Savage Dragon #243
Image Comics
Written by Erik Larsen
Art by Erik Larsen
Colors by Nikos Koutsis and Mike Toris
Letters by Ferran Delgado
In the aftermath of Malcolm dealing with Ant, there is more trouble at home as a piece of Basilisk has tracked down Maxine and attacked her at home. Unable to fight the thing off herself, her baby becomes the target. Fortunately for them all, little Maddy can take care of herself and destroys the thing from the inside.
Things go from worse to worse when Maxine has to take Amy to a child’s birthday party. As Amy runs off to have fun with her new friends, Maxine is dealing with adults who seem to feel compelled to bring up the darkest moments of her past in casual conversation. It’s a situation that drives Maxine to drink.
Unfortunately, no one realizes that a villain named Celsius has broken into the house to rob it. When Amy and her new friend confront the thief, he attacks the little girl and gets more than he bargained for when she fights back.
Larsen continues to push the limits in both the storytelling and the visuals in this issue, but despite all the chaos, he tells an interesting and engaging story for Maxine. For the person in Malcolm’s life without superpowers, it can’t be easy for her and the fact that she can’t seem to escape either her past or her present makes her an interesting character to read. Even taking her daughter to a child’s birthday party becomes an exercise in both maintaining her cool and managing a dangerous situation for herself and her child.
You feel for her as she finds herself dealing with situations that would drive an average person insane and the fact that no matter what she does or what happens to her, she is still being hounded for her mistakes in judgement.