Savage Dragon #34
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSavage Dragon #34 is notable as the opening chapter of an inter-company crossover between Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics, pairing Erik Larsen's green-skinned Chicago cop with Mike Mignola's paranormal investigator Hellboy — two of the most distinctive creator-owned characters of the 1990s independent comics boom. The issue delivers an origin retcon of genuine ambition: BrainiApe, a recurring Vicious Circle member, is revealed here to be the transplanted brain of Adolf Hitler placed into a gorilla's body, a revelation that also writes Hellboy into Savage Dragon continuity via a 1952 Romania flashback. It also debuts a substantial roster of undead supporting characters in their first appearances, expanding the supernatural side of the Savage Dragon mythology. As the first half of a story later collected as a standalone trade paperback, issue #34 cemented the crossover's status as a memorable artifact of 1990s creator-driven collaboration across publisher lines.
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Erik Larsen produced issue #34 entirely solo — writing, pencilling, and inking — as was his practice throughout the ongoing series, making this one of the most sustained feats of single-creator authorship in American superhero comics. Mike Mignola's involvement was consultative: he is credited on the issue as 'Hellboy Creator & Speech Therapist,' indicating he reviewed and approved Hellboy's dialogue rather than contributing art to the interiors. The crossover occurred at a moment when Hellboy was still being positioned partly as a superhero franchise suitable for inter-company team-up stories, before Mignola moved the character toward a more self-contained gothic mythology. Colorist duties were handled by the I.H.O.C. studio team — Reuben Rude, Abel Mouton, Bill Zindel, Lea Rude, John Zaia, and Jose Arenas — with Chris Eliopoulos lettering.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published December 1996 by Image Comics; written, pencilled, and inked entirely by Erik Larsen (issue title: 'Das Kann Nicht Sein' — German for 'This Cannot Be').
- Features the in-continuity crossover appearance of Hellboy, a Dark Horse Comics character created by Mike Mignola, who served as a dialogue consultant credited as 'Speech Therapist' on the issue.
- Delivers the key revelation that BrainiApe — a Vicious Circle villain — is actually Adolf Hitler's brain, surgically preserved after a 1952 battle with Hellboy in Romania and transplanted into a gorilla's body by Baron Blitzkrieg.
- First appearance of Baron Blitzkrieg in the Savage Dragon universe, appearing in a 1952 flashback sequence.
- First appearances of a large group of undead characters: the Big Mummy, Bloodsucker, Duke Frankenstein, Gimp, Nosferatu, Undead Fred, Vampiris, Vampiro, Veindrainer, and Zombie John — all summoned to Chicago by Abner Cadaver in an attempt to find a cure for the decomposing CyberFace (Sebastian Khan).
- The story's framing conflict pits BrainiApe's telepathic mind-control against both Dragon and Hellboy, forcing them to fight each other — a structurally classic hero-vs-hero crossover device.
- Collected alongside issue #35 in the Savage Dragon/Hellboy trade paperback (Image Comics, October 2002), which also included a pin-up gallery by Mike Mignola and Jae Lee.
- Issue #34 through #40 (plus issue #1/2) are also collected in Savage Dragon Vol. 8: Terminated.
Cast · 20 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Savage Dragon / Hellboy #[nn] (2002), Hit Comics Spezial #3 (2004), Collection Image #18 (2004), Savage Dragon #8
Key issues in Savage Dragon
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