This would be the weirdest regeneration ever...

I picked up another issue of Lawdog the other weekend at the Comicon; and really need to find the rest of my issues. In fact, I had to do a search, since I knew I had brought it up before, but never really posted about it. I did a quick Ask Cerebra search and got two hits, including the one time I mentioned it? That shall not stand! Moreover, that surprised me, since I liked it a lot, and loved the insane Flint Henry artwork, along with a great 'behind-the-curtain' issue with guest artists Gary Kwapisz and others.

And then this weekend, it hit me: Lawdog is the American Doctor Who. Seriously.

Time-travelling, anti-authoritarian hero, with a taste for young female "companions" and a quirky time machine? Check, check, and check.

Although, this is America, and our hero isn't going to have a little sonic screwdriver; he's going to have some motherlovin' guns, son.

And Lawdog's 'companion' Lina is arguably the main character of the series, especially for the issues where Lawdog is dead, pending reincarnation. He doesn't regenerate like the Doctor, but Lawdog's employers keep reincarnating him, whether he wants to or not.

Most American of all? Lawdog's time machine isn't a mere box (even if the Tardis is bigger on the inside) it's a muscle car. A muscle car with guns. U-S-A! U-S-A!

(OK, it's less a time machine, than a means to travel to alternate realities, but I'm not going to split hairs here. I like this comic too much to compare it to Sliders, for god's sake...)

Perhaps even still most American of all, is that Lawdog himself is a bit of a thuggish brute of a hero. But it's OK to be a brute when facing Nazis, zombies, and Lovecraftian monsters. Hell, it's probably encouraged.

In another Dr. Who parallel, I don't remember Lawdog or Lina ever being portrayed as especially interested in each other in any sort of romantic fashion. Like some of the Doctor's other companions, initially Lina doesn't believe in or want anything to do with Lawdog, but gets swept up along with him anyway, and stuck in situations far more dangerous than anything they previously would have dreamed off. And Lina eventually outgrows Lawdog and moves on, not unlike a companion leaving the Doctor. (Although, that may be because the series ended more than anything; Dixon may or may not have kept Lina on indefinitely had the book continued.)

I sincerely doubt Chuck Dixon and Flint Henry intended Lawdog as an American spin on Doctor Who...and yet, it seems like there's something there. Since it was handy, all scans from Lawdog #5 (or is it Law Dog? I prefer the former...maybe that's why my search results were crap.) "a new day" Written by Chuck Dixon, pencils by Flint Henry, inks by John Stangeland. This was part of the last real gasp for Marvel's Epic Comics, in their "Heavy Hitters" line with among others, Chaykin's Midnight Men and Hansen's Untamed, which I loved. I think Lawdog only ran eight issues, and a crossover bit with Alien Legion's Jugger Grimrod? I still wonder what the sales actually were though; compared to today's numbers they may have been staggeringly good.