REVIEW: ‘WWE Then. Now. Forever. #1′

BOOM! Studios has had a track record of succeeding in translating TV shows into great comic books and their next step is a bit of a wild choice: World Wrestling Entertainment. You’d be surprised by how much this works so well.

WWE Then. Now. Forever. #1 serves as a preview and a bit of a prelude to the upcoming WWE ongoing comic that’ll be released in January 2017. This entire comic showcases quite a lot with multiple stories and what’s great here is that each story has a different approach to both writing and art. Dennis Hopeless scribes an in-depth look on Seth Rollins’ road to his betrayal of The Shield that very much fits a comic book story aesthetic and while this is probably something that’s purely for comics only, this story adds a lot of weight to what fans have seen on the actual storyline on TV. Supporting Hopeless’ story is Dan Mora and like Hopeless’ work, Mora does his absolute best fitting the comic book aesthetic as well with how appealing his work is especially during moments of fighting.

The 2nd story goes to the colorful, cereal eating and unicorn loving group The New Day as they’re written by Ross Thibodeaux. Thibodeaux’s clear with how this story is completely shying away from the WWE  and more on what a weird and colorful world The New Day could possibly be involved in as they run a summer camp and time travel back to the time of a caveman version of Ric Flair. Paired with The New Day’s very wacky dialogue is the art done by Rob Guillory who was definitely a perfect match for this group showing very animated visuals.

3rd story is written and painted by Rob Schamberger beautifully telling of the inspiration Sasha Banks looked to growing up, Eddie Guerrero. Schamberger impressed with how this served as a “Sasha Banks 101″ for WWE fans who might not know or just started watching Sasha Banks in the ring and how much of a visual feat it is to do something as rare as painting in comics.

And or this 4th story, we’re treated to a story of a bout between Tugboat and Earthquake written and drawn by Derek Fridolfs done in Popeye style. Though I’m not really familiar with the vintage side of the WWE, it didn’t stop me from enjoying Fridolfs’ work that looked like I was already watching a storyboard for a Popeye cartoon. Fridolfs, like everyone else in this comic, truly delivered and made me more of a fan of his work outside of his time in DC Comics’ Lil’ Gotham.

The last few pages of this comic are 1 page pieces spotlighting Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, John Cena and The Undertaker. All of these spotlight pages are fitting to how the WWE does their promos on their superstars and prove how much can already be told in just one page.

WWE Then. Now. Forever. #1 is quite the comic to get the fans ready for the ongoing comic in January. It’s a nice showcase of different ways of storytelling and different styles of artwork and the number one thing this comic proves is that WWE is a highly welcome addition to the comic book medium. And it does make the reader think that there are a lot of things that can be done here in the comics and maybe even superstar matchups that can’t be done on TV. But that’s a thing for another time. BOOM! Studios is making good on their track record of being a trustworthy publisher when it comes to TV properties being turned into comic books and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for WWE #1 in January!