WWE Volume 1: Redesign Rebuild Reclaim Review

The only person in the world I need to thank

is me, because I did it all. I did it all by

myself. I didn't need any of you. I didn't need

my family members. I didn't need anyone but me.

No one. There's not one person in the world that's

ever helped me. You've just jumped inside the

pull bag. Join TFG1 Mike and the rest of the

comic reading crew here at the GCRN as they make

their great escape into comics. From DC, Marvel,

IDW, Boom Studios, Xenoscope, and more, we have

everything you want to read right here. Transformers

comics? Yeah, we cover that. He -Man? Yeah, sure.

DC superheroes like Batman, Batgirl, Nightwing,

and Batman Beyond? Yep, we have those too. How

about TMNT from IDW and I Hate Furland from Image

Comics? Yeah, we have all that here. Plus, so

much more. It's all inside the pull bag here

on the Geekcast Radio Network. So without any

further ado, it's time to talk about the comics

we are reading right now here inside the pull

bag. After no holds barred last night, it's going

to be another battle with evolution here tonight.

The architect of the shield is loading up with

the toys as well. Are you going to fight fire

with fire? In case you haven't figured it out

yet, what I do better than anybody is adapt.

Last night was plan A. Tonight, plan B. There's

always a plan B. Hello and welcome to The Pull

Bag. This is episode 316. I'm, of course, TFG

and Mike. Joining me for the first time in 2018,

at least, is Ryan the Uneven Flo Merkley. Hello,

sir. First time on this podcast. You're a damn

liar. What? Yeah, first time on this podcast

this year, I mean. Oh, I was going to say, we

just spent... No, my point is I joined you a

bajillion other times. Yeah, okay. I was going

to say, wait a second here. We did two months

worth of Transformers comics last year. No, no,

no. I didn't mean for a second. Okay, I'm like,

what is that? Welcome to the Petty Bickering

Podcast. I think I need to start hitting the

bottle. Oh, God. You're saying that you should

rebuild, re... Redesign, rebuild, reclaim. Yes.

Yes. God, it's been so long since that whole

arc happened. It's like, wow, this is a refresher.

Okay, folks, so we're here. Episode 316, even

though Stone Cold is nowhere near it, but we

are starting to review Boom Studios' WWE comics.

This is a crossover between The Pull Bag and

Mayhem Mike's. We're going to be talking about

Volume 1, as Ryan said. God, now you're going

to make me screw it up. Redesign, rebuild, reclaim,

which is basically the... I had the page with

all the info open before the podcast. And then

you closed it. I was going to say, behind the

curtain, I had problems with the router, so I

put the plugs back straight into the modem, blah,

blah, blah. But yeah, now the page doesn't want

to reload. That's silly. Yeah, well. The joy

of the web. Yes, exactly. So, this basically

is the comic version of the rise and eventual

breakup of the Shield, Seth going on his journey

under the Authority's thumb, and then eventually

breaking off from them. It is written by Dennis

Hopeless? Oh, that's an unfortunate last name.

I think we joked about that before we... As in

when we were talking about doing this a couple

weeks ago. Anyway, yeah, that is unfortunate.

It's weird that there's a writing – so for anyone

that doesn't know, I mean, this is based on the

WWE. This is based around three characters slash

people, whatever you want to consider. But, I

mean, they're basically actors playing characters.

Right. And in terms of the writing, yeah, this

is – like you said, this is a retelling of an

arc that was – 2012 to 2014, I think. I think

it was two years. It was at least, yeah, it was

well over a year and a half. I don't know if

it made it for the full two years. It did, because

it was like right, trust me, I'm diehard on The

Shield, so I'm glad we're doing this now. But

I believe it was right up to, like, you can tell

in the book, like, it specifically says, that's

what I love about this. I wasn't sure going into

this how this was going to be. But what I love

is that they basically set each event, like,

the actual date that that thing happened kind

of a thing. Like, it'll say, April da -da -da

-da -da of this year, Monday Night Raw, or whenever

Extreme Rules happened, or whenever Money in

the Bank happened, or whatever. That's what I

love about this. So, you mentioned the writer,

now the artist. Yes, the artist is Dan Mora.

So, I just want to stop there, because... So

this is the pull bag. We usually review a lot

of different comics. I read a ton of comics personally.

I know you do too, but most of them are based

on superheroes or robots, that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And on occasion there's stuff that's based

around intellectual properties that already exist.

Right. Like Ghostbusters or. IDW has a number

of X -Files, that kind of thing, where the artist

has to draw people or actors. And even within

that, take their Ghostbusters series. Whenever

an artist comes and goes, the style just completely

changes. So I want to single out Morrow here

because he's got a really difficult job. He's

unlike the people who draw, say, Captain Marvel

or... uh batman beyond or anything like that

he has to actually make things look like people

yeah he has to okay so here's the thing it's

wwe it's a comic version of wwe it has to look

like the the the people that it is dan was on

the prologue and then issue chapter one to four

was done by serge akuna i akune i i'm i don't

know i'm sorry i butcher names all the time yeah

sorry so so and then he's got the enjoyable job

of okay there's somebody else's artwork already

on this yep Now I've got to be similar, but I

have my own style and different. So I really

want to point out the artwork on this as being

quite good. Yes. And then you've got the added

issue of, I'm sure, because this is how WWE advertises

their characters and their people, they're larger

than life. So I'm sure there was some element

of, no, you've got to make them look like superheroes

or... But alternatively, they need to look realistic.

They need to look like the characters, because

most of the people that are reading this will

be people that have seen them on TV, so they

know what they look like. And if Roman Reigns

is three feet shorter than Dean Ambrose, somebody's

going to go, well, that's not how they look.

It's silly. I feel like the artists are already,

I feel like they had the toughest job with no

disrespects meant to Mr. Hopeless. Man, that

feels weird to say. Anyway. No disrespect to

Dennis. Yeah, but it's just unfathomable to me.

Part of that's because I'm not an artist, obviously.

But it's unfathomable to me to have to do that

job. To, first of all, come up with it and have

it look like, everybody involved because i mean

it's not just the shield in these you can't draw

anybody else and have them not look accurate

either yeah and then to be the artist that's

got to follow up that and say all right well

the prequels already done so Try to make it at

least a little bit like this. Yeah, exactly.

Oh, gee, thanks. So I already got to look like

people. I got to make it look like somebody else

who came before me that maybe their style's not

the same as me. And it's still got to look good.

Oh, gee, thanks. Yeah, thanks for the easy job.

You know, we talk about this all the time on

Mayhem Mics and what they do and whatever else.

I gotta say, I was watching through that whole,

the beginning of the shield, the end of the shield,

Seth's, you know, heel turn and all that. I enjoyed

it. I enjoyed the whole storyline more reading

this than I did watching it. Because once he

grabs that chair, I'm like, no, the shield was

the best thing ever at the time. And I'm like,

God, don't do this. And, yeah, I will say that

the writer, Dennis, he's got, you know, you said

the artist has the more difficult job here. I'd

say that's obviously true. I'm in agreement a

little bit, but I'd say that. Yeah, it's still

difficult. And I think he does a great job of.

Yeah. What you're hinting at, which is he captures

all the right beats. He captures all the right

beats, and he captures the personalities. Again,

this is starting off with Seth, Roman, and Dean

as the shield. And, you know, this opening chapter

here, we're not going to go page by page or anything,

but I'm just kind of scrolling through this.

You know, Dean gets pissed because he doesn't

have, you know, coleslaw or potato salad. That's

what it is. And he kicks the grill. And he kicks

the grill over and ruins the steaks. And they're

basically cooking steaks on top of one of the

raw equipment trucks. Now this is why I love

this series at this point. Yes, we know the stuff

about what happened in the ring. We don't know

the fallout before and after yada yada yada and

how they are together outside of what we saw

on television. And that's why I love this. Because

you get to see a story built around the story

that happened in the ring. But I'd also say that

the artist, yeah, the artist did a great job.

No, I'd also say the writer did a great job of

eliminating a lot of the filler. We talk about

this on Mayhem Mics all the time. Raw is three

hours long. It's too freaking long. It bores

me to tears sometimes. this book gets to eliminate

a lot of that stuff that's yeah not important

it gets to add stuff that like you say we didn't

see that was off camera that is important or

at least it's more fun or it points to their

character more than maybe some of the raw segments

because i mean the other The other issue with

the three hours of Raw is what's done with it.

It's very up and down. And even as far back as

six years ago now, it had that problem. The Shield

was entertaining, but other stuff wasn't always

great or well -written. I wasn't a huge fan of

some of the stuff with CM Punk. Some of it was

great, but... others it just felt like they were

just being kind of thrown into that storyline

as a hey we need to get these guys on camera

or hey we want to make this more convoluted so

the freaking feud lasts another three months

when it shouldn't when it should so yeah it gets

to eliminate all that and it's just i don't know

it's kind of fun this is I don't know. So would

you recommend it to somebody that didn't watch

wrestling? Absolutely, because here's the thing.

Okay, so as I'm cycling through this, I'm still

in Chapter 1. Dean has just basically stolen

the equipment truck because Roman's sitting up

there on the top. Seth got a phone call, and

he's kind of weird about it, and Roman comments

that it's kind of weird. All of a sudden, the

truck starts moving. Well, in Dean Ambrose fashion,

he stole the truck. And Dean and Roman have a

conversation, because Roman jumps into the cab

here. And then you go to SmackDown, and whenever

the next night SmackDown was, yada, yada, yada.

And what I love about this and what you don't

get to see on television a lot of the times,

and I've mentioned this for the last three years

on Mayhem Mics, you've got a panel here where

Roman and Bray Wyatt are fighting. Bray's saying

to Roman, and you can clearly hear this, maybe,

maybe not on TV, I don't think so. Sometimes

they let you, sometimes they don't. I am the

eater of worlds. Over in the corner, Dean says

you're the eater of something. We would not normally

hear that. So someone who has never seen WWE

and wants to start somewhere, starting with this

comic, not only does this give you the story

behind the story, in the ring and out of the

ring, it gives you a chance to see, oh. This

is WWE style of wrestling. This is the comic

version of what this could look like on TV. Maybe,

you know, maybe, hey, after reading this trade,

I want to go check out a WWE thing on the network

or something. So, yeah, I would recommend this

to anybody who has never watched a single episode

of Raw, SmackDown, whatever. For us diehards,

though? I think it's great because, again, as

you already said, it cuts out a lot of the BS.

Yeah. I think it's interesting, too, that you

look at a guy like Rollins, who in real life,

I won't use his real name, but in real life,

he is a nerd. He's big into video games. He knows

his comics and that kind of thing. I always wonder

how ridiculously fun it is for him. to he can

go to the store he can find action figures of

himself all over the place and he can find comic

books of himself it's gonna be pretty neat if

you told him 20 some odd years ago he would be

able to buy an action figure of him and read

a comic book of him that'd probably blow his

mind yeah so I don't know when he said this.

I'm sure he said this somewhere, whatever. And

obviously it's just for the comic, and I never

really, I didn't notice this when I first, I've

had this comic in my comiXology for, I don't

know, the better part of a year and a half at

this point. Whenever this came out, you know,

I've been sitting on this for so long. I never

noticed the quote by Rollins on the front cover

of the trade. You want to learn how I built the

blueprint to become the Kingslayer? Read this

book. You know, I mean, you're right. He just

absolutely loves it, digs it. I hope a lot of

the WWE people, the superstars specifically,

will read this series and see what they think

of it and all of that. So this is back at a time

when the Shield were kind of going up against

the Wyatt family because the Wyatt family was

still together back then. Bray, Rowan, and Harper.

And they hadn't been buried. Yeah. Lost a whole

bunch of times. I gotta say, though, this comic

captures the character of Wyatt almost better

than television does. Bray is perfectly fit.

Bray's a guy that his character should be on

TV as well. much better than it's been portrayed.

I don't want to get too much into the TV show

because we're talking about comics. He is one

of those guys that he's perfectly suited to be

a comic book character. He could literally be

a villain in Batman or something like that, just

the way he is. So yeah, it didn't surprise me.

What I love throughout this is the narration

that they do for Seth, like the internal monologue.

I think that is so cool how they set all of that

up, basically giving us his inner thoughts at

the time of these events. Like the second chapter

starts with his money in the bank win. After,

obviously, destroying the shield. Yep. We then

have... Kind of have Dean and Roman going after

him, obviously. And again, we saw a part of this,

but we didn't see all of it. And this, I'm sure,

isn't all of it. And this, I'm sure, is a little

bit embellished. But that's what I'm wondering

here. How much did... WWE say yay or nay to the

creative staff at Boom Studios and to the people

that are in charge. Like, I'm sure Boom Studios

wanted to make the best comic that they could

and they wanted to get as many details as they

could as far as what actually happened. But I'm

wondering how much of the writing is quote -unquote

WWE approved. Who knows? I mean, it's possible

that they... I wouldn't be surprised if they

had their notes from the writers or something

like that, and that's how some of the backstage

stuff, that maybe this was stuff that was written

for TV but didn't get to air, or they ran out

of time, or they just decided against using it,

and they got the opportunity to write it, or

it's potentially that, who knows, maybe we'll

get a chance to ask him sometime, but there's

potential there that the writer was just told,

hey, just go with these characters, try to fill

in some blanks, and keep them in character, but

try not to... And again, the whole behind -the

-scenes thing of Triple H constantly making Seth

wait, and saying Seth isn't ready yet, or whatever.

Yeah. No suffer and suck attached. Thank God

for that. I'm not going to lie, there was part

of me that was kind of waiting to see. Probably

going to leave that out, but I'll take a look

and see. I know this wouldn't have happened because

it's not real to WWE, but part of the issue here

with the Seth -Randy match, when the referee

counts, I envision that ref as being Mills Lane.

Because the ref is a bald white guy. And then

obviously you have the... See, by the way, now

I'm tempted to see who the ref was. If it was

actually... I think it was... It looks like a

younger version of Mike Chioda, but I could be

wrong. Oh, who knows? It's probably not Charles

Robinson or someone like that. No, it's a...

Bald white dude. The only person I can think

of is... Charles Robinson would probably be fun

for the artist to draw, because basically you're

drawing a smaller Ric Flair. Yep. Anyway, I'm

getting off topic. I love how this one ends,

because this part of the story, Seth gets introduced

to one of his heroes in Shawn Michaels. And Shawn

basically tells him... You know, you decide to

stop waiting around for permission. And this

kind of sets Seth on the path of what we've seen

of him cashing in on Roman during the Roman Lesnar

Universal Championship match. And this sets up

seeing Paul Heyman in comics, everybody! Yay!

Another guy who's basically a comic book character.

He is, yeah. My name is Paul Heyman! And I am

the advocate for the most non -PGS kicker of

the PG era, Barack Buster! I can see, even though

the Joker loves to talk himself, I can see Paul

Heyman being the Joker's face man or whatever

you want to call it. He could be pretty much

anybody, to be fair. Yeah, that's true. He's

a good talker for anybody who doesn't know who

we're talking about. He is another one that...

Heyman is very much a promoter, and he is in

real life as well. And he is like nobody else.

His life story and his life arc is astounding.

Yeah. So, like I said earlier, this whole second

part of the story here, the second chapter, basically

has Lesnar and Heyman versus Seth, and has Kane

coming in as Corporate Kane. The only thing I

did not like about this entire issue, I thought

it was a little bit too on the nose. The name

of the ship. The cerebral, I'm like, no, don't

do that. Don't do that. Come on, guys. I mean,

I know it's WWE and I know it's over the top,

but come on. So what were you thinking as you

read through this, going through all these events

again? By the time we get to the Lesnar, Rollins

stuff. So just as a whole. I've just kind of

been summing it up. But just as a whole, I was

just surprised at how well it translated. You

know, we hinted at this in the intro to print.

It's not something I would have expected would

make for a decent read. And then I kind of thought

about it more and more. And there's a lot of

similarities in storytelling. You look at longtime

X -Men. It's basically, at this point, a soap

opera that's been running for 50 -some -odd years.

I mean, realistically, that's what a lot of the

comic books are. They're a... It's just kind

of an up -and -down soap opera. Even the Transformers

stuff we talk about, it all is. It's about characters

who are larger than life, who don't necessarily

exist. necessarily generally don't exist in real

life and that's basically what this is and it

translated much better and like i said before

i spent a lot of the time marveling at the art

because i really i'm one of those people that

i'm not an artist uh i you know didn't devote

myself to it and at some point i probably could

or should just for fun but i look at stuff like

that and i think to myself how do you do that

Yeah, exactly. I just don't get it. And so that

was one thing I was blown away by. And yeah,

like you had said before, it was impressive how

they managed to truncate. Because this is a trade.

And it's a single trade of a storyline that took

roughly two years. Right. Actually, probably

two years plus when you add in the post -breakup

stuff. Right. And they managed to do a good job

of summing everything up. They didn't miss anything

important. They managed to cut out the stuff

that was not important, like we said before.

And so I was just impressed overall. And again,

as I said before, part of me reads it and wonders

if you're somebody, because as I said before.

Most comics are not based on real people. If

you're somebody that these comics are based on,

how cool is it to sit and read? I just can't

imagine that. Sit down and read, hey, that's

me. I said that on this date. And this is me

on a printed page. Saying what I said on that

series. Exactly. So I can go on the network or

I can go on YouTube or wherever and see a live

video of myself or I can read a comic or I can

reenact it with action figures, some of which

talk. It's just nuts to me. Exactly. That's what

I want to see. I want to see The Shield, all

three of them, Dean, Seth, and Roman. I want

to see all three of them with their Funko figures

reenacting this entire thing. Oh dear. Anyway,

that's beside the point. Yes, I know, right?

So, here in issue two, we get to the point of

the Battleground, July 19th, 2015. So, in the

first two issues of this series... from boom

studios we have three years of the wwe covered

in the first two issues of the comic yes this

is the trade that we are talking about right

now but the fact that this is all of that and

you know we get to suplex city we get which i'm

not sure says good things about their writers

for some time You mean WWE writers? Yes. No,

no, no. WWE. Definitely not. Yeah, Dennis. Yeah,

no. Dennis is amazing. Dennis did a great job

on this. So we get to this match between Brock

and Seth. And then we get the Krakoom on a Monopea.

And holy crap. The Undertaker in a comic book.

I don't think I've ever seen this. So he has

had a couple. I looked this up at one point.

Oh. And, of course, now I don't know what it

was. All right. Well, anyway. Anyway. So, yeah,

he has appeared because they've done comic books

based on them before. Right. And he is another

guy that is very much, I mean, his character

was developed in the 80s. Yeah. So. Yeah, to

put it mildly, he is a comic book character.

He is one of those guys that they came up with

in the era of you were your profession. Later

on, you know, we had Duke the dumpster, Drosey,

who was a garbage man. We had the goon who was

a hockey fighter, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah,

the Undertaker is one of the only guys who managed

to endure that and go beyond the character and

actually endure. for decades and decades to come

and a lot of that is because he's pretty much

a comic book character i mean you can use him

in whatever capacity but seeing him was always

an event and yeah it was like seeing one of your

superheroes because they always had this mythos

around him So he's another one that works in

the pages. Yeah, very true. And the art on him,

by the way, is really good. Because, I mean,

you've got to shade so much of the guy. Well,

my jaw dropped when I, like, I knew it was coming,

obviously, because, again, part of the storyline

is, you know, not necessarily with Seth, but

part of the storyline with Lesnar is this is

when Undertaker came in, this is when Undertaker

and Lesnar's feud had happened. Yeah, just seeing

that, wow. Yeah, you have to shade so much of

the guy. The reason why you have to do that is

because of his tattoos on his arm. I was going

to mention this earlier about Roman, how the

artists get away with doing Roman's tattoos.

I thought that was really, really cool. But yeah,

here you have to shade Taker so much because

of those tats. They do have some of it as well,

too. Actually, that is something I should have

pointed out when I was talking about the art,

that these guys... Dean has tattoos too, but

I think they're under his shirt. Yeah, that's

why he wears them. But yeah, Romans are out there,

and so he does have to draw them on occasion,

obviously. And that's another thing, that yeah,

you've got to get those touches, or yes, you've

got to remember to shade it or something else,

because same thing as before, you know somebody's

sitting there going, that's not accurate. that's

not his tattoo yeah so we get to the point where

seth is in the match with kane and this is where

his injury happens i love how they did this basically

making the injured part of his leg red like glowing

red pinkish thing and his reaction to it and

then we go into the whole aftermath of him being

on the shelf which is most of Chapter 3. Beginning

of Chapter 3, we get him as a young kid. Now,

this is where the artists can take a lot of leeway,

because unless they were given pictures of Seth

as a young kid, it doesn't really look like the

Seth Rollins we know. Yeah, not to mention, who

knows in terms of accuracy? Is this Seth Rollins'

childhood? Is it Tyler Black? Et cetera, et cetera.

Do whatever you want with it. Mm -hmm. Pretty

much, yeah. And I have no idea, yeah, if that

is what he looked like as a kid. Yeah. Don't

have a clue at all. I do find the injury stuff

interesting when recently for Mayhem Mike's,

we just watched the special on Finn Balor where,

yeah, we got to see the actual rehabbing. yeah

of so some behind the scenes stuff of him trying

to come back from that yeah it just made a nice

kind of bookend to it i guess yeah it did uh

the only thing in the writing that i find really

really weird is the medical staff um part this

is seth freaking rollins we can't screw this

up like my kid will be pissed at me i'm like

really yeah i'm pretty sure that's not accurate

i'm pretty sure no but that's what i'm saying

like you know that again is somewhere to be fair

after uh the cm punk trial yeah i'm sure the

medical staff probably just gave him a couple

antibiotics and told him to get on his feet so

yeah oh i'm going to hell for that anyway nothing

like some cm punk legal jokes To go over everybody's

head. Oh, God. That's just not good. So, Seth

has gotten through the surgery. He's rehabbing.

Triple H comes to see him. That kind of stuff.

Basically, has to relinquish the belt and all

of that. So we get back to Seth's apartment,

and he's playing Drum X. I thought it was Drunk

X at first for some odd reason. I don't know

why, but he's playing basically Rock Band, essentially.

He was playing non -discriminate game title.

Well, that's why I said Drum X. No, I know. I

can't say Rock Band in this comic. Rock Band,

Guitar Hero, something. Whatever it was, yeah.

Yeah. So this whole time, though, throughout

this scene, he's talking to his mom as time is

passing. And he's watching the shows and all

of this and everything else. And, you know, he

sees Roman win the championship. And that basically

makes him break his drum set and throw it into

the TV. So now he has a broken TV. His doorbell

rings. It's time for some booty -os. I was not

expecting this at all. Again, I probably don't

think that happened, but who knows? Who knows?

Probably not, but anyway. It's fun, yeah. I don't

know if this was... Shoot, I should have looked

this up. If the artist got to continue on the

series after this, i .e. did he do the next trade,

I am unsure. But I wonder, too, if this is a,

did the writer or artist just want to include

the new day for fun? Right. I assume so. And

it's cute. I mean, it works. Yeah. I assume so.

It didn't feel like they were shoehorned in or

that it came, that it didn't make sense or anything

like that. I just wonder if, you know, it's a

thing where somebody wanted to draw them. Yep.

Because they are another group of people who

are very much characters that fit into this.

Oh, yes, they are. You hated them back then.

Back then. And now I have their Funko Pop from

Toys R Us. Hey, it was the last thing I bought

from Toys R Us. Leave me alone. Because Toys

R Us is no longer. Okay, I'm looking on comixology

.com, Volume 2, The Lunatic Fringe. So, hey,

yay, we get to go through Dean's stuff next time.

Dennis Hopeless and Sir... Yeah, so it is the

same artist. Okay, no, I was just curious if

this was a scenario that they wanted the chance

to... Because I think that happens to a lot of

people. You work on a book for, say, Marvel or

DC or something, but you grew up reading Batman.

and your book is something else but you get that

one chance you know you're working for the company

this is your one chance to draw batman so you

find a way to kind of make it happen i was curious

it was something like that but i guess not i

don't know it's not made sense just i guess you

wanted them in the book yeah so far the creative

team is on all three trades so they're on all

the way up through issue 12 of the series i don't

know Where the series is currently in single

issue? I'm not sure. They're on issue 18, so

obviously they're in another arc. And, yep, still

I'm looking at issue 18 right now. It's Kevin

and Sammy, so they're on the cover anyway. So,

yeah, it is the same creative all the way through

so far. So Seth wants to take a bat to the New

Day's head. Which I feel like if you do that

outside of a wrestling ring, it's probably an

assault charge. I feel like that's a bad idea.

But whether this happened in real life or not,

the way the story plays out... No, no, no, I

know what I'm saying. Whether the New Day actually

showed up to his apartment or not... The way

the story is told, they bring him a bunch of

VHS tapes of old WWE, WWF stuff, and one of the

tapes in there is his hero, Shawn Michaels. And

it basically gives him renewed vigor. This is

where the redesign, rebuild, reclaim comes in.

What I love about this is his old garb. He's

sitting in his wheelchair. His old Garvey, he

looks at it or whatever, and he says, just not

good enough, not anymore. And then he starts

this whole process and everything else, and he

does the rehabbing like we said, and he goes

to get back in the ring. Yeah, I don't have anything

to add, sorry. Yeah, no, absolutely, but that's

the journey. The crazy thing is, during this

whole journey, we end up seeing, we've seen Seamus

throughout this on several parts, but we end

up seeing John Cena, and I'm like, okay, that's

John. I don't think he's drawn as big as he actually

is, but it's John. He's got a Never Give Up shirt

on, so you know it's John Cena. He'll get drawn

bigger when he's the star of the book. Yeah,

probably. That's the crazy thing. Issue 1 through

12, or issue 0 through 12, or whatever it is,

it's basically the entire arc of The Shield,

because Volume 2 is Dean and Volume 3 is Roman.

So that's what we have in store for ourselves.

As the book closes out, like I said, he gets

medically cleared. I wonder, what I really want

to know is, does he really have this car? That's

what I want to know. Is that really his car,

or is that just some artist or edition that they

wanted to give him? Because that's a cool car.

Anyway. He had... I'm trying to remember. There's

a story about it. And he was talking about it

on a podcast, that he had a hybrid, or one of

the... electric cars or something like that and

he had problems with it and there was a story

that i now don't remember so i'm not this was

completely pointless of me to bring up so yeah

so this part of the story is basically him trying

to break back onto the scene and triple h is

stopping him at every point that he can uh triple

h basically says the entire crew of wherever

they are You either stop him or you're fired,

and Seth finds a way to get in, whether he has

to scale the building or not. I love the little

in -between shot of gold dust. I'm like, really?

That's who you throw in there? And then obviously

they're going to have the whole locker room stop

him. He meets up with AJ Styles in the bathroom,

and of course AJ betrays him. Kind of a thing.

I think AG was bad back then. Yeah, he was. Of

course he was. It's actually good continuity

then. Now that I think about it. Anyway, continue.

Yeah, absolutely. Triple H is mad as hell. This

is when he gets all of the rest of the locker

room involved. You see KO. You see, well, Jera

KO. Because, again, this was back during that

time before that ended. Yay. Yay. This is what

I love about this closing thing here. This closing,

this last, or second to last issue, whatever

it is. It's weird. I haven't walked the concourse

in years. Not since the shield days. Still feels

right, though. And still feels natural. Out among

the people. Good luck tracking me up. Gah, another

one. He runs into another security guard. Obviously,

because they're going to be all over the concourse.

To be fair, anyone that's watched WWTV knows

how skilled the security guards always are at

stopping wrestlers. Not to mention, they apparently

don't even know who Kevin Owens is. Yeah. So

Seth ends up being really ingenious, and he ends

up disguising himself as a unicorn for the new

day. We get Seth versus Rob versus Owens. That

was a cool, um, that was a cool thing. And I

can, I can hear Seth saying this. I got a prize

right here. Cracker Jack when they're face to

face. I love that. I think that's cool. Poor

Kevin. Poor Kevin. You know, he'll get over it.

And then he, and then Seth, you know, you, again,

the architect, you know, he uses his brain. Holy

crap, Seth Rollins. The one and only. WWE Universe,

you're in luck tonight. Welcome to the pop -up

Triple H meet -and -greet. I really hope that's

a real -life thing that he actually did. That

would have been so cool. I don't know. Yeah,

it could have happened. Maybe not. And so he

doesn't... He doesn't end up getting the championship

back yet at the end of this. No, Roman still

has it. He attacks Roman. That's what it is.

Seth friggin' Rollins is back, and he's done

doing what he's told. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I

love this. I thought this was great. Overall,

it's... um said it before it's worth a read and

yeah i think i feel like you outlined the reasons

why somebody who didn't watch it might want to

read it and yeah it makes sense to me i mean

i lived it or i lived it wow uh no i did not

live it i watched it when it was live didn't

quite live it uh with my physical skill of well

no skill whatsoever but No, it's really worth

a read. I think it is, I feel like if you're

an artist or something like that, you should

give it a look. Yeah. Because, again, yeah, I

feel like that's really interesting. And, yeah,

I think the storyline works. It might have worked

a little better if it was a full sort of circle

or redemption story, but we all know what's happened

to the belt in the last couple of years. which

we talk about on mayhem mics yeah it's basically

stood still is what yeah um but in terms of comic

stuff it still works fairly well i just it would

have been kind of neat to see it ended the way

it began roughly with well roughly after his

betrayal art yeah so i'm curious how I'm curious

how much of this the other books are going to

encompass, because this focused on Seth. The

next one will focus on Dean, and then after that

will be Roman. Yeah, exactly. So Dean has a pretty

similar arc, though, and he is still, to this

day, injured, unfortunately. But Dean, after

the breakup, he floundered just a little bit,

but it didn't take him long to find his footing,

and he also gained a world title. But then, before

he had the chance to really compete to get it

back, suffered the injury, which, oof, it's been

a while now. I'm curious how much of that book

is going to have to be a retelling of this one,

or if they're going to add a lot more supplemental

material in terms of backstage, rather than just

reprint stuff that was in Roman's story that

involved them. Yeah, I'm not sure. Or, sorry,

he and Roman's. Yeah. And subsequently, yeah,

Roman, I have the same issue, but Roman hasn't

been injured, so he hasn't missed that time that

the other two have. So I think his story, there's

a lot more to tell about it. But yeah, it's Dean's

that I'm really curious about how they go about

some of that. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be interesting

when we get to these. And it's fun because it's

different. It's one thing to consistently read.

Yeah, I read the Transformers books every month.

I read a fair amount of superhero books, depending

on who's writing them. You know, anything from

Ta -Nehisi Coates or Jason Aaron and Mark Waid

and Rucka and a handful of others. But yeah,

this felt different. And part of that's because

it is a retelling of an existing story. So it

gets the bonus of they get to pick and choose

what they show. But yeah, it's... interesting

to read something that you've already seen, essentially.

It's like reading the novelization of a movie,

but it's not based on the earlier script or anything

like that, so it actually gets to be stronger

or take the stronger portions of the narrative

rather than trying to figure out how the movie's

going to turn out and what you focus on or what

the audience liked. Exactly. And that's kind

of always been, like, I started out the pullback

doing a lot of superhero stuff, a lot of early

Marvel stuff, and not early Marvel, but like

back in 2013 when the podcast started, I did

a lot of Marvel tie -in stuff and things like

that. I did almost all the Bat books from DC

at the time when it was still the New 52, and

as the podcast has... expanded over the last

five years i've also tried to expand you know

we we have our staples like transformers and

he -man and batman beyond and various other things

but adding something into the rotation is not

bad at all um what would you give volume one

zero to five hmm give it a solid four i mean

it's not perfect but right It's definitely quite

enjoyable, and it's a lot more than the filler

that I think part of me feared. It could be,

because this could have just been a cash -in,

and you get your sales from the diehard fans,

and that's it. They could have gone in and just

no effort, or a poor artist and a poor writer,

but obviously they didn't. yeah and yeah i'd

say four is pretty fair yeah i'm right there

with you four out of five um i love the art i

love how well the artists have captured each

of the personalities each of the styles of uh

all the characters that are involved in this

and the writing is just oh god this guy needs

to write for WWE creative, honestly, at this

point. I know he's just retelling, but like I

said, the part of this that I love is all of

that before and after, behind the scenes stuff

of the breakup and each of their paths. Even

though we don't really see Dean's path too much,

we see through Seth's eyes, we see Roman's path

a little bit. So like you said, it's going to

be interesting to see how Volume 2 and Volume

3 are. Just to give everybody a little preview,

we're not doing this anytime soon because next

month is Autobotly August, so I'm not sure when

we'll get back to WWE from Boom Studios. Volume

2, The Lunatic Fringe, Dean Ambrose decides to

take his career to a new level, which begins

with provoking the scariest man in the WWE, the

Beast Incarnate, Brock Lesnar. But Dean's not

alone as he finds an unlikely ally in the legit

boss, Sasha Banks, collects issues 5 to 8 of

the hit series. Yeah, so they are jumping straight

beyond, which I think is the smart thing to do.

Also, to be fair, anything will be better than

Dean's match against Brock at Extreme Rules.

Oof. Anyway. That was bad. Volume 3, when we

get to that. Volume 3, Roman Empire. Roman Reigns,

the big dog, the juggernaut, descendant of wrestling

royalty, has made it to the top of the mountain

in WWE, just as everyone predicted he would.

But it's lonely at the top, and with the top

two contenders for the WWE Championship being

his former Shield brothers, Dean Ambrose and

Seth Rollins, keeping the title would be a lot

harder than winning it, collects issues 9 to

12. So that's the story for Volume 3. That's

what it's going to, you know. So I like this.

I think it's fun because, like you've already

said, it's, you know. It's something different,

but also it is a thing where you're seeing different

points in WWE that have already gone. Like, we're

so far past all of this, but it's nice seeing

it in a different medium than what has already

transpired on television. Yeah, I mean, yeah,

sorry, don't sum it up. Yeah. What do you want,

a poem? Yes. A WWE poem by Ryan Markley. No pressure.

Maybe I'll do that for... That's not a bad idea.

Try that for Mayhem Mike's own next opening.

That's funny. Yeah. Mayhem Mike's our next episode.

Well, you would have already heard our next episode.

It was the Hardy Boys episode where we talked

about the Hardy Boys' Woken because this is actually

going to come out after that. Whoops. And then

after that, we'll be doing Unextreme Rules or

Not Extreme Rules or whatever the next pay -per

-view is, which is Extreme Rules 2018. You can

find me on Twitter. I am at TFG1Mike. What about

you, sir? Where can the people find you online?

At Nightbeat on Twitter. That's right. Follow

at GeekCastRadio, at ThePullBag on Twitter as

well. Next month, folks, you get, oh God, episodes

317 to 323. It's Autobotly August. So here's

the rundown. Amy, Nicole, Heather, and myself

are going to tackle Transformers Windblade, which

was Distant Stars slash Lost City, which is like

issues four to seven of the Windblade series

because the first three issues go with Combiner

Wars. So, yay, continuity on that. Oh my god,

how that's collected is just bad. At least until

they hit the ultimate collection thing. Then

we're going to tackle, the four of us are going

to tackle Till All Are One Volume 1. Steve and

I are going to tackle Transformers vs. G .I.

Joe Volume 1, which we'll be celebrating 10 years

of all things Transformers. Ryan will be back,

and we're going to talk about two trades in one

podcast, Optimus Prime and Lost Light Volume

1 for each of those. But I've read all the others,

too. Of course you have. I know you have. I haven't.

I know. I know you do. Requiem for the Wreckers,

which is the final chapter in the Wreckers saga

from Nick Roche. Till All Are One Volume 2, and

then Ryan and I will end it with Optimus Prime

and Lost Light Volume 2 for each of those. So

that's what's going on. In August here on The

Pull Bag. Make your great escape into comics.

We will catch you next time. And please, folks,

check out Boom Studios' WWE series. It is super

fun. Hey, hey, ride along. The Shield's in the

car together. Sierra. Hotel. India. Echo. Lima.

Delta. Shield. You've just heard the latest episode

of The Pull Bag. the GCRN's first comic review

and discussion podcast. There are several ways

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until next time, make your great escape into

comics and unleash the geek in you. Holy scrap.

I need a vacation.