WCW Comic Book Reading Club: Issue One, Page 14

WCW: The Comic Book was published in the early 90s by Marvel Comics. Nobody in wrestling or comics paid it much attention, and after 12 issues, it was cancelled and lost to the ages. Until now.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, @tomblackett will post a new page of the WCW comic with his comments and we’ll read through it together. We’ll be there for each other, through the good (Vader! The Steiners! Sting! Cactus Jack!) and the (Johnny B.) Badd.

WCW: The Comic (Issue One, Page 14)

WCW: The Comic is probably the property of Marvel Comics / WWE, though I’m not entirely sure. This website makes no claims to own it; all panels and images are posted in the spirit of fair use and are the property of their respective owners and creators.

Tom: A lot of people wonder when kayfabe was killed off. Vince McMahon declaring that he was in the business of ‘sports entertainment’ might have been the start of it, but I’ve used my investigative skills as the Internet’s foremost wrestling journalist to find the final nail in the coffin.

As a result, I can now confirm that the TRUE death of kayfabe happens here on page 14 of issue one of WCW: The Comic, where Jim Ross refers to Ron Simmons as a ‘former heel’:

Way to pull back the curtain, JR! I WAS TRYING TO SUSPEND MY DISBELIEF, DON’T YOU GO USING THESE INSIDER TERMS AND RUINING IT FOR ME. It wasn’t the dirtsheets that killed the business, it wasn’t the Internet – it was you, Jim Ross, you sunuvvabitch. It was you all along.

Further down the page, we see the writer (‘Merciless’ Mike Lackey) just making stuff up as Simmons locks a ‘double-reverse face stretch’ on Johnny B. Badd, which is essentially just Simmons pinching his cheeks really hard.

Having said that, the artist (‘Rampaging’ Ron Wilson) uses a terrifying visual flourish to make it look like it’s been seven days since Badd watched some weird Japanese video and he’s just received a phonecall:

There’s a brief interlude where we learn ‘Bwakk’ is the sound of a man getting punched RIGHT IN HIS FACE (someone please be making a note of all of these sound effects, thanks in advance), and then we cut to the outside of the ring where poor Big Van Vader is walking to the back. However, the heckling snark marks are still there to make super confusing remarks:

HOLY SHIT THESE GUYS ARE WORSE THAN THE HAMMERSTEIN LOWER BALCONY AT A RING OF HONOR SHOW.

And what does that even MEAN? Is he saying Vader is always going to a 7-11 because he’s a husky kinda guy and that’s where he gets his junk food? Or is he saying Vader works there? Is he throwing around some class trash, acting like Vader’s a lower-income kinda guy who only shops at 7-11? Vader was just trying to be nice!

Really, if it wasn’t for the promise of more P.N. News on the next page, I’d be done with this mean comic. See you on Monday!

<– GO BACK TO READ PAGE 13 | GO FORWARD TO READ PAGE 15 –>

– @tomblackett is super into wrestling and comics. He also writes The Merch Table for this very website.