Erik Larson at CBR: more getting it rightness

As Erik Larson’s The Savage Dragon reaches the 150 mark, and prepares to put a new body in the Overlord suit, Comic Book Resources has an interview with the writer/creator. While I’m still not interested in the comic itself (enjoyed the cartoon, though), I find the article interesting because of his take on character deaths and legacies.

I did not want to dig up the dead. It saddens me just how cheap death has become in comics. Years ago fans would say a character was “Bucky dead” when they thought a character was gone for good and was not coming back – but now Bucky is back and Jason Todd is back and Norman Osborn is running around and that just sucks. It’s one thing if a writer pulls off something clever and sets up a fake death with a back door. It’s quite another when they’re digging up the dead and trotting them out again. I don’t want to do that. So this is not a situation where I’m bringing back Antonio Seghetti, the first Overlord. This is a new guy and he won’t be acting like the old guy. I’m excited about [the return of Overlord]. If I were repeating myself, I wouldn’t be – but I found a fresh angle and it’s going to lead to a lot of cool stories. I can’t help but be excited about that.
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Looking ahead at the solicitation for #151, it sounds like Dragon is going to be “out of commission” following this confrontation. Are we looking at a situation where – dare we say it – Dragon might not survive the encounter with Overlord?

You’ll have to wait and see. Like I said earlier, the book will eventually continue without him. I’m not sure that readers are ready for a Savage Dragon book starring Dragon’s 12-year old son – but if Dragon were to drop dead in #150, that’s what we’d be looking at.

He also give a bit of insight into the history of the creation of the character that I find interesting. Especially after a few podcast discussions I heard recently (from the series mentioned in Saturday’s posting) about revisiting characters created in the writer’s youth. (Many of the ideas I’m playing with started there.)