History has not given Ivan Drago a fair shake. Not even close. In all likelihood, Drago, a.k.a. The Siberian Bull, a.k.a. Death From Above, will go down as one of the defining terrors of the 1980s. Our grandchildren will remember him as a barely human manifestation of everything that was wrong with the Soviet Union. The elitist intellectual scholars who are in a rush to place Drago in a league with the Takagi-fortune-Stealing, non-girl-needing, Wade-murdering, Boddicker-esque villains that defined the 80s couldn’t be more wrong. https://youtu.be/V6K3IvJzJRg At worst, he is a misunderstood abomination, the monster to the Soviet Union’s Frankenstein; a beast with incredible (and sometimes lethal) capabilities whose character is deeply buried beneath its freakish appearance and distorted by the fear it inspires. At best, Ivan is nothing short of a hero, a revolutionary, and, in 1985, one of humanity’s brightest lights.
