The first three pages or so don’t have the same energy the rest of the story does, but by the time we get to the final page splash of Nakamura’s entrance, you’ll believe Shinsuke is right there in front of you. Serg Acuna’s art depicts Shinsuke well, but it feels like it takes a little while for the artist to settle into the story. It’s fun to think that Asuka could have had a hand in Nakamura’s decision-making, but either way this story does more for Shinsuke’s character than WWE has over the last year, so any development is welcome. Nakamura is lamenting his previous 12 months, and how they haven’t gone his way when an encouraging conversation with Asuka over some beignets (hey, they were in New Orleans after all) prompts him to rethink how he sees not only the upcoming match but himself. Pitts neatly avoids spoiling the twist that immediately followed that match, but if you do know how it turned out, then there are plenty of signposts scattered through the story that makes the events even more plausible. Next up, we return to last year’s WrestleMania, and writer Lan Pitts takes us inside the mind of Shinsuke Nakamura in the days leading up to his match against AJ Styles.
RELATED: Dave Bautista Fires Back at Stephen Amell Over WrestleMania Comments Sure, this whole story is over the top and dramatic, but so was this feud. Throughout, Paul Bearer is there pulling the strings, much like he was during the match itself. Lee Loughridge’s colors equally depict how hopelessly dark their past was, with washed-out sepia tones to contrast against the brightly colored conflict reaching its culmination in the ring. For those that didn’t watch the on-screen storyline build-up to this match, this is a fairly smart way of driving home the decades of bitterness between these two brothers.īelanger’s art captures the gothic melodrama of Undertaker’s childhood, giving his mother a Bride of Frankenstein hairdo to fit in with the grim mortuary of their upbringing. Andrew Scott and Andy Belanger do a great job of recreating the match highlights, while also interspersing a kayfabe flashback to Kane and ‘Taker’s acrimonious childhood. If you were watching wrestling at that time, this match was a big deal, and the drama on screen reached a fever pitch that’s more than accurately represented here. The second story, “The Destruction of Brothers,” takes us back to 1998’s WrestleMania XIV and the grudge match between Kane and the Undertaker. Kim’s depiction of both Flair and Asuka relies heavily upon their outfits for you to know who they are, as their faces aren’t entirely recognizable, but the choreography on the page, especially during the match itself, is dynamic and engaging. It was a great match, and the story captures the feeling of watching it nicely. While the narration doesn’t quite feel like Charlotte, this story does a good job of recapping the WWE careers of both wrestlers and building up exactly why this match was so important to both of them. That’s the first of four stories in the book, written by Bill Hanstock and illustrated by Hyeonjim Kim. RELATED: WWE Gets the Garbage Pail Kids Treatment in New Licensing Deal The closest we get to that here is a look back at the Asuka/Charlotte Flair match from last year’s WrestleMania, which helped pave the way for Charlotte to be co-headlining this year’s Mania alongside Ronda Rousey and The Man, Becky Lynch. It would have been nice to get a one-shot devoted to the biggest wrestlers of this year’s Mania, a sort of primer on the matches and storylines that led to the main event itself, but with the lead-in time that comics need, that might not have been possible. The WrestleMania 2019 Special is no different.
There’s so much crossover between wrestling and comics that fans of one are bound to find something to love in the other, and yet it wasn’t until BOOM! Studios acquired the license that we’ve had comics consistently providing stories that fill in the kayfabe gaps between the matches. It’s still pretty hard to believe that it took this long for someone to produce a truly great WWE comic series.