Retro Read: This is Wild Dog

Posted on Apr 1, 2008
By Raphael Pierson-Sante

4-part mini-series by Max Collins, Terry Beatty, Dick Giordano

DC Comics, 1987

I love comic books with dogs in them. Here's a secret: These "Wild Dog" comic books are the kind that my mom tells me I shouldn't be reading. That's because on just about every page there's some "Blam-blam!" or "KRAAK!" where a guy with a machine gun puts red holes in someone else, or kicks them in the neck.

But

I'd tell my mom that I know they are only pictures and they're not really real: I don't think there could be a superhero like this mystery man Wild Dog in true life. He wears a scary mask and he barely says a word. I kept expecting him to growl! He wears a laughing red dog on his t-shirt and his license plate says "Rover."

I like it that he's a good guy, even if he does use a gun. He saves a TV journalist who's been kidnapped by weirdo terrorists in a small city in Iowa. Then she tries to find out who this guy is who saved her, better than the police.

My mom told me these comic books were made more than ten years before I was born. They do look kinda old. They have ads for candy in them that I wish I could taste. But they don't make Wild Dog comics anymore, either. Well, at least I've got "Scooby Doo" to read.