The Dragon / Comic Books

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• In Avengers Under Siege, Baron Zemo used brainwashing to turn the monstrously powerful (but mentally unstable) Blackout into his loyal Dragon. Blackout is interesting in that he defended Zemo from heroes and villains alike: he disabled the Avengers' most powerful member, Captain Marvel, and also prevented dissent among Zemo's Masters of Evil. Tellingly, Moonstone, in her role as The Starscream, spent the entire arc trying to win over Blackout rather than trying to kill Zemo.
• In Back to Brooklyn, Churchill is Paul Saetta's "pet psychopath".
• Batman: The Joker had Harley Quinn as his dragon then years later Punchline took over as his new right-hand woman.
  • The villain Ra's al Ghul is usually accompanied by an extremely large thug named Ubu. Apparently this is a title, rather than a name; he tends to replace Ubus fairly frequently. Ubu was absent from Batman Begins, but Ken Watanabe's fake Ra's could be said to fulfill this function. Ras' daughter Talia al Ghul also plays this role.
  • In the limited Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman series Trinity (the three issue Matt Wagner one, not the Trinity (2008) maxiseries), Ubu is present, but the role of Ra's Dragon falls to Bizarro, and the mysterious Amazon of Bana-Mighdall
• In Black Moon Chronicles, Pazuzu is the Prince of Demons and the servant of Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness.
• Colonel Olrik from Blake and Mortimer often serves as The Dragon to each adventure's temporary Big Bad, despite him being the titular heroes' Arch-Enemy.
  • In the second adventure The Mystery of the Great Pyramid, Olrik gets his own dragon: Sharkey.
• In Bone, both Kingdok and The Hooded One have claims to the Dragon position. It could even be argued that Kingdok was the Dragon for the Hooded One.
• Captain America villain Crossbones would be The Dragon to the Red Skull's Big Bad. The merc Crossbones is a deadly physical threat, a skilled fighter and carries out the fisticuffs for the weaker (most of the time) but far more cunning Skull.
  • His daughter Sin has acted as the Dragon on occasion as well, and of the two of them, she's the one who's become the Dragon Ascendant. Crossbones doesn't mind through, since he gets to form an evil Battle Couple with her.
• During Frank Miller's run on Daredevil, Ninja babe Elektra and Psycho for Hire Bullseye go to war to see who will play The Dragon to the Kingpin's Big Bad. Eventually, Bullseye killed Elektra after a brutal fight. Daredevil, who was in love with Elektra, kind of snapped after that, and broke Bullseye's spine. But he got better.
• Darkseid of the New Gods traditionally puts his son Kalibak to work in his role, though if he could turn his other son Orion, Darkseid would make him The Dragon in a heartbeat. In Legion of Super-Heroes storyline The Great Darkness Saga, treats his son Orion's clone as his top enforcer, the one who will be the first among his slaves when Darkseid subjugates the galaxy.
  Darkseid: "My time has come, my little mockery... Do you not feel it? The destiny which has escaped me for so long is to be met! Darkness shall cover the universe and reduce all within to my slaves! And you, my son, shall ever be the first among them."
  Servant of Darkness: "I beg you, Master, I am not worthy..."
• In Disney Ducks Comic Universe story A Letter from Home, Maurice Mattressface is Monsieur Molay's right-hand man until he realizes Molay isn't a well-intentioned extremist but just an evil, greedy man.
• In Earth 2, Fury, the last amazon, is Steppenwolf's right hand woman.
• In Gotham City Garage, Batman is Lex Luthor's chief enforcer. He killed Barbara and Kara's father and tried to turn the former against the latter.
• Green Lantern villain Sinestro becomes the Anti-Monitor's Dragon in exchange for an army to rival the Green Lantern Corps in Sinestro Corps War. Sinestro, in turn, leads this army with the monstrous Arkillo as his Dragon.
• The Incredible Hulk: The physically mighty Abomination often played the Dragon to the intellectual, and somewhat frail, Leader's Big Bad. The Leader also sometimes used Rock and Redeemer as Dragons.
  • In the Planet Hulk storyline, Caiera the Oldstrong served as the Dragon to the Red King before her Heel–Face Turn.
  • The Brainwashed and Crazy Betty Ross as Harpy becomes this to M.O.D.O.K., and later as Red She-Hulk to Leader until she's freed.
• In Lament of the Lost Moors, the Guinea Lord works for Savaarda and carries the task of killing Sanctus.
• In Legacy, Darth Krayt has many elite minions who act in the enforcer role, but the one who is closest to him and who he relies on completely is Darth Wyyrlok. In addition to being the only being in the galaxy Krayt can be said to really trust, Wyyrlok is also potentially more powerful than his master, as Krayt has been weakened by Yuuzhan Vong parasites. Ultimately, Wyyrlok subverts this trope in an interesting way- he remains absolutely devoted to Krayt's vision of a galaxy united under the Sith, but kills the Dark Lord anyway because he believes his master has gone insane and lost track of his true goals.
• Even if she is usually not privy to his plans, Mazikeen is Lucifer's most trusted servant, and often fills this position.
• In Matt Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered, Crom Cruich is both a literal AND figurative dragon, summoned by the Umbra Sprite as an "ultimate Enforcer."
• In Mass Effect: Redemption, the salarian assassin Tazzik serves as the villain's chief agent.
• Qztr and all the other Lawbringers are Charon's Dragons in Negation. Immensely powerful and willing to kill without mercy at Charon's command, they also (Qztr does, at least) act as a court of final appeals within the empire.
• Robin (1993): Lynx is King Snake's chief enforcer and fights Tim and Cass far more frequently than her boss. When King Snake ends up murdered by Bane she gets promoted to his former role.
• Spider-Man: Norman Osborn has had several Dragons over the past few years. When he formed the Sinister Twelve, Venom served as his Dragon. When Osborn became head of the Thunderbolts, he brought Venom along for the ride, but would also use Bullseye as his Dragon for more subtle work. Finally, when he formed the Dark Avengers, Venom and Bullseye stuck around, but Osborn now used the Sentry as his Dragon in most cases.
• Sin City villains are often this kind of bad guy. Manute, Kevin, Blue Eyes, to a certain extent are all dragons while the Big Bad's like the Roark family and Wallenquist usually work behind the scenes... and thus, a little more likely to survive the story.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • Snively served as this to both Robotnik and later Eggman. For that matter, Lien-Da and the other Dark Egg Legion Grandmasters could be considered Co-Dragons as well, since they're all equally ranked and report directly to Eggman.
  • Conquering Storm could be said to have acted as this to the Iron Queen; she accompanied the Queen to the Eggman Empire when she assumed control of it from the insane Eggman, and was later sent back to the Dragon Kingdom to enforce the Iron Dominion's control over the region.
  • Ixis Nagus was this to Mogul for a time, and had one of his own in Geoffrey.
  • Following the events of "Genesis", Eggman gained a new chief enforcer in Mecha Sally.
• Superman: Lex Luthor has Mercy Graces as his secretary and right-hand. Metallo would also sometimes play this role.
  • In New Krypton, Ursa is General Zod's most trusted and most efficient warrior, whom he uses to hunt down his enemies.
  • At the beginning of Crucible, Roho looks like the Big Bad until it's revealed he caused a war and kidnapped Superboy at the behest of the real Arc Villain Korstus.
  • In Who is Superwoman?, the titular villain is General Sam Lane's most important minion, tasked with various important jobs such like spying on Kryptonians, keeping Lane's subordinates in line and eliminating Supergirl before she discovers his plans.
  • In The Death of Superman, Mongul is strong-armed into serving Cyborg Superman, the third arc's Big Bad.
• The Transformers (Marvel), with its revolving door of Big Bads managed quite a few:
  • Megatron normally had Soundwave, Starscream or Shockwave as his Dragon, while Shockwave likewise had Soundwave, Starscream or Megatron. During the period where both Megatron and Shockwave were MIA, Soundwave made it clear that Starscream was now the Dragon to him.
  • Shrapnel acted as the Dragon to Lord Straxus, although this was largely forgotten after the first arc, with Dirge leading Straxus' old troops. The headless Straxus later had Ratbat as his Dragon prior to the latter taking over from him. Ratbat seemed to used Blitzwing as his Dragon, although once he moved to Earth, he reverted to mostly using Shockwave, Soundwave or Starscream (although Onslaught often acted as Mook Lieutenant).
  • Mindwipe usually acted as the Dragon to Scorponok, although Soundwave took on the role again towards the end of his leadership.
  • Thunderwing mostly used Ruckus or Bludgeon. When Bludgeon became leader, Krok (and, for the last issue, Stranglehold) became his Dragon.
  • Galvatron normally operated alone, but had Cyclonus as the Dragon in Target: 2006 and Megatron (or rather his clone) in Time Wars. Ravage later served as the Dragon to the clone Megatron.
  • In the post-movie stories, Hun-Grrr ended up as the Dragon to Soundwave.
  • In Marvel UK's Earthforce storyline, Soundwave and Starscream were the respective Dragons to rival leaders Megatron and Shockwave. They both turned out to be enough of a Dragon with an Agenda to depose their leaders and unite the factions as a Big Bad Duumvirate, with Bombshell the most obvious Dragon under them.
• The Transformers: Drift: Hellbat serves as Gigatron's dubiously loyal second in Command.
• In Ultimate Spider-Man, Elektra serves as the Dragon to the Kingpin of Crime. Not that the Kingpin isn't capable of quality violence in his own right...
• The Ultimate X Men have to deal with the Weapon X project, led by a human military officer named John Wraith. He isn't particularly tough, but his personal Dragon is the gigantic mutant killing machine Sabretooth.
• Wonder Woman (1942): Mephisto Saturno acts as the Emperor of Saturn's frontline spy, fighter and slave collector when the Empire of Saturn is abducting humans. This means he's the one Diana, Steve and Etta face off against and fight on several occasions (with Eviless one of the slavers assisting him without being named) and when Diana finally faces the Emperor himself the Emperor chooses to sign a treaty instead of fight. Mephisto continues serving as his Emperor's enforcer even after his former job as a slaver becomes obsolete.
• X-Men:
  • Magneto has employed a number of Dragons over the years. The first was Toad, a Sycophantic Servant type who eventually succumbed to the temptation of The Dog Bites Back and betrayed Magneto. After a long stint of working alone and a failed attempt to reform, Mags acquired a new Dragon in the 1991 X-Men relaunch, Fabian Cortez. Unfortunately for him, Cortez was a Deceptive Disciple and betrayed him so quickly it would have made Toad's head spin. Mags got the last laugh though, as after a stint of being believed dead he returned in Fatal Attractions (Marvel Comics) with his strongest and most loyal Dragon, Exodus, who eventually kills Cortez to avenge Magneto, yet drifts out of the Master of Magnetism's good graces. After an even longer period of working alone, Mystique found herself promoted to the role due to Adaptation Displacement (she's been Magneto's Dragon in most adaptations, though she never even worked with him until recent years). As of 2018 Mystique is the only one of Mags's Dragons who is still in good standing with him.
  • In the Age of Apocalypse, Apocalypse's Omnicidal Maniac son Holocaust was the most devoted to him among his Four Horsemen, and in turn enjoyed the most favor among them (though even he had designs on supplanting his father and turning the world into a hellscape (well, even more of a hellscape) in which no one would be fit to survive.)
• In DC's Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, it originally appears that Extant is the Big Bad, but The Man Behind the Man is actually Parallax and Extant is Demoted to Dragon.
• Spawn: The Violator aka Clown was this for Malebolgia and Mammon.
  • Morana was also this for Mammon.
  • Jason Wynn had Jessica Priest in this role.
  • Cadiclus plays this role to Sinn.
  • Zera was this to God.
  • Hellion to Satan

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