This month: Malcolm and Angel Dragon versus Osama bin Laden. Need we say more?Well, a little more…Gavin Higginbotham: So here we go! This issue gained more attention than normal when it was first announced. Did this cause you to feel any extra pressure to get things just right?Erik Larsen: It was a weird issue to work on for a number of reasons. But there’s always pressure. Every time I do an issue I try to do my best.GH: Are you concerned with what kind of reaction the issue may receive? It was largely done with respect. Well, as much respect as you can give when writing about a giant, green mutated monster.EL: Sure, and I tried to dodge some of that by not putting actual words in Osama bin Laden’s mouth. But sure–it is a concern. As fun as it is to offend–it can be a very sensitive topic. Wounds are quite fresh, even ten years later. I’m trying not to be a heartless cad. It’s not a role I play well.GH: We get a mixture of real world events explaining the resurrection of Osama bin Laden, married with your own continuity involving the Lava Lords. Was this meshing of fiction and non-fiction done to create a “plausible” means for bringing bin Laden back to life?EL: As plausible as things get around here. Real events had to be my jumping off point but beyond that–I felt I could run with it and mixing in my characters early on made it clear this wasn’t going to be a biographical comic book. In some places I really felt compelled to back off. The more I said as an explanation the more ridiculous it sounded. It’s like the origin of the Fantastic Four, in a way, the more detail you give the more ridiculous it sounds.Russ Burlingame: Is Dragon in it for the long haul with the Flash Gordon suit? I love it.EL: Nothing lasts forever around these parts. You know that. But for the time being–that’s his new costume.GH: Dragon hasn’t seen his kids now for nearly three years now. It’s easy to forget that fact as an incarnation of Dragon has been seen up until fairly recently. Those kids really have been through the wringer in that period!EL: They’ve been keeping active. A lot of comics do these sprawling story lines where little actually happens whereas I tend to pack a lot in. Over a three year period there ends up being a lot of events. I really couldn’t cover much of it but I wanted to give folks the idea that these guys were getting each other caught up on current events.I had to do some redrawing on those pages with Dragon on them, by the way, because I talked too damned much. When I got the pages back from Tom Dragon was all but obliterated.RB: When Angel said how confusing their situation was, I grinned and nodded, but when the Editor’s Note said that, too, I chuckled quite a bit. This book is easy to pick up and understand most months, but when you really delve into the history it gets harder to explain.EL: Which is a good reason to avoid all that. The important thing is to try and focus on the key events and let the rest be there if you want to look into it. Really, it’s like anybody’s life. You get the key events and that’s it. You can know a person for 20 years and still not know everything–I’ try to remind people about the important stuff. Summing up the whole series is no easy task especially given that 20 years have passed here and they have been quite eventful. What’s key is who these guys are and what they’re trying to do. Malcolm is his father’s son and he’s taking up where his dad left off. I’d hate for readers to think the book is so dense that you couldn’t drop in at any point really.RB: Between that, and all the time he spent as other people, are you having to dive back into reference material to remember exactly what Dragon might or might not remember in any given scene?EL: I really should.GH: Peewee (plus Daredevil and the rest of the Little Wise Guys) are revealed to be ageless while at the same we see Larry Bradford has aged since we last saw him. Nice subtle contrast there. EL: Larry looked a bit more like Reed Richards than I had intended. And of course this is all going somewhere, as you might guess. If the ability is passed on to PJ you can just imagine how many people will be out for their blood–literally.GH: The events of last issue concerning Angel and Frank causes a fascinating conversation between Angel and Malcolm. It really explored the unique relationship setup between the Dragon “siblings” and Frankie Darling.EL: The whole arrangement is somewhat strange. Mostly–I’m thinking Malcolm is trying to reassure himself that some of the things he’s feeling are okay. That it’s not incest or something.RB: Was it ever tempting to draw bin Laden with the ruined eye or something from the original gunshots, or was it more important to have him recognizable than grotesque?EL: I thought it was more important to have him be recognizable. Plus–we never really saw the extent of his injuries. All we saw was that one photoshopped picture.
