Wrasslin' With Nitro Can Make Your Comics Raw

Are you ready?

NO, NO, I SAID ARE YOU RRRRRREADY?!?

Then for the thousands in attendance, for the millions reading at home... llllllLET'S GET READ TO BLOG ABOUT WRASSLIN' COMICS!

This, by no means, will be the definitive history of professional wrestling and its connection to comics.  I do recall one of the earliest cross-mergings of the "Grunt and Groan" circuit and the spandex-clad world of justice was in an issue of "Superman", where the Man of Steel met Antonio Rocca.  But if you really think about it, professional wrestling serves as a live-action comic book.  You have over-the-top personalities, grand conflicts of good squaring off against evil, and characters that can be FAR too overexposed.  (John Cena and Wolverine must have the same press agent...)  The goal of today's entry is to take you with me for a few stops of my encounters with the merging of two worlds: the four-color world of comics and the four-figure lock world of wrasslin'!

Remember a few days ago how I discussed Valiant Comics, and my experiences with that company's self-published material?  Remember how I mentioned the company began life as a licensed-property publisher?  Allow me to take you back to an avenue of wrasslin' comics that I WISH I had taken advantage of when it was originally published, "WWF Battlemania".  Unfortunately, when this book was being published, I wasn't regularly purchasing comics.  I KNEW of its existence from advertisements on WWF programming, but even being about 10-11 years old, I wasn't really 100% feeling the WWF product at this time.  Now I can look back at this time period with a sense of awe at how bizarre a lot of the booking and character choices were for the company.  If only looking back to this Valiant Comics series was as easy as looking back at WWF footage for this time period.  When I WAS gainfully employed, I did search the vast wilds of eBay for issues of "Battlemania", but I'd probably have an more easy time finding a VG-rated copy of "Superman VS Muhammad Ali" for a more reasonable price!  Sigh...

Marvel comics was never a company to turn down capitalizing on trends and fads.  (I'm sure the concept of "NFL Superpro" is timeless to some people.)  But publishing a pro wrestling comic in 1992 is still an unusual choice for ANY company.  The product was still five years away from beginning its period of media dominance.  And honestly, the WWF capitalized on that popularity FAR more better than WCW did.  But WCW does deserve some credit for gaining a major publisher to back their foray into the comic book world.  And unlike the previous WWF comic series, I HAVE read most of this series.  I just still have to polish off issue 12, which I'm surprised I'm dragging my heels about so much, since it DOES feature the threat of Big Van Vader!

Reading this series is much like reading an average episode of WCW Saturday Night.  We even have commentators in every issue!  Usually our Greek chorus consists of Jim Ross... before the "Bah gawd!" commentary period..., Paul E. Dangerously... before he created ECW..., and Johnny B. Badd... before he bragged about being a Golden Gloves champ.  We see various in-ring events, like the forming of the Dangerous Alliance stable, the feud between Cactus Jack and Sting, and... ugh... El Gigante.  (The less I could see of him, the better.)  But where this comic really shines is the TRULY bizarre twists it takes for the extended story running through the book, which details a mysterious "Deep Throat" saboteur character, the unknown machinations of "The Ghoul", and mental manipulation of Sting!  Truly bizarro material, but if you appreciate the sometimes questionable twists and turns pro wrestling can take, you can find entertainment in this series.  The best part is it's REALLY short, so the series doesn't overstay its welcome.

 

Before we get to the REALLY unusual stuff, I wanted to introduce the "Hot" period of the comics and pro wrestling medium synergy with a chain of titles I like to call, "Wrestling Personality Interacting With The 'Real World' Books".  That's right, the titles for the Rock, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin... and of all things, CHYNA (Before she played a rather disgusting She-Hulk in an... ahem... "adult" parody of "The Avengers".) were vehicles for their in-ring personas, as they randomly tackle some street-level thugs.  Really.  These comics are interchangeable for the general story details: wrassler is loved by the public, wrassler encounters some form of crime/corruption, wrassler covers their repertoire of signature moves and catch-phrases, wrassler saves the day... and the end.  While it's a bizarre bit of sadomasochism to say I own the Chyna comic, these books don't quite shine in terms of general weirdness.  We save that for...

 Chaos Comics LOVED their association with the WWF for the 1999-2000 time period!  (They also loved big breasts, if their general female character assortment was an indication.)  One of their gems of truly unique wrestling and comics storytelling was their "Undertaker" and "Mankind" series.  I can only comment on the former, because I never could track down any issues of "Mankind".  We all know the character of the Undertaker: Usually dark overlord of the wrestling ring, and possessor of mystic powers.  (Sometimes he's a bad-attitude laden biker dude, but hey... we can't always be perfect.)  Well, the Chaos series took that one step further, and LITERALLY connected the character of the Undertaker to the forces of Hell.  His former manager, Paul Bearer, screwed him over big-time for offers of more demonic power, and it was the Undertaker's task to regain his control of all things dark and menacing.  So the world of pro wrestling took on a metaphysical level, with in-ring confrontations masking the true intention of hell-spawned forces battling for control.  Heck, even Undertaker's "brother", Kane, figured into the storyline!  This series is well worth your time to track down!

Big Daddy Cool.  Big Sexy.  The Giant Killer.  Self-aggrandizing behind-the-scenes manipulator.  Kevin Nash has done it all.  And WAY after the initial prime of Image Comics, in the year 2000, Kevin Nash managed to star in his own comic... that has NOTHING to do with wrestling!  Okay... You've seen "Mad Max", the subsequent sequels, and the various "homages", right?  Well, stick one near seven-foot tall professional wrestler in the role of a post-apocalyptic anti-hero... but who truly has a heart of gold when confronted by TRUE evil... and there you have the really short-lived "Nash" series.  Oh, and nearly every other scene, women are hanging off of Kevin Nash.  This man has KISS-level groupie mojo in the world of the wasteland!  I remember the overriding story involves Nash warring with a manipulative group that wants to screw over the survivors of the fallout as much as possible.  And that Kevin Nash NEVER uses a wrestling move.  At all.  It's all guns and knives for the master of the Jackknife Power Bomb.  Only recommended if you're a true comic book glutton for punishment, like myself.

And the legacy of Wrasslin' comics still exists, with the regular publishing of a WWE Comic!  The popularity of pro wrestling may be cyclical, but with every turn of the cycle, so shall the comic book world apparently follow. 

P.S.  Wondering why I didn't talk about one particular wrestling-related comic series that has achieved a SIGNIFICANT level of notoriety?  Well, I didn't want to blow the works on an entry that could well be reserved for its own blog entry.  All I'll just say is stick around for further blog developments...