Savage Dragon #50
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSavage Dragon #50 (June 1998) is the pivotal milestone of Erik Larsen's creator-owned run — a giant-sized, continuity-exploding chapter that functions simultaneously as a fiftieth-issue celebration and a genuine turning point in the series' mythology. The issue delivers the apparent death of the Dragon at the hands of the mystic Abner Cadaver, after which the hero's consciousness merges into the body of Detective William Jonson, a body-sharing arrangement that would reshape the book's identity for months afterward and force the title to spin off into a Savage She-Dragon era. By closing out long-running Vicious Circle subplots — killing both CyberFace and Horde in a single battle, and revealing that Abner Cadaver was the puppet-master behind both — Larsen cleared the deck of five years of accumulated villainy in one oversized chapter, demonstrating that his serially real-consequence storytelling was no idle promise. As the final issue collected in Savage Dragon Archives Volume 2, it also marks the formal end of what fans and critics regard as the book's foundational 'cop on the beat' era, before the series began a wilder, genre-spanning expansion.
In "Unfinished Business: Part 3 of 3," Erik Larsen delivers a tense, emotionally charged chapter of the Savage Dragon saga, where the fallout from Rapture’s departure deepens as a shocking revelation surfaces: the child they buried was a drone, and their real child may still be alive. As Dragon confronts a mind-controlling leech and faces the monstrous new threat of the Wicked Worm Horde—a collective formed from a swarm of creatures—his resolve is tested in ways that stretch beyond physical combat. With Erik Larsen handling every aspect of the interior art and inks, and a striking cover by Larsen himself, this 1998 Image Comics issue remains a pivotal moment in the series’ long-running narrative.
In "Cemetery Requiem," Jo confronts the painful aftermath of her breakup with Dragon, only to be drawn into a chilling revelation: the child they buried was not their own, but a drone, and their real child may still be alive—hinted at in a cryptic phone call. As Dragon battles a mind-draining leech and faces the terrifying fusion of Wicked Worms into a single monstrous entity called "Horde," the line between loss and hope begins to blur.
In "Mighty Man Battles the Conqueror Worm!" from Savage Dragon #50, Mighty Man faces off against the grotesque Conqueror Worm, a creature whose terrifying regenerative power turns every severed piece into a new, independent monster—each capable of joining forces to form a relentless horde. The story unfolds in a brutal, high-stakes clash where the hero must outthink a foe that grows stronger with every wound.
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Written, pencilled, and inked entirely by Erik Larsen as the concluding chapter of the three-part 'Unfinished Business' arc, the issue was published in June 1998 with a cover price that reflected its expanded, anniversary format. Larsen padded the celebration with a roster of back-up material and pin-ups by industry peers — Greg Capullo, Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Walter Simonson, and others contributed Dragon art pages — giving the issue the feel of a community event within the 1990s Image ecosystem. The Mighty Man back-up stories in the issue were written by Gary Carlson and are notably reprinted material: one came from Big Bang Comics v2 #1 and a second from Savage Dragon #½, both set in the 1940s as Golden Age-style Captain Marvel tributes. A separate co-feature, scripted by Jeph Loeb from a story by Jeff Matsuda, guest-starred Matsuda's character Kaboom alongside the Dragon, adding a contemporary Image crossover flavor to the anthology package.
Trivia · 9 facts
- Published June 1998 by Image Comics (Highbrow Entertainment); written, pencilled, and inked by Erik Larsen; lettered by Chris Eliopoulos; colored by I.H.O.C. (Reuben Rude, Abel Mouton, Bill Zindel, Lea Rude).
- The main story, 'Unfinished Business Part 3 of 3,' concludes with the Dragon apparently killed by the sorcerer Abner Cadaver, whose death-spell is interrupted when Detective William Jonson kills Cadaver mid-cast — resulting in Dragon's consciousness merging into Jonson's body.
- CyberFace is killed in this issue: Hitler's Brain uses telekinesis to separate CyberFace's disembodied head from the BrainiApe body and shoots it dead, reclaiming BrainiApe in the process.
- Horde is also killed in this issue, ending a major Vicious Circle villain's run that stretched across multiple story arcs.
- First appearance of Fon~Ti in the main story.
- The issue's cover is an homage to the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #338 (September 1990), itself an Erik Larsen-era Spider-Man issue.
- The back-up 'Mighty Man and the Critter Crime Wave' (Gary Carlson/Bill Fugate) is reprinted from Big Bang Comics v2 #1, and the 'Mighty Man Battles the Conqueror Worm!' story (Gary Carlson/John Thompson) is the concluding part of a three-part sequence — parts 1 and 2 ran in Big Bang Comics v2 #1 and Savage Dragon #½ respectively — and functions as the in-universe origin of Horde, establishing that Wicked Worms, when bisected, each grow into new creatures capable of merging into a collective being.
- A Jeph Loeb-scripted/Jeff Matsuda-pencilled co-feature spotlights Matsuda's character Kaboom in a training session with Dragon; pin-up contributors include Todd McFarlane, Greg Capullo, Walter Simonson, Rob Liefeld, and Larsen himself.
- Issue #50 closes out what the Savage Dragon Archives collected editions treat as the series' second major chapter; it is the final issue in Savage Dragon Archives Volume 2 (which collected #22–50 in black-and-white).
Cast · 40 characters
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Big Bang Comics #1 (1996), The Savage Dragon #1/2 (1997)
Reprinted in Big Bang Comics #35 (2001), Savage Dragon Archives #2 (2007), Savage Dragon #10
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