She-Dragon
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Amy Belcher, also known as Sensation and mostly as She-Dragon is a fictional 'superfreak' and later police officer created by Erik Larsen for his series Savage Dragon as a Supergirl like female counterpart for the series' main character The Dragon.
A troubled 'bimbo', She-Dragon became the star of Erik Larsen's title for four issues (51-54) during a time when The Dragon was thought deceased, the title was even changed to 'Savage She-Dragon'for those issues, recently a new She-Dragon mini-series has been announced.
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[edit] Creation
Amy Belcher first appeared in the Savage Dragon Vs Savage Megaton Man special as an villainess Sensation, Amy was part of a low-key group called the Nixed Men, all of the characters were parodies of characters that had been written/drawn and in most castes re-vamped by John Byrne, their name a parody of his own self-created title for Dark Horse Comics The Next Men, Byrne was a known opponent of the Image co-founders who deeply disagreed with a lot of their ideas, (many of which were actually not shared by Larsen) which influenced this parody. Amy was a parody of She-Hulk, whom Byrne worked on for some time in her own series The Sensational She-Hulk (presumably where her original 'codename' was derived from), Sensation noted that she had been cast aside by her creator Johnny Redbeard, a villain later used in Freak Force because after her transformation she performed prat-falls for people from another dimension, this is considered a nod to Byrne's habbit of having She-Hulk break the 4th Wall on covers and occationally in the issues themselves, as well as some of Byrne's plots and stories.
[edit] History
Amy's father was hit by strange chemicals during the Vietnam War, and Amy was born with a disease, and taken to Johnny Redbeard (later The Creator) who transformed her into her current form (and cured her) and was his 'girl-toy' for a while, but she was abandoned by Redbeard after the voices she was hearing from another dimension made her unstable and a liability.
The Savage Dragon clashed with the Nixed Men and defeated them with one punch, and Amy was sent to prison. Afterwards she reformed out of misguided obsession for the Dragon, and first clashed with him and SuperPatriot's Son, Justice, then helped the two and Alex Wilde, Dragon's partner fight two re-occurring villains Openface and Octopus, she later failed to stop The Dragon during his rampage while under the control of Horde in the Possessed story-line along with a number of other support cast, who also failed to stop him. She-Dragon's long blonde hair was burnt off during a battle with the 'Dragon-Slayer' a robot sent to kill The Dragon in the aftermath of his rampage leaving her completely bald, after this she adopted her trademark mohawk haircut to resemble the Dragon' fin. (Savage Dragon issues 12, 15 and 17)
After this Amy underwent psychological treatment between her appearances and the voices in her head stopped, while Dragon was missing after being assaulted by another re-occurring enemy The Fiend, She-Dragon applied for the Chicago PD, when she was turned down she decided to prove herself, using two powerful gloves, she attacked Rapture though (their battle being the main focus of Savage Dragon's 23rd issue) and was destroyed, during the Gang War that followed Amy sided with Chelsea Nirvana, an enemy of Freak Force from their ongoing series, who had, through events in that series became the spitting image of Johnny Redbeard, once de-powered Nirvana looked nothing like Redbeard and Amy left him/her (Nirvana was killed some time later).
After Dragon's suspension and eventual expulsion from the Chicago PD, Amy was brought in as his replacement by 'Captain Mendoza', who was in fact a shape-shifter called Impostor because they thought she would not be much trouble to their organised crime activities, which she, at first was not, having to be saved by The Dragon from her possessed former teammate Super X, however over the following months Amy vastly improved, thanks to training from fellow officer Chris Robinson and the begrudging support of partner Howard Niseman, but she was taken control of by Horde and disappeared, Dragon returned from Space and freed her from the villain's control and she helped in a large battle in Savage Dragon issue 50.
During her time as the focus of the series, she assisted the second Bludgeon in loosing her powers, and finally met The Eternal Youths, the voices she had in her head, though they were not the voices she spoke to, but this Earth's version of them (the Youths she spoke to were on Darkworld, which was part of a previous story in Savage Dragon). However the Youths were pursued by The God Squad, a group of Gods from the planet Godworld who were sent to return the offsprings of the gods to this planet, and after a clash with She-Dragon teleported the Youths away (they were killed by another character Zeek) and went on a date with Chris Robinson, Robinson had been a vigilante called Star before being talked out of it by The Dragon and had dated Dragon's old partner Alex Wilde, when two of their fellow officers announced their marriage Alex reconciled with Chris prompting She-Dragon to try and cure Bludgeon (Chris' brother) to win his favor, this only lead to a battle with a robot of Redbeard's called Exroe-5 form which she had to be saved from by The Dragon, the battle also released another villain called Simon Kane, who possessed She-Dragon and Dragon the next issue.
Following the opening of the Chicago branch of the S.O.S government superteam that Dragon had helped form, She-Dragon left the Chicago PD and joined this branch, she assisted in stopping the now homeless Gods of Godworld (Godworld had been destroyed) who were trying to take up residence in the raised Atlantis, after this she wandered into a part of Darkworld left over from the story-arc some issues earlier looking for the Eternal Youths, she was captured and replaced by her counterpart from that world, she later escaped during the count-down to the 75th issue of Savage Dragon, which tied up all lingering plots and sub-plots and defeated this counterpart, She-Dragon was caught in the 'Nega Bomb' detonated by Darklord in issue 75 and lost her powers along with every other character who had received their powers unnaturally.
Amy has featured occasionally since the This Savage World re-vamp of the series, initially with her long blonde hair and not her mo-hawk, Jennifer Murphy, Dragons wife, was even jealous of their working relationship during one issue, recently Amy has returned to Earth (wearing a Red Sonja-like outfit) with a girl who appears to be version of the Savage Dragon's step-daughter Angel after being stranded in Dimention-X for a year with her.
[edit] In Other Media
She-Dragon appeared as a regular cast member in the short-lived Savage Dragon cartoon series, first appearing in the episode 'She-Dragon'
She was also featured as one of the three-characters in the 1995 Savage Dragon toy line by Playmates (the others were Barbaric and Dragon, who had two figures) where her figure had two variants, one with her long hair and one with her mo-hawk and was sculpted by Claburn Moore.
Recently a resin statue has also been made of her, in a semi-erotic pose, and like her figure, comes in two variants, one with her mohawk and one with her long hair and this time with different color schemes.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- SavageDragon.com - Official site
- Dragonfan.com - A fansite that keeps Savage Dragon enthusiasts informed on Erik Larsen/Savage Dragon-related news