Details on Donald Trump's Appearance in Savage Dragon Revealed

Russ Burlingame

04/12/2017 04:51 pm EDT

Early this morning (or late last night, depending on your time zone), ComicBook.com reported that U.S. President Donald Trump was coming to Savage Dragon as a villain for the first issue following June's "Merging of Two Multiple Earths" storyline.

(Photo: Image Comics)

Following publication of that story, Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen reached out to provide a copy of the solicitation text for the issue, shedding some light on the content of the issue and the nature of Trump's involvement with the story.

Larsen also clarified that, despite the cover text reading "The Torment and the Tyrant," the Savage Dragon villain Torment does not play a role in the issue. As the cover to Savage Dragon #226 is an homage to a classic Daredevil cover by Gil Kane, it's likely that Larsen was simply borrowing the alliterative scheme of that cover's caption.

In Savage Dragon #218, Erik Larsen's long-running creator-owned series became the first major American comic book to address the election of Donald Trump to the office of the President of the United States, with series lead Malcolm Dragon saying "we're f---ed."

At the time, Larsen told us he didn't know whether Trump would play a major role in the comic.

"I'm in a 'wait and see' mode on that. Definitely in the run up to the election there was some serious race baiting and tensions were super high. The guy has been on nearly every side of every issue, so it's really hard to know what to expect from him as a commander-in-chief," Larsen said. He said that if he perceives Trump as a particularly poor President, he would feel obliged to address that in-story, but if the next four years are relatively unremarkable they probably won't make it into the comic, concluding, "You never know. If Trump's presidency is at all significant I might touch on it again."

The protests and riots that followed Trump's election made its way into Savage Dragon as well, and Malcolm struggled to deal with both Trump supporters and detractors having problems with him (because he's an alien and a police officer, respectively).

Asked about the decision to feature the new commander-in-chief so prominently, Larsen matter-of-factly told a fan on Facebook, "I had a story I could get out of it."

The solicitaton text reveals that the Trump story will be self-contained -- and while that doesn't guarantee that Malcolm's potential troubles with the federal government will end there, it likely suggests it. It also doesn't identify Trump by name, saying simply that "a madman" has taken over the United States, which opens up the possibility that Trump is being controlled or impersonated somehow...although given the nature of the story, which is that the President declares extra-terrestrials a threat to national security and orders them eliminated, it feels unlikely in the context of some of Trump's real-world national security actions.

You can see the solicitation below and the cover (along with Gil Kane's cover to Daredevil #96) in the attached image gallery.

SAVAGE DRAGON #226

STORY / ART / COVER: ERIK LARSEN

JULY 19

/ 32 PAGES / FC / M / $3.99

SELF-CONTAINED ISSUE"TRUMPED"

When a tyrannical madman assumes command of the United States, aliens are deemed a threat to national security and targeted for elimination — and that includes Malcolm Dragon and his family! With a country turned against him, Malcolm Dragon fights as he's never fought before! Savage Dragon comes with our highest-possible recommendation! More Savage Dragon news:

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(Photo: Image Comics)