3 out of 5

Have I ever read another issue of Savage Dragon beyond the ones featuring the Turtles?  Newp.  …I love the idea of SD, this one-man show from Larsen that just keeps going, and keeps adding to the roster, and keeps aging the world and characters and just keeps the world alive.  I dig that it’s kind of campy and silly.  But though I get the desire every now and then to jump on board, this seems like the kind of thing – like Cerebus, which you could see as a similar venture – that helps if you were onboard as it was gearing up.  Not that I couldn’t get the gist of this issue, but that I would have to actively decide to keep going; there’s nothing that’s going to make a new reader just instantly jump on board.  So while, perhaps, I will one day make this journey, my wallet and huge pile of to-reads don’t require it at this moment.

Nonetheless: what seems to be a solid issue of action and drama.  We start with a flashback of SD’s son, Malcolm, having just returned from Dimension-X to be normal and attend school, where he immediately gets caught up in some girl drama.  This gets context later as we see one of the girls – Maxine – conflicted over the path her parents want for her to take versus what she wants to do.  Malcolm gets called away from high school to fight some baddies, then falls down a hole filled with ant people when he gets a call from Maxine saying she’s left her folks home and is ready to move in.  Purified, simplified, comic soap opera, drawn with Larsen’s usual enigmatic zeal.  It has that shorthand silly world-building quality that, again, is probably super rewarding for longtime readers, but I can safely put the book down and not be too concerned about Malcolm or Maxine.

Not a waste of money, but probably not a jumping on point if that’s what you’re here for as well.