Ideas that didn't quite take off: WWE-the Comic

Unearthing an old one here, but for a while I was quite the fan of professional wrestling. I still catch the occasional match, but there's just something about the old days.

So naturally I wanted to do a comic about it.

Now, I wasn't the first. Boom! Studios is actually doing a pretty good job (feel free to pick them at your local comic shop today!), but they weren't the first. In fact it seems that anyone who does a licensed WWE book seems to come to a bad end. Chaos Comics went under, as did Valiant, plus the utter madness that was Warrior.   I was going to be different.

I wasn't. In fact anything that could go wrong did. My artist messed up his arm, the discs that had all my scripts got demagnetized and the hard drive bombed.

I posted the ideas on a wrestling message board, but it was shut down some time later.

So why not haul them out again?






First we'd start off with the Golden Age.

Jess McMahon was a man with a vision. Forming the Capitol Corporation, Jess started his business empire on Coney Island. This was also the rise of the science criminal.

In stepped Toots Mondt, a local tough guy. He saw McMahon being menaced by a trio of thugs an leapt in. McMahon, impressed, hired Mondt on the spot. From there Toots became a fixture in New York, fighting crime and winning the hearts and minds of the people.

Toots stayed firmly at Jess's side until the man's passing in 1954. With that, Jess's second son Vincent J. McMahon took over.

Thus started the Silver Age.

With Vincent in charge, things changed. No longer relying on one man, McMahon found his champion in Bruno Sammartino. The Italian Superman, who trained his body in many disciplines, gave him the idea of the Superstars. Not one man to fight injustice, but a whole team.

Bruno would lead the team for over twenty years, fighting against the likes of "Superstar" Billy Graham, "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, and Classy Freddie Blassie. Things looks pretty steady until the older McMahon was forced out of his own company by his son Vincent K. McMahon...and Vince was the man with the plan.

Rock N Roll Era

First he fired the entire slate of Superstars, save for Bob Backlund. Backlund was the all American face of the newly dubbed Titan Inc. and the public loved him.

That's when Vince got an idea. Why rely on actual criminals? If he could control the heroes, why not the villains?

Instead of the slightly colorful gangsters or bank robbers, why not have the Superstars fight gods? Monsters, mad dog freaks with the strength of a thousand men? If the villains were over the top, why shouldn't the heroes be just as colorful? Plus things were a bit more manageable if he controlled the crime too.

So it came to pass that Bob Backlund, all American face, was thoroughly beaten by the master criminal known as the Iron Sheik...so with the Sheik in everyone's mind, a relative unknown hero named Hulk Hogan showed up, beaten the dastardly fellow and won the public's love and trust.

From things grew. Titan Inc. went from a regional company to an empire that straddled the globe. Dozens of stories with a cast of hundreds.

If there are no objections I'll be showcasing the cast here. They would be broken down as such:

Raw: (New York based, gritty and grim)
Smackdown: (Los Angeles, brighter and more campy)
Superstars: 1980s
Prime Time: 1990 (though mostly 1990 to 1995)
Raw is War (1996 to 2000)

I'll mostly be focusing on the current rosters, just to keep things current, but also the past as well.