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.

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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?