Erik Larsen Talks Savage Dragon #269, Tees Up This Week's Issue

Mickey Mouse continues to be an animated menace.

By Russ Burlingame

Tomorrow, Savage Dragon #270  will hit the stands, featuring the new Special Operations Strikeforce (S.O.S.) and continuing a storyline where the public domain Mickey Mouse is a serial harasser who is targeting Maxine Dragon. When Savage Dragon #269 came out, we missed our regular "commentary track"-style interview with creator Erik Larsen, due to some scheduling issues that came up at the time. Ahead of the new issue coming out this week, we chatted with Larsen about #269 to catch up and provide a little context for the newest installment.

As always, these are spoiler-filled interviews, so you should grab a copy of the book at your local comic shop or on ComiXology before you read on. In Savage Dragon #269, Malcolm and the SOS battle the Vicious Fishes, while Paul and Alex watch the kids and Maxine finds herself in Mickey's crosshairs.

Larsen joined ComicBook to discuss Savage Dragon #269 and tee up what's next for the long-running series.

Here we get to see the new SOS in action. There are so many characters in your world at this point, how do you decide who to "staff" a new team with?

In this case it was relatively simple because this group had all been through Dimension-X together when I made the switch from one universe to the next. I'd had them together as a group just before Savage Dragon #250 and I thought they looked good as a group. I don't typically just pick from my cast of existing characters. 

In most other cases where I've assembled a team I'm creating new characters from scratch. With the S.O.S. it's typically been a bigger group and then breaking it down into smaller units to face some foe--seeing which characters look good next to each other.

The Vicious Fishes is kind of a great name. Are they going to become the new batch of "uglies" who come in to get beat up on from time to time, or was this just a fun one-off?

Likely there'll be occasional underwater goons showing up. I don't expect that these will be the new Vicious Circle or anything. They're pretty silly. But then-sometimes that's what I'm going for.

Obviously, Glum is a deeply unstable individual, but is part of what happened with the killing just an extension of how badly people who are used to having power react when they're faced with the same treatment that marginalized groups get?

I think that's fair to say. Glum hasn't really had anybody in a position of power over him since he was much younger and he's spent much of his life able to act with impunity. This is a new dynamic for him.

Also worth noting that we're like 270 issues in and three police administrations turned over, but the open racism in the CPD office is still happening. Was that mirroring back to the beginning of the series on purpose?

Racism never really goes away. It wasn't a deliberate callback to the beginning of the series but it could just as easily have been. Mirroring things from earlier can be pretty hit-and-miss as not everybody is going to get the reference. Mostly I'll make an effort to make sure that a scene works on its own and if you get the reference there's an added subtext but here I thought that might seem a bit too cutesy.

Clone-Angel is just so damn creepy in the way she gaslights Frank and doesn't "get" what's going on. I get she's just a kid, but is she potentially a serious danger?

This Angel isn't a clone-she's from an alternate reality. Darklord had grabbed versions of a few characters for later use and Glum put (at least) one aside in case he wanted another Angel. He's raised her since she was pulled from her mother's womb, so naturally-she's going to be a bit odd. At this point her powers haven't kicked in. When that happens -- she could indeed be a formidable force -- but that's a few years down the road.

Making Mickey a pretty blatant sexual predator is a startling turn. Obviously the character is technically in the public domain, but when you take that step do you worry at all about Disney taking an interest?

The character is supposed to be in the public domain. In early cartoons it was pretty typical to have male characters forcing themselves of females and females having to fight them off. I just took it from there. After that, I was mostly thinking about stories people told about Mickey Rooney crowing about being a big star and bedding every girl that came within arm's reach. Disney hasn't reacted and I don't expect them to.

It kind of washed over me at first and I feel dumb – is the idea of Mickey as a sex pest something that comes from Plane Crazy, where he won't take no for an answer from Minnie? That got less attention than Steamboat Willie but it's the other public domain Mickey story.

Yeah, that and others. He was a real creep to begin with. That was the state of entertainment at the time. Skirt chasers were something of a staple back in the early days. That sort of thing was prevalent for decades in comics and cartoons. Nobody stopped to think about how terrifying it was for the poor woman being doggedly pursued.

Obviously the idea here is that because Maxine was publicly promiscuous, Mickey thinks he can get away with things. But doesn't he worry at all that Malcolm could just literally boot him into orbit?

He's faced big tough brutes throughout his career and in those early cartoons he was essentially unbeatable-he could be stretched like a rubber band or squashed flat and bounce back unharmed. I haven't gotten into that too much just yet but if it comes to that we'll see that he can take a beating as well as the next guy.

Is Angel's cabbie supposed to be somebody? He just has a really distinctive look.

He's not supposed to be anybody that the readers should recognize, no. I'm just trying to give characters a distinct enough look that when they reappear they can go, "oh-that guy again."

Is her decision to turn back and help the SOS going to create relationship strife with Glum/Frank? Glum isn't exactly a guy who understands other people's priorities.

I don't imagine that she'll explain every little detail. There are always full flights and such. She could still get there in a reasonable amount of time. In any case-Frank would be understanding-having dealt with many a crisis as a police officer.

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I like that Malcolm takes the situation seriously, but is there something I'm missing about Mickey that he thinks they need to lock the doors and get weapons?

Malcolm is a man who loves his wife and she is clearly distraught. And maybe that's said more to comfort her than because he's actually concerned about Mickey breaking down the doors but sometimes that's what you do. At this point Mickey Mouse is something of an unknown. It's unknown what the extent of his abilities are and it's unknown just how determined he is to pursue her and better to err on the side of caution.

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