Savage Dragon Reveals Its Most Unexpected Twist In Years

Image Comics’s Savage Dragon is exactly the kind of comic where anything can happen — largely because it exists without any oversight except that of its creator, Erik Larsen. One of the longest-running independent comics in American history, Savage Dragon delivers more shocks than virtually any of its contemporaries on that list — and today’s issue is a case-in-point, with a stomach-churning twist that’s likely to set up some big stories for the coming year or more. While the setup is the wedding of Angel Murphy (the original Dragon’s adopted daughter) and Frank Darling, Jr., the final pages set up a massive, cosmic odyssey.

There has been a huge twist every time Larsen makes one of his 100-page giants for a while now. In 2017’s Savage Dragon #225, the title character died (although by then, his son had been the main character for a while). In #250, an alternate-reality version of Dragon — one who originally appeared in an indie comic a decade before Image Comics was even founded — turned up to join the cast.

Spoilers ahead for Savage Dragon #267.

This week’s issue might seem like a fairly low-key wedding celebration, but by the end of the issue, one of Dragon’s classic villains has set a master plan in motion that’s as abhorrent as almost anything a villain in this title has done. Midway through the wedding itself, there’s a panel in which appears to have a headache. In that moment, the groom’s mind is replaced with that of Mr. Glum.

“Angel is superpowered and Frank/Glum isn’t, so it’s a bit weird to define just what that was,” Larsen told ComicBook.com in this week’s commentary track-style interview for the issue, which will run later today. “Certainly he can’t force himself on her. She could break him in half, but she has definitely been manipulated and taken advantage of. I guess it is technically rape but then — Glum is a villain, so it’s not outside of something that a villain would do.”

For the uninitiated, Mr. Glum is a megalomaniacal supervillain whose tiny stature — he’s about 18″ tall — belies how dangerous he can be. Originally mistaken for a particularly odd-looking doll, Glum hid out with a young Angel Murphy until he was ready to make his move. After being repeatedly foiled by Dragon, Glum has spent the last 100 or so issues largely off-planet, where he rules over Glumworld, a planet in Dimension-X that’s literally carved into his image, so you can see Glum’s face from space.

Aside from his intellect and boundless, creative cruelty, Glum doesn’t have much in the way of actual powers. He has only ever gone toe to toe with Dragon and his family when he’s wearing a large suit of armor. But it’s his scientific genius that allowed him to switch places with Frank — and then proceed to have sex with Angel immediately following the wedding ceremony.

Glum’s obsession with Angel has become his defining trait over the years. Whereas many supervillains become obsessed with killing their enemies, Glum is obsessed with restoring what he had with an alternate-universe version of Angel, who was killed during a battle with Malcolm Dragon, Angel, and their ally Rex Dexter. 

The multiverse-shattering storyline “The Merging of Multiple Earths” — which ended with Dragon’s death — was actually orchestrated by Glum in order to force Angel Murphy to take on the memories and personality of her dead counterpart (it didn’t work). While most of the multiverse has now been collapsed into one timeline, Glum had stolen a pregnant Jennifer Murphy, cut the baby out of her, and started to raise her as his own. That version of Angel, now around 4 years old, is seen on Glumworld at the end of this week’s issue, where she tries to comfort a despondent Frank, who understandably panics when he finds himself in Glum’s body.

You can get this issue of Savage Dragon at your local comic shop, or pick it up digitally on Amazon.