Every once in a while, a story comes along that is perfectly relevant to my exact interests. This is one of those times. As should be evident given the site on which you’re reading this, I frigging love professional wrestling. I also frigging love 1990s comic books, since they’re both the apex and nadir of the art form. So when Johnny Mundo from Lucha Underground pops up on Instagram posting pictures of himself fully decked out as Erik Larsen’s The Savage Dragon, brother, I am HERE FOR IT.
It turns out that a couple of years ago, Mundo (AKA John Hennigan, AKA WWE’s John Morrison and/or Johnny Nitro) and some others filmed a spec trailer (which is a fan- or artist-made trailer made as a pitch or proof of concept for a project), with Mundo playing the titular Savage Dragon. He posted an awesome set of pictures of him sitting in makeup.
And then he gave us a picture of the completed look, including cop uniform.
The Savage Dragon is a cop. If you watched any cartoons in the 1990s, you probably know that already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESg5F_nMSB0
In case you were wondering, the comic title The Savage Dragon is still going strong, is still completely written and drawn by creator Larsen, and is now well over 200 issues in, albeit on a somewhat erratic schedule. While no one was looking, Larsen is just gonna go and accomplish the same incredible thing that Dave Sim got so much attention for for Cerebus. (That is, 300 issues of a comic book written and drawn by the same person.) It’s amazing.
But enough dumb nerd-ass comics talk; what’s ALSO amazing is that Johnny frigging Mundo played the Savage Dragon in a thing that we’ll probably tragically never see, but it totally rules. It’s also perfect casting, provided there’s no other actor out there with shoulders seven feet wide and a four-inch waist. I mean, maybe Brian Cage can do a severe cut, but I’ll take Morrison.
We might never see Mundo as the Savage Dragon, but at least over in Lucha Underground, he has turned into a sort of … Ultimo Dragon.
