Descent Into Darkness, Part 2: It's Just a Mess

In 1998, the WWF was at the height of its popularity, and there were no depths that were too low too dredge in the organization's efforts to promote itself. It was a time of hastily arranged licensing deals that resulted in some truly terrible products - and comic books, being comic books, were not spared from "The Monday Night Wars." Mankind got his own one-shot issue, which we can be thankful didn't get any further than that. We weren't so lucky when it came to other "superstars," like the Undertaker: he was the star of his own ten-issue series. I looked at #0 in a previous post (Part One of my "series"). Tonight, I'll be subjecting myself - and you, gentle reader - to Undertaker #1.

To recap: the Undertaker is actually a demon from Hell who's supposed to be the rightful ruler of Hell's prison, "Stygian." The only problem is that he was ousted form the position somehow, and now he has to fight a ponytailed Gen-X-er named "The Embalmer" and a corpulent fellow named Paul Bearer to secure his power over a freakin' prison in Hell. To paraphrase a movie slogan, "No matter who wins, they lose."

To be honest, I'm not really sure how everything works in this "universe." We've got Hell, and I'm pretty sure that should work like what I'm familiar with: piss god off, go to Hell. Pretty simple to understand, but it gets fuzzy once someone tries to apply earthly concepts to very unearthly planes. How the hell can Hell have a prison? Who would be in Stygian? What does death mean if you just get sent to Hell, which appears to be easier to get out of than a wet, bullet-riddled paper bag?

A more important theological matter, though, is of course:



Why is there a wrestling ring in Hell?

And it's played in all seriousness, folks. There's no rolling eyes, or tongues-in-cheeks. We're completely expected to believe that Satan likes to watch a little Sports Entertainment while chilling after a long day of raping Stalin with a pineapple.

But these questions were with us with Undertaker #0, and they will be with us right on through to #10. So, you know - don't try to think about them too much.

A bit of the old prose (ending in an egregious failure to use an ellipsis properly) elaborates on the story seen so far: the Embalmer, the Undertaker, and Paul Bearer are actually seeking out three books of – OF DEATH (Bwa ha ha). Perhaps sensing that the job as warden of Hell’s prison was not quite incentive enough to get the Undertaker fightin’ demons every month, the writers have clarified the matter by specifying that whoever holds the three books – OF DEATH – will not only own Stygian, but also have access to a whole slew of “unimaginative unimaginable destructive powers.” The Undertaker has the third book in the series, the Embalmer holds the first, and no one knows who has the second, so I’m hoping that a future issue segues into scenes of ‘Taker and the Embalmer hopping from a quaint used book store in the village to an Antiques Road Show meeting to find it, perhaps with its ultimate acquisition relying on a light-hearted convoluted trading sequence.

Our issue begins with an internal monologue by the Dead Man himself, spoken as he beats the living hell out of your everyday, garden-variety demon: half HR Giger, half “Invasion” alien. In our last issue, we learned that the Undertaker was ousted from his position as chief demon of Stygian, so what he’s doing here corralling an “escaped demon” is beyond my ability to rationalize. This demon is apparently working for the Embalmer, who has the power to create portals to – uh, wherever the hell the Undertaker is at the moment.

Deadpool’s subconscious (re:caption boxes) tells us that it is prophesized that the Undertaker will take possession of the three books – OF DEATH. So, no problem, right? It’s in the prophecy, which means that all ‘Taker needs to do now his sit back and wait for the books to come to him. For all of my griping about The Dark is Rising, I have to give the author this: she knows what a prophecy is. All the kid in that book had to do was hang around long enough, and the shit would all fall into place. That’s what prophecies are: things that are destined to happen. So I don’t see why the Undertaker is even going to look for the books, since he knows that it is destiny for him to be the ruler of Stygian.

Of course, we wouldn’t have a riveting story if we just had 24 pages of the Dead Man eating chips while waiting for the Embalmer to impale himself on his own sword, so despite the clear meaning of the term PROPHECY, we still have to put up with this dreck for the next – oh, 9 issues. Of course, we still don’t get a riveting story, but that’s another point altogether.

The Embalmer, the Big Bad (well, Badder) of the series, is actually a regular old man whose mother named him with foresight: the moniker describes his “mastery of the art he was most proficient” – butchered English aside, I think that means that he was a professional who actually embalmed corpses, but by the looks of the art, he doesn't seem very good at it:

Isn’t the whole point of embalming to preserve the dead? I believe that stripping the flesh from their bones might be a little bit counter-productive in that effort.

Embalmy somehow found a way to open a portal to Stygian, and in a similarly vague fashion – somehow - overthrew the ruler of the place at the time. Given the indications from last issue, I thought that was the Undertaker, but continuity was always a suckers’ game anyway.

Jump to the present: while the Undertaker whines about finding the books again – just in case we forgot what the McGuffin was after, you know, putting the comic book down a few weeks ago in disgust, and finally coming back to it today – the Embalmer speaks to the Dead Man’s unfortunate victim from the beginning of this issue in his office. Like all good villains these days, the Embalmer has somehow managed to acquire a large corporation, despite not showing one ounce of business acumen. The demon’s tail was cut off when the Embalmer closed the portal on him after the Undertaker grabbed the appendage, and he can’t shut up about it. In a bit of dialogue that was supposed to show the Embalmer’s callousness and disregard for his minions, he tells the demon to suck it up, imploring him to “grow another [tail]... or three, or four,” he doesn’t care. It actually just comes across as weird, since the demon wouldn’t be bitching about his tail if he could just grow another one in an instant. He also demands that the demon call him “Augustus Slayer” while in the mortal realm. It’s probably just for kicks, since it can’t be to remain inconspicuous.

A lot of this issue is just repetition, repetition, repetition – the Phenom likes to remind us every few pages or so that he would really like to get his books, and that he’s destined to be the ruler of Stygian, while the Embalmer likes to sit on his ass and talk about ruling Stygian while the Undertaker beats the crap out of the same interchangeable goons.

Undertaker #1 ends with a 7-page wrestling match with a nobody who calls himself “Mezzmor.” The strange thing is that while the ring begins to resemble some sort of Hell-scape, Mezzmore does not take on the appearance of a demon - which, according to the laws set forth in Undertaker #0, he should when in the presence of the Undertaker. So either Mezzmor isn’t really a demon – which is going to create problems for the WWF’s lawyers, since ‘Taker manages to liquefy him during the fight – or Vince McMahon has been investing in some really strange ring equipment. This one has talking turnbuckles that constantly attempt to eat Mezzmor, screaming about “meat” and “soup.” It’s one of the many aspects of this comic that prove that Chaos! was just throwing whatever popped into their heads onto the page, hoping it’d stick. It’s not cool, it’s confusing: we still have no reason why the wrestling ring is necessary for battling demons other than “whim,” and now we don’t even know if we’re in Hell or if the mere proximity of the Undertaker causes the ring to appear to be made out of dead things. And you want to know something else? I bet the ring’s completely different in Undertaker #2. There is no commitment to internal logic or consistency with this thing.

The last splash page reveals Paul Bearer behaving in a vaguely threatening manner, and it looks like he’s clutching one of the books – OF DEATH – or maybe it’s a just an ordinary book-book, I don’t know how these things are supposed to look. It doesn’t matter. He won’t do anything of any consequence in the next issue, anyway.

Although the strange, often nonsensical comics of previous eras seem quaint today, I can assure you that this one will only be regarded as terrible, terrible, and terrible to future scholars and masochists.

---

Hey! They actually published a trade of this bilge. A second volume was also produced, and is available at Amazon.com here. Click on the links to make a questionable purchase today!

A Descent Into Darkness: A Review of Chaos! Comics's "Undertaker" Series, Part 1

On Monday, I reflected upon the influence that Professional Wrestling circa 1997 had on the types of storytelling that a younger me enjoyed, and I also looked at a product of that "Attitude" era, Chaos! (damn you, exclamation mark!) Comics's one-shot "Mankind" comic book. Tonight I'll look at a character who was a little bit better suited toward comic-bookification (or "adaptation," if you're into the use of real words), and one whose stories intrigue me to this day: The Undertaker.

First, I think it's important that you get a little background on the character. Sure, I could refer you to the Wikipedia article, but it's always more fun to hear history from someone who's particularly passionate about it - which I, a little embarrassingly, still am.

The Undertaker was created at a time when gimmicks were still the bread and butter of Sports Entertainment, then called "Professional Wrestling." Performers didn't just have personalities, they had costumes - they were like real-life superheroes (or villains). And like superheroes, some of them had super powers. The Undertaker is one of the few wrestlers who've had their gimmicks survive the "Attitude" era, which re-envisioned wrestling as "Sports Entertainment," giving it the feel of a "Soap Opera for Men" that leaned more on realism and sly insider references than on larger-than-life characters. Today, if a character does get a more colorful gimmick to work with, it'll be played for laughs (see "Hurricane" Helms). The Undertaker, except for a brief period from 2001-2004, was a gimmick that thrived, despite what was going on around it. He could resurrect himself. He had an army of "druids" who would occasional hold torches for him. And he could, sometimes, shoot bolts of lightning. He was also not averse to trying to bury you alive.

The Undertaker was introduced at Survivor Series 1990 as a mystery partner for Ted "Million Dollar Man" Dibiase's "Million Dollar Team." He was originally named "Kane, the Undertaker," and was yet to be accompanied by long-time ally Paul Bearer, but the basic facets of his character - stoicism, propensity to speak in a gravelly-toned pseudo-biblical gravitas, and the tendency to finish off his foes by performing a "Tombstone" piledriver - were all there.



Soon after his first appearance, he split from Dibiase and began to appear on "The Funeral Parlor," a talk-show segment with his new manager, Paul Bearer. During this time, Paul Bearer carried an urn with him that seemed to have something to do with the Undertaker's ability to totally beat the snot out of everyone he fought. Bearer would hold the urn up at ringside when the Undertaker was in trouble, and the "Phenom" would sit up and proceed to kick ass.



The Undertaker would also bring a real, honest-to-goodness casket down to the ring during big matches, like the one with the infamous Ultimate Warrior. This led to the creation of 'Taker's specialty: the Casket Match, in which the winner was decided by whichever poor bastard got locked in a coffin brought to ringside. The most famous of these, at Royal Rumble 1994, was against the man known as Yokozuna, a character with a Sumo-wrestler gimmick, which involved the creation of a specially-designed coffin big enough to hold the reportedly 500-lb. man. In the end, the Undertaker would end up being shoved in instead, ganged-up on by a multitude of other wrestlers, who only managed to get the Dead Man to stay down when somebody knocked over his urn, and a cloud of nasty green shit came pouring forth. It would take more than a locked box to hold the Phenom, though, and his "soul" would float up from the casket after the match, determined to return at a later date.



Fast-forward to 1997, and the WWF is bigger than it's ever been, forced into that position by the "Monday Night Wars" with rival promotion WCW. Enter Kane, no longer a name owned by the Dead Man, but given to his eeeevil masked brother:

Kane was forced to wear the mask after being horribly scarred in the fire that destroyed The Undertaker's family's funeral home as a child, although he doesn't seem terribly bothered by it nowadays. After a convoluted series of slow-building clues, including broken Grim Reaper statues, graveyard desecrations, and mustache-less Paul Bearers, Kane showed up after 'Taker's "Hell in a Cell" match against Shawn Michaels at the "Badd Blood" Pay-per-view exhibiting nearly all of the "powers" of everyone's favorite deadman, but with a twist - he could seemingly control fire to an extent, setting people and things aflame at will (which culminated in an hilarious bit where he and his brother tried one-upping each other by firing bolts of lightning at various parts of the arena, which included quite a few hapless event employees). Soon after his arrival, he allied himself with the Undertaker, but then turned on him once more, locking him in his own casket and setting it on fire. The Undertaker was apparently "dead" for real this time.

That is until he returned, this time sporting a few new tricks: he tried to "Crucify" several people, and began prophesizing the coming of a "Plague of Evil." This is the era of the Undertaker that these comics were published under. It was also the downright most awesome thing the WWF/WWE has ever done. Although the Undertaker would go on to form the Ministry of Darkness, using giant flaming t-shaped symbols to scare the crap out of Vince McMahon, these events are not chronicled within the Undertaker comic book.

These issues, therefore, suck. Unequivocally.

I just thought you might like to know that. Hell, if you read my last review of a wrestling based comic, the aforementioned Mankind, you already know that, most of the time, the adaptation is very different from the source material. This one, though, at least acknowledges that the Undertaker is a wrestler, and so he should probably be seen wrestling at some point. This shall be the only place where Chaos! (ugh) Comics will not disappoint.

Believe it or not, The Undertaker actually had a longer run than I thought it did - it ran for 10 issues, and since Chaos! Comics didn't seem to realize that the comic book industry was in a bit of a slump in 1999, there were more variant covers than an X-Men mag. There was also a Halloween Special which I haven't been able to track down, and the god of your choice only knows what fantastically terrible goodies are in that one.

Tonight, I'll be looking at the only logical place to start our journey into unforgivable travesty. Actually, the logical place to start would be #1, so there's some well-laid plans already ruined. Looks like we're riding bitch with illogic for this one, which is quite serendipitous, as that's exactly what Chaos! (JESUS CHRIST, SHOOT ME NOW) Comics specializes in. We will begin our journey with Undertaker #0.

Alright: I've stalled this long enough already, let's get this shit over with.

Luckily for you, this one's more of a preview book - it's only 12 pages, instead of the usual 24 or so.

Undertaker #0 was one of those Wizard give-away dealies, a promotional item that was supposed to interest readers enough to actually shell out $2.95 ($4.58 for us poor Canadians) for issue #1. And, hey, bonus: the art isn't quite as ugly as it was in Mankind.

#0, written by Beau Smith and penciled by Manny Clark, sets the stage for the conflict to follow by revealing that the Undertaker is actually the ruler of some place called Stygian, which is either an owl, the River Styx, or a heavy metal band from Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Oh wait, he actually says it's "Hell's prison." So I guess it's a mix of all three.

Wow. Hell's prison. I thought Hell was a prison, in a way. Even so, why would you want to be the warden of a bunch of demons? Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Apparently, there's a war being fought for control of Stygian - why, hell, who knows? The important part to know is that when you go to watch a wrestling match, you're really watching two demons duking it out for control of a prison in hell.

Yup.

You think you're seeing this:

But what you're really seeing is this:

Yikes. But also, huh? If you were a demon-thing, would you choose to fight over the most important real-estate in the underworld in a dark alley, perhaps while brandishing a sharp, stabby object - or would you choose to participate in semi-staged events within a limited, yet open, space, surrounded by thousands of people, and under a set of confining rules that include "no biting?"

You win this round, irrationality.

Anyway, one of those handsome fellers up there is fighting on behalf of a guy called The Embalmer. We'll learn more about him in #1. The other guy is fighting for the aforementioned Paul Bearer. Both are players in the war to control the inexplicably valuable Stygian.

The Undertaker doesn't like his demons taking time off to wrestle, though, and so he comes to the ring to send 'em back to his prison - which means that these demons are fighting to stay out of Stygian by fighting for two guys who want to own Stygian. Hm.

You've got to give it to Beau Smith, he's done his research: WWF referees are completely ineffectual, even in the Chaos! universe:

That'll teach 'em, Earl.

Okay, maybe not.

When I first read that, I thought he was saying "WAUUGH!" I thought maybe the author of The Loved One had some sort of unexplained grudge against him. Another opportunity for a spin-off wasted! It's these kind of short-sighted decisions that bankrupted this company in 2002.

There's not much else happening in this issue other than an atrociously bloody beat-down that the Undertaker lays on the two demons. He manages to send them back to Stygian by giving them piledrivers, which is a lesson that all priests should take to heart when performing any upcoming exorcisms.


The Embalmer shows up, looking somewhat less than dangerous:

and slightly more Gen-X than I expected. He is an inspiration, though - he was able to bed two women, even while insisting on watching wrestling afterward. He is a hero to us all.

Kane even shows up, but whose side he's on is left as a mystery for now - although we can reasonably assume that it ain't gonna be 'Taker's.

So there's not a lot to chew on in this one, but it does have me dreading the next.

After all, any comic where the fate of Hell rests on a "sport" with arbitrarily defined rules which are infrequently enforced can't certainly be good, can it?

Have a Nice Day: Mankind Saves the Dispossessed

When I was a kid, around the age of ten or eleven, there were two types of fiction that had me enthralled: one was Star Trek, a nostalgic remnant from even earlier in my childhood. The other was professional wrestling.

Don't snicker at me. The period from 1996-1999 was the second renaissance of wrestling; the "Attitude Era." It was mostly the product of Vince Russo, who was a story-telling genius when he was tempered by editors and Vince McMahon, but a complete idiot when he went unsupervised in Eric Bischoff's WCW. This period saw the rise of Undertaker's unstoppable and evil brother, Kane, who seemed to have a supernatural control of fire. There was the mighty Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Mr. McMahon epic. And we were also treated to the aforementioned Undertaker abducting wrestlers and turning them into his minions for a stable called the "Ministry of Darkness," whose heinous deeds included chanting lines from movies in Celtic, and "crucifying" other wrestlers on a totally wicked "Taker symbol:"


The "Ministry" story enthralled me, but I could never be as cool as the Undertaker was. I was shy, overweight, and socially awkward (I know, I know - a guy who blogs about comics, wrestling, and Star Trek possessing these qualities is simply unheard of). So I couldn't identify with the awesome power of the Lord of Darkness, nor could I possess the bad-assery of that other pillar of "sports entertainment," the beer-swilling, uncompromising, disrespecting Stone Cold Steve Austin. Nope, there was only one character that I felt entirely comfortable playing, and I did it to the hilt:

Mankind.

He was insane, pitiable, and not only did he profess to love pain, but actually proved that he did. For somebody raised in the public school system, there wasn't any other character easier to portray than Mick Foley's old sad-sack in a mask.

And I wasn't the only one who felt the same way. The oafish Mankind, a second incarnation of the persona that was a bit chunkier and funnier than Foley's previous take on the character, became a marketing smash. His catch phrase, "Have a Nice Day," was shouted all over the school yard, while his initially one-off sock puppet friend, Mr. Socko, was recreated faithfully by your's truly.

But don't take my testimony: take Choas! (yes - their company's name has an exclamation mark in it) Comics'! The Mankind character was one of the few that was shoe-horned into a terrible line of WWF comics in 1999, along with The Undertaker (whose series also featured Kane and Paul Bearer). You'd think that if you wanted to make a comic about a man-child with a fetish for agony, you'd try for something, you know, funny. But the Chaos! Comics guys were too smart to fall for that attempt at mediocrity and predictability - they read Rob Liefeld's stuff, they knew what comics were, and that was grim 'n' gritty. Thus, we got this:



Oh boy. He's a friendly fellow, isn't he?

This train-wreck can be blamed on writer Steven Grant and penciller Jerry Beck (whose illustrious career would continue with such titles as Insane Clown Posse). Think I'm being unnecessarily harsh? That's because you haven't read this thing.

It doesn't even wait to start pissing off the English majors. On Page 1, right at the top, we're treated to this little introduction to the Mankind character:


The WWF's Mankind may not lool like a force to be reckoned with, but don't let that fool you. As many of his opponents in the WWF ring have found out, Mankind can one minute be as docile as a child and the next as vicious as any professional wrestler out there.

This story takes Mankind out of the squared circle and pits him against insurmountable odds.Though all he's really looking for is a place to call home!

Oy, my syntax.

Mankind's adventure begins as he comes flying out of nowhere to kick the crap out of some inconsequential muscle who are hassling the homeless population of - err, a park somewhere. It doesn't start off all that badly to be honest with you. The first page gives zero indication that it's going to be a period of your life wasted, forever gone and irreclaimable. Of course, that's before Mankind's entrance:

Errrrrr - what?

The tough guys are unreasonably calm about the whole "man in half a mask and a tie coming screaming out of the darkness" scenario, because they respond in full sentences punctuated with periods. The difference between the art and the dialog is quite jarring, as the men look like they should be shouting, but there's nary an exclamation mark in sight.

After a couple of pages of scaring the bejeesus out of the mysterious attackers (one's sporting an eye-patch, so I'm going with "pirates" on this one), Mankind arbitrarily exclaims to his pal, Mr. Socko, that he's crashin' in the park with the homeless. Why they're homeless we never find out, so I guess we're just supposed to be on their side without questioning why.

A side note: I don't think I have ever seen seen uglier art. Ick. Look at the guy at the right picking his honker with his crucifix:

My gawd. That's sickening.

None of this makes any sense. Mankind is supposedly a professional wrestler in the Chaos! (ugh) universe, but he's just bumming it with the homeless? Even the jobbers get paycheques, man. Plus, what about travelling?

But all that's small potatoes compared to the hideousness of the rest of the book. Page 7 introduces us to the man who's called the "hit" on the homeless, the Mayor of Unnamed City. He's discussing "business" with a man who only wants to be known as "the Director," which should be a dead give-away that he's evil. He talks about "subjects" and "research," so now we know that he's also an evil scientist. So he's going to be rounding up drifters like that guy from Doctor Who. Remember, kids - PETA only cares if you experiment on animals.

The mayor's complained that simply getting the police to evict the squatters from the park would be a "public relations nightmare," so he opts for the Director's less visible methods: sending a squad of helicopters to shower the park in poison gas and abduct them for experimentation. Because nothing says "subtle" like having people knocked out and dragged away from a public place by a flock of black helicopters. I mean, really, it happens everyday in Toronto, and nobody bats an eyelash. Although when we abduct our panhandlers, we have the good sense to give 'em free booze and cigarettes for their troubles.

Once the filthy hobos are all rounded up, they're taken to the Director's evil lair. It turns out that this isn't just an ordinary mad scientist. He's doing it to save the human race from a coming "cataclysm," so the homeless should be grateful that they're being sacrificed for the greater good. Can I get Stock Action Character Number 3 please?

Ahh, where would the villainous geniuses of the world be without the person that calls him a bastard and reminds him that he'll never get away with whatever he's doing? If she wasn't there, he'd have no one to be condescending toward. As a bonus, she also fulfills the "pathos through loss of a child" role nicely.

Meanwhile, Mankind has been locked in a cell on his own, while the other prisoners have been, I presume, allowed to wonder around in a big open pen. Keep that part in mind for later.

The Director reminds one his henchmen - whom I have dubbed "The Amazing Beard" for his facial hair's propensity toward having parts of it appear and disappear at random - that every government in the world is backing his research to create the ultimate soldier - which flies in the face of his earlier statement that he was trying to save the human race from extinction. I thought maybe he was lying to his prisoners, but then, what purpose would that serve? Nobody's going to willingly allow themselves to be experimented on by a madman who had them kidnapped, even if it'll save everyone else. You'd have to be even more insane than the WWF licensing commitee that approved this dreck. Besides, there's more proof that "the Director" is just insane when he states near the end of this issue that he's above the "selfishness" that causes the homeless to actually value their lives to a certain extent. You know, because building super-soldiers by treating other people like animals for hire isn't irrationally self-absorbed at all.

Plus, he believes that Mankind is a "missing link" in his research. So I guess he's aiming to make 300 lb. psychos who look forward to dying.

Our - err, hero, I guess, proceeds to knock himself silly in an attempt to escape from his cell. This prompts the Amazing Beard to intervene, along with two guards who are immediately overwhelmed by the masked maniac. Throughout the fight, Mankind spouts some "one-liners" that can't even qualify as humorous non sequitors. For example: "You put me through hell! And all I got was this lousy t-shirt!" Chuckle, everyone, chuckle.

Remember how I told you how the prisoners were all just kind of kept in a big room, and not locked up anywhere? Well, that comes into play now, when the guards are distracted by Mankind, which allows the transients to "escape."


To stop the rampaging idiot, the Director tells another henchman (or the same one, I can't tell with this artwork) to use "Brute Force," which is not a legitimate strategy, but rather the too-fucking-cute name for a tag-team of gigantic soldiers created by the director, named "Brute" and "Force." Brute is on the left, which the blond crew cut, and Force is the baldy on the right with the soulless eyes.

So, the Director already has some super-soldiers. Why does he need a bunch of skinny, hungry, badly-drawn homeless people, then? It makes even less sense when you find out that the first person he's experimenting on is a little girl.

Brute and Force proceed to kick the crap out of Mankind, and they win, and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief and stop reading.

Oh, wait. There are six more pages of this thing. I must have been day-dreaming again. Sorry.

Mankind manages to electrocute Force, thus:

Mmmm, Beefy? Yup, those folks like me who had wasted part of their Monday nights by watching wrestling will remember the time that Chef Boyardee's slogan was indeed "Mmmm! Beefy!" and, surprise, surprise, Mick Foley, in his Mankind persona, was the spokesman on commercials during broadcasts of Monday Night Raw.

Mankind manages to work his way into the Director's operating theater, hijacking the stretcher that the aforementioned little girl was placed on prior to the Director preparing to operate on her. Now, that just seems kind of silly to me. If I was going to cut somebody open, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it with her still on a bed with friggin' wheels. That's just bad form. Unless it's a race car bed.

Anyway, Mankind is taking this stretcher for a spin, and actually gets Brute to push him out of a window - and remember, this stretcher still has an unconscious little girl on it - and plummets a couple of stories to Brute's death.

But don't worry, kids - your ol' pal Mankind's still alive, ready and willing to provide you with enough nightmare fuel to last through years of therapy!

The Director faces one final indignity when Mankind shoves his sock-covered hand into his mouth, killing him through the magic of professional wrestling.

And then the hobos kick him out of the tribe.

The end.

So, to recap, what we've got here is a wrestling comic book that throws away most of the wrestler's character, opting to Flanderize him instead, and includes approximately zero pages of wrestling. Everything that I loved about the WWE at that time, and Mankind, is absolutely nowhere to be found.

Maybe I'll have better luck with the Undertaker mini-series.