human powers would be a terrific boon to the police in battling the Vicious Circle, Darling asks the Dragon to join the police. At first, the Dragon refuses and takes a job in the warehouse of Darling's cousin. After a number of serious incidents, including the murder of the superhero Mighty Man and the brutal mauling of SuperPatriot, Darling takes drastic action. He pays Vicious Circle members to threaten his cousin in the hope that it will prompt Dragon to re-consider his offer. Although this achieves Darling's desired result, the two criminals, Skullface and Hardware, kill Darling's cousin and detonate a bomb in his warehouse. The Dragon joins the police, but Darling is now under the thumb of the Vicious Circle, causing him to steer Dragon away from Vicious Circle activities.
Later, The Dragon gains a girlfriend, Debbie Harris, only to see her shot dead in his apartment by her jealous ex-boyfriend Arnold Dimple. The Dragon falls into a deep depression as a result. Dimple returns to plague the Dragon on several occasions as the Fiend, who makes a deal with the Devil to gain supernatural powers.
As well as being kept away from Vicious Circle activities, The Dragon was loaned out to other police forces across the country to help them in dealing with superpowered criminals. While on loan to the NYPD, he first meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who he assists multiple times in later comics. Also during his time in New York, a large prison break occurs and a number of powerful and dangerous criminals are killed. This is the first time the Chicago PD loses a star witness against Overlord: Hardware, who intended to give evidence against the criminal, is shot dead.
Though Captain Darling's Freak Force program failed, the Dragon carries on a lasting relationship with one of its former members: Rapture, a former prostitute with electrical powers, who would later have his child. Meanwhile, Overlord's second-in-command Cyberface breaks away from the Vicious Circle to form a rival organization. Cyberface is later arrested, but like Hardware before him, he is killed before he is able to testify. Ultimately Cyberface is resurrected and later leads the Vicious Circle under the control of Horde, another recurring villain.
Later the Dragon makes his first attempt to arrest The Overlord, who easily defeats him and leaves him impaled upon a church spire. The Dragon is believed to have died, but regenerates from his wounds afterwards. This is not the only time that the Dragon is missing and presumed dead; it becomes both a recurring theme and running joke in the series. During his recovery, Dragon is attacked by a person under the mental control of a strange worm. Under the domination of this creature, the Dragon goes on a rampage during which many innocent bystanders are injured or killed. He is finally stopped by the vigilante Mace, and the worms are traced to a villain called Horde. The rampage results in a massive negative backlash against the Chicago Police Department, and the Dragon's biggest naysayer, R. Richard Richards (a thinly veiled parody of J. Jonah Jameson), takes this opportunity to attack the Dragon with a robotic weapon dubbed "Dragon Slayer". Later, the Dragon encounters the She-Dragon, a young superpowered woman who models herself after him.
Following an attack on the police station and the murder of Cyberface (who is later resurrected), Dragon leads a SWAT team to finally take down Overlord. The battle is harsh, and every member of the SWAT Team perishes except for the Dragon, who is skinned alive. Even in his weakened state, the Dragon finally unmasks the Overlord as Mafia boss Antonio Seghetti who subsequently falls to his death.
After aiding the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for a second time, the Dragon narrowly survives another attack by the Fiend, which leaves him nearly crippled after his bones heal incorrectly. To make matters worse, Chicago is in the midst of a brutal gang war that has arisen as a result of the Overlord's death. The Vicious Circle, once kept tightly organized by the Overlord, has since separated into several factions who are battling for criminal supremacy. The Dragon is found by a friendly cabbie and Mighty Man, who uses his super-strength to re-set the Dragon's bones. After recuperating from this ordeal, the Dragon fights another prison break, this time in a maximum security facility torn open by a newly-resurrected Cyberface. This battle marks the end of the gang war, and Cyberface assumes command of the Vicious Circle.
This victory is followed by difficult times for the Dragon. After a number of crossovers with other Image Comics characters including Wildstar and The Maxx, the Dragon encounters Spawn and ultimately is sent to Hell by the Fiend, the demonic soul of Arnold Dimple. Dimple can possess living bodies and his powers are fueled by the capacity for hate of those possessed. The Fiend's last victim is Debbie Harris' mother, who was unaware that the demon possessing her was the spirit of her daughter's murderer. While in Hell, a fist-fight occurs between God and the Devil, which is one of the series' best remembered scenes. As God finally overcomes the Devil, God warns his defeated opponent: "Don't fuck with God." Just as the amnesiac Dragon begins to ask about his origins, God returns him to earth.
Afterwards, things grow steadily worse for the Dragon. He is unable to save ill fellow officer Phil Dirt with a blood transfusion. Meanwhile, Rapture (pregnant with the Dragon's child) suffers internal damage when the baby kicks ? the unborn child having inherited its father's strength ? and Rapture enters premature labour. The Dragon is not able to reach the hospital in time, and the baby appears to have died. However, in truth, the infant is taken by the Covenant of the Sword, a shadowy organization bent on world takeover.
After a crossover with Hellboy, the Dragon is caught up in the Mars Attacks Image and Mars Attacks Savage Dragon event, where he is responsible for destroying the Martians' bases on Mars using a Martian Growth Ray. This results in their retreat and possible extinction. While he was gone, the Vicious Circle has taken control of the city. Returning home to a devastated Chicago, Dragon is captured and publicly crucified by the Circle. The Dragon survives and defeats most of the villains, but the Dragon's new superior, Captain Mendoza, suspends him for having been missing for so long. During his suspension the Dragon spends a few months as a bounty hunter and helps rebuild the city after the Martian invasion.
Behind the scenes during this period, Rob Liefeld departed from Image Comics. The Mars Attacks Image event and the Shattered Image crossover were used as a way to phase out characters created by Rob Liefeld from the collective "Image Universe", including Youngblood. In the pages of the Savage Dragon, Larsen has the Dragon be approached by the United States government to form a superhuman task-force to replace Youngblood. After negotiations, the team is dubbed the Special Operations Strikeforce, or S.O.S. This team includes much of the super-powered supporting cast of the book, including Jennifer Murphy, a super-strong, invulnerable single mother first introduced in the "Sex And Violence" mini-series. Despite being the founding member of the team, the Dragon spends little time as a member.
Later, on a dying parallel Earth, a murderous despot named Darklord begins to swap parts of his earth with parts from the Dragon's. The Dragon leads a team of S.O.S members, including Jennifer Murphy and his former girlfriend Rapture, to this world to stop Darklord. Rapture is killed by Darklord, and the Dragon and Jennifer are separated from the rest of the team. While the remaining members of S.O.S. manage to stop the transfer and escape back to their own Earth, the Dragon and Jennifer are forced to find their own way off of the dying planet. While they make their escape, Dragon attempts to find this Earth's Rapture, only to find that world's Debbie Harris instead.
The threesome are lost in space for some months, and Dragon is once again presumed dead, eventually landing on Godworld, where Debbie dies but is revived as an angel. Dragon and Jennifer are caught between a battle between Thor and Hercules, and then sent back to Earth by All-God; Debbie does not return with them. Following this, Dragon fights a Dr. Doom-like armored dictator before returning to Chicago on leave and striking up a casual sex relationship with his former partner Alex Wilde.
With giant-sized issue #50, many of the series sub-plots are resolved, and in a climatic battle between most of the series cast, Dragon is killed by the mystic Abner Cadaver; however the wizard is murdered mid-way through this by William Jonson, and The Dragon is bonded with him.
The series changed its title to Savage She-Dragon for five issues, featuring her as the main character during an attack by The God Squad to retrieve the various super-freaks that were descendants of gods, leading to the S.O.S. returning to Godworld and its accidental destruction by S.O.S. member and former Deadly Duo member Kid Avenger. During this time, William Jonson realises he and the Dragon are sharing bodies, and shortly thereafter Dragon finds he has the ability to take over Jonson's body so they become a masked superhero. While he is helping She-Dragon, Jonson's fianc�, Rita Medermade, is kidnapped by Jonson's brother Ralph and they both encounter an individual wearing the Overlord armor. While rescuing her, Jonson is shot Ralph is killed by Overlord, and Dragon is given full possession of his body.
The wizard, Abner Cadaver, returns, made up of parts of dead God Squad characters, Darklord, and Dragon's arm, and engages in battle with Fon~Ti, the mystical being who was once Horde. After Fon~Ti?s victory, he separates Dragon from Jonson, and returns Dragon to his normal body. Having admitted their love, Jennifer and Dragon begin to date. After a fight with Impostor, posing as Rapture, Dragon proposes to Jennifer, and their wedding follows in the next issue, where Jennifer is apparently killed by the New Overlord ? in truth she was replaced with Impostor beforehand by the Covenant of the Sword. Though he had only been semi-active before, Dragon officially resigns from the S.O.S. and became Jennifer's daughter Angel's legal guardian. In the following issue, the Overlord sub-plot is tied up after Dragon defeats his new team. Dragon kills Overlord, and he is revealed as supporting character Vic Nixon, who had worn the armor to spy on Rita; the armor then corrupted him. After this, the Overlord armor is destroyed.
Following the resolution of the new Overlord plot, the series spent most of its issues wrapping up all the sub-plots still left, in order for the eventual revamp in issue #75, with Dragon as a single parent looking after Angel and gradually losing a custody battle for her because of his dangerous lifestyle. Dragon dates a television producer named Marcy Howard, resumes his casual affair with Alex Wilde, and dates Ann Stevens before she is murdered, while a number of super-powered children and adults are kidnapped by the Covenant of the Sword.
After losing custody of Angel, and Ann's murder, Dragon and Mighty Man (now former Freak Force member Dart) begin searching for the missing SuperPatriot. This leads them to the Covenant of the Sword, which have in its possession SuperPatriot, Jennifer, and Dragon's child. Dragon and Mighty Man are captured, but eventually rescued in a large battle similar to the one in issue #50 where a number of characters are killed.
It was revealed the Covenant were formed by Damian Darklord, a time traveler who was the enemy of a vigilante named Super-Tough. This man became Darklord and started life as Damian, the son of Liberty, SuperPatriot?s daughter who was raped during the Mars Attacks event. Damian also built and detonated the "Nega Bomb" made up of super-powered individuals that de-powered every non-natural "freak" in the world. Dragon then kills him.
With issue #76, the series changes into a Jack Kirby-inspired post-apocalyptic/dystopian story with the Dragon stuck in a new reality he created by killing the infant Damian Darklord, and thus prevented him going back in time, and with most of the mutated and monstrous populace of this world trying to kill him. Dragon finds his house to be a crater, and believes Jennifer and Angel are dead. Dragon has encounters with Wildstar and Madman and finds out that during his time possessed, without Mace to stop him, he went on a much longer rampage, killing Alex Wilde. Dragon also discovers that Cyberface is now President of America, and has SuperPatriot under his control. Dragon organises a group of old enemies and allies to defeat Cyberface. After fulfilling a commitment to Rex Dexter ? who helped him overthrow Cyberface ? by saving his daughter, Dragon returns a hero, and finds his way back to Chicago and is re-united with Jennifer and Angel, who had in fact survived.
Dragon then finds his old world had survived as well as the Savage World. His counterpart from Darkworld, this Dragon, was defeated, but Dragon's old Earth was destroyed by a world-devouring Galactus-like being named Universo, despite the best efforts of Dragon and his son, Malcolm, who are left floating in space after its destruction. Dragon is able to save Alex Wilde from that world. After this, Dragon marries Jennifer and lives with her, Angel, and Angel?s new "pet", Mr. Glum, who is secretly plotting to kill Dragon.
To coincide with the 2004 Presidential elections, Larsen created a corrupt politician Ronald Winston Urass, who engineers a successful write-in campaign to elect the Dragon President Of The United States. However, once his criminal intents and relationship to the criminal Dread Knight are exposed, the Supreme Court disallows these votes. This leads a vengeful Urass to attack Dragon using the armour of his father, Dread Knight, who was an old foe of SuperPatriot's.
Behind the scenes, Erik Larsen was made publisher of Image Comics, causing a near year-long publishing gap between issues 121 and 122 of the series. The title resumed regular publication in January 2006 with the first story involving a vengeful scientist from Iraq sending an almost unstoppable robot to kill the President.
Recently, Mr. Glum's plans for world domination were realised using the power of the God Gun (a weapon able to grant three wishes to its user). Glum fires the gun and asserts his control of the planet while the Dragon is incapacitated in a hospital, having lost his rapid healing abilities. Glum was, at the time, on the run with Dragon's stepdaughter Angel after he caused her to grow to over 100-feet tall and she accidentally destroys her house and crippled her mother. The two become partners, and Angel adopts a murderous, merciless personality, while Glum set the people of Earth to work with the impossible task of making the planet look like his face (as his old world did).
Dragon is revived with his healing abilities restored and is able to defy Glum's control because of a loop-hole in his wish that means he cannot control extraterrestrials. He is unable to get close enough to Glum because of the various robots and villains Glum has under his control. However, the intervention of a number of characters from the comic series Wanted, who had come to steal the God Gun, allow Dragon to destroy the weapon, negating Glum's wish.
During the story, Vanguard's space ship is destroyed, freeing Universo, who was imprisoned on it. He began to suck the energy from Earth once more. Universo and its herald are killed by Solar Man, a Superman-like hero who became murderous and was wished out of existence using the God Gun, a wish undone by Dragon's destruction of the weapon. She-Dragon also returns from Dimension X with the Angel from the Dragon's original world of origin. They are being pursued by the Darkworld Dragon and a new villainess Battleaxe.
