WWE V2: The Lunatic Fringe Review

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves.

You lunatic! Well, in that case... You've just

jumped inside the pull bag. Join TFG1 Mike and

the rest of the comic reading crew here at the

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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. Hello and

welcome to The Pull Bag. This is episode 324.

I'm, of course, TF2 and Mike. Joining me is Ryan,

the enemy of Flo Merkley. Hello. Are you going

to do something special for 365? You'll have

a full year of episodes. No, because 365 won't

release until... 365 is slated for... august

of 2019 one episode a day i wish speed that up

i wish i i wish i could do an episode a day but

i've often thought about actually doing a daily

show with this podcast but i would kill myself

and my any co -hosts that were on it would never

want to do it again so i feel like you'd have

to switch it too so that you're either doing

One comic a day, essentially, so they'd be much

shorter episodes. Or he'd run out of stuff real

quick. Yeah, they would be much shorter. Or run

out of money, one or the other. Yeah, well, that's

already happened. So, I actually said at the

end of last episode, as of right now, until I

magically find some more money somewhere or get

a job, which... physically is almost impossible

for me right now sadly uh the pullback has including

this episode right now as the next seven weeks

of episodes basically episode 324 to 330 is going

to be the the end all be all for this year unless

i magically get some money somewhere for some

other comics i saw this documentary on making

money when you need it uh it's called breaking

bad so you try that Yeah, I don't think so. Speaking

of wackiness, it's Dean Ambrose. Get it? Yes.

He's wacky. He's a lunatic. Come on, dude. I

don't know. I was trying. Trying too hard. You

went the wrong way. Eh, well. But yes, we're

talking about Boom Studios WWE Volume 2, The

Lunatic Fringe. Written by Dennis Hopeless, with

art by Serge Akuna and Doug Garbark? I could

be completely screwing that up. No, I feel bad

for any of the people that have names that remember

pretty much all of our IDW podcasts. I have butchered

somebody's name, usually an artist. And sometimes

it's people I know the name of, and I just, for

some reason, get it in my head wrong anyway.

I'm loving this. I love that we started with

Seth and his whole thing. I said to Ryan Offair,

I'm probably going to stop watching WWE and just

read the comics at this point because the comics

are better than the televised product. I feel

that's an overstatement at the moment. I know,

considering we just gave SummerSlam a glowing

review and we said in that episode over on May

of Mikes that we were renewed and we were more

interested again because of SummerSlam and all

that. And the last couple shows have been solid.

Yeah. So Volume 2 is all about Dean Ambrose and

his little run at money in the bank. This was

2015. This is obviously after The Shield broke

up. What I love about this, specifically in trade,

I don't know what the single issues look like

because I've just been waiting to purchase the

trades on Comixology. You open it up and you

have a red cover thing with him in his car. You

have the creative page where WWE's logo, you've

got the Volume 2, you've got the Boom Studios

logo. Behind the WWE logo is Dean's logo, just

like last volume was Seth's logo. I think that's

cool as hell. You're both doing this digitally,

so I can't tell you if there's something different

about it in print. I can't either, yeah. So,

yeah, absolutely. Dean Ambrose, uh, the lunatic

fringe. That's what they call me. I'll take it.

So it should be noted. I mean, same creative

team. Yeah. Uh, Dennis hopeless. And, uh, there's

a co -writer Ross Thibodeau. Uh, and the artwork,

same team as well. And I'm not going to try.

i'm not gonna try to pronounce it because i know

better now now um uh again the artwork's fantastic

and again it has to look now so unlike the previous

volume we have an awful lot more shots of just

dean yep and so uh On the bright side, I guess

there's technically fewer characters overall.

But he still does a really good job with Ambrose.

I mean, again, like I said last time, it's somebody

that we know what he looks like in real life.

So that can't be easy. I feel like the background

work and some of the covers, by the way, is really

good in this. The covers are amazing. I love

them. Yeah, I actually like them better than

the previous volume. What I love about this is,

okay, so the first volume was basically the beginning

of this three -volume arc of The Shield. The

first volume was the formation, the legacy, and

then the eventual breakup of The Shield, and

then the rest of the first volume took us on

Seth's journey. This volume takes us on Dean's

journey without having to redo all the S .H .I

.E .L .D. breakup stuff. His angle of it, I'm

glad they did not do that. I'm glad that this

is at another point in Dean's career, not just

right after the break. You know how some stories

are. Look at Batman the Animated Series, the

episode POV. It's from three different people's

points of view. At three different angles. And

I'm glad they did not do that with this. Because

it would have been weird. And the way they are

doing it. We already know that the shield is

no longer a thing. And Dean is kind of on his

own thing. And we get history for him. Just like

in the last one. We get history for Seth. The

other thing I want to point out too. Obviously

this follows the WWE storylines. So we have a

fair amount of. None other than Brock Lesnar,

who we've talked about an awful lot on the other

show in the last little while. Man, he looks

good in this. He did. I mean, he looks good in

real life, too, by the way, in terms of he's

got a physique that he looks like he could throw

me around all week and not get tired. And he

probably could. But he looks great in this. And

then the guest star, I didn't know. would be

in this a lot sasha yes and i'm happy they were

because i like sasha banks but i also think she

makes a good character in this yeah that was

the other thing i was going to say you basically

in volume one you basically had the three of

them the shield you had seth and all the other

people that guessed it in his portion of the

aftermath of the shield in this it's dean and

sasha with brock and hayman like it's essentially

four characters and everything revolves around

those four characters you still have various

you know appearances from other you know you

get the bray wyatt thing and whatever in here

but the much like the new day sort of showing

up in the previous one and that kind of thing

yeah but essentially this is just four characters

basically a um mixed tag team it trade, essentially.

It's Dean and... Well, not really a mixed tag,

because Paul Amon's not a girl, but... Yeah,

he's... Wait, Brock Lesnar's not a girl. Neither

are. Yeah. So, that's what I liked about this.

Don't say anything mean about Brock. If he ever

hears this, he could destroy us. He's probably

got a lot of free time in the outback of Saskatchewan,

you know, so... You say that like Brock actually

listens to other things. He's just busy reading

some magazine. In the back, apparently. Exactly.

There's not a lot of that in this, at least.

No, yeah. I was surprised to see Sasha in it.

Getting into it, just like the previous issue,

there was stuff I had forgotten about. during

dean's run that did happen on screen uh that

i had forgotten about but obviously a decent

amount i think of the sasha banks stuff was was

things made up by the writers and it works really

well like i'm i'm not gonna lie i mean i've been

a big fan of banks since i saw her since i started

getting interested in wrestling again which was

watching some of the old nxt pay -per -views

but yeah i'm a fan of her in real life but i'm

a fan of her here as well i think she works really

well with the character of dean ambrose the this

is tough because i'm trying to keep straight

like he's a character on tv and he's very similar

in the comic because it's based off of it but

not exactly the same so yeah she works well with

the comic character of dean that's what i'm trying

to say she'll she would probably work well with

the character on television but we haven't seen

that there we go yeah we haven't seen that and

what i'm glad that they didn't do was break dean's

character to have Renee show up somewhere. Cause

we all know in real life, they're married at

this point. So I was going to say, I'm glad.

Uh, so the stuff with Brock is to be blunt, done

better here than it was on TV. Oh yeah. The way

it's built and the way Dean gets under his skin

and that kind of thing works better here than

what they did on television. Yep. And. That's

tough because you mentioned him because he's

a big part of this. Paul Heyman. Heyman's really

good in real life. It's got to be really hard

to try to write for the guy in a comic book when

the guy is almost a comic character in real life

and is insanely good at it. And so for the writing

here. Part of me reads some of these and wonders,

man, maybe Dennis Hopeless should be writing

the backstage segments on WWE. Because the ones

he writes in these are more interesting to me,

or at least they get to the character more than

some of the stuff that's actually on air. I find

Brock more interesting in this, too, than he

was at that time. I don't want to get into the

real life stuff too much but apparently he just

wasn't that interested in working with Dean for

whatever reason anyway so we get this whole backstage

thing with Sasha and Charlotte because that's

what was going on at the time Dean throws the

briefcase to Sasha and she basically wallops

Charlotte in the gut and over the back and you

know He has this fight with this guy, this security

guy holding the money in the bank briefcase.

And at the end of it, the guy's like, I had one

job. And all I'm thinking is your thought bubble

is basically saying you're going to get fired.

And then it cuts into Dean talking about his

car. And we go into his backstory and how he

got the car. All of this and all of that. Absolutely

love it. And he runs into car trouble. And where

is he going to get whatever, you know, another

alternator? Of course, he's going to get it out

of Brock Lister's truck. Yeah, why not? Yeah,

why not? Even though Brock would be probably

one of the last human beings I would take anything

from. Yep. So that's how this whole feud kind

of gets started. That's how it started in the

comic, yes. Yeah. And Brock just destroys Shelly,

Dean's car. Poor car. Oh my god. He took an axe

to it. Oh my god. That just hurts my soul. I'm

not that much of a car guy, but like, I mean,

come on. And of course, instead of the police

being involved, since this is wrestling, you

actually escalate at that point rather than...

Yep. Absolutely. So overall, I should note, this

collects issues five to eight. Yep. The previous

volume was also four issues, so that's not any

different. That seems to be the run of the arcs,

and I think that works. They don't overstay their

welcome, and you get enough in them. The only

thing I'll say that I'm a little down on is,

so this volume is not expensive. The previous

volume was not bad either. The next volume is

a fair amount more, which is a bit steep. Like

normally I like booms. So if you're a wrestling

fan and you like either Seth Rollins for the

previous volume or Dean Ambrose for this one,

I'd recommend picking it up. It's cheaper than

the network is for a month. But the next volume

is, it's 16 bucks Canadian. Yeah. Sorry, it's

16 bucks American, which is even worse Canadian.

Yeah. That's like $80 Canadian. I mean, come

on. Yeah. um right now it's and i'm sure it'll

go on sale at some point it'll probably drop

it's just something i wanted to point out that

the two volumes we've done i think are perfectly

priced and they're the perfect length they're

bite -sized there's and there's more than enough

differences between what you saw on tv to what's

in these books, then if you're a fan of those

characters, I think you go for it. It's just

at the higher price point, I'm not as sure I

would recommend it as much. Now, granted, I haven't

read the next volume. Maybe it's amazing, and

I'm crazy, but the next volume, by the way, is

Roman. Yeah, next volume is Roman. As we run

through the shields. Yeah, exactly. Volume 3

is issues 9 to 12. and volume four which is up

for pre -order it's going to be released december

12th of this year uh it says it collects issues

14 to 17 i think they mean 13 to 17 but i could

be wrong um volume four is women's evolution

so it goes to the women uh you know evolution

thing with charlotte becky sasha and bailey and

which given sasha here should be pretty fun yes

so yeah i absolutely love i love sasha's line

when she because we get to a point in the comic

where dean's car eventually does break down from

all the damage sadly and he thinks that brock

is back but it's not it's sasha he goes she goes

got yourself a boss not a beast I love that.

And what I love about this comic is that Dean

and Sasha teach each other something without

having to hit any of the readers over the head

with any kind of message or anything like that.

But it helps both of them in the ring as far

as what their opinions are and their thoughts

are outside of the ring. Yeah, so overall I enjoyed

these, and they're fun for fans. And the last

sort of note is the arc after the women's evolution

is the one that I'm desperately looking forward

to because we get to one of my favorites. That's

the Sammy and Owen arc. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah,

I like that they move around, though. It would

be... Now, there's nothing wrong with the shield,

but like I said before, they do a good job of

not necessarily overstaying their welcome with

each of the characters. And I think it's smart

when they have a guest character, especially

somebody you don't expect, like Banks, in something

like this to kind of mix it up. Or else you just

have one person's voice, really, and that's Dean's.

Because most of the backstory for this is Dean.

Sasha is there as a guest star. Sasha is there

to pull him out of the way he is. And all of

that. And like I said earlier, he's there to

help her as well. I love the dance club scene.

Dean don't dance. I absolutely love that. I think

that's hilarious. Yeah, she's a bit of the comic

relief. She's different than he is. She's the

opposite of him in a lot of this. But she's still

down for trouble and that kind of thing, like

Ambrose is. So the reason why I said that she

and they both help each other is that when they

get to the demolition derby part of the series,

Take out the bus right off the bat. That'll be

fast and maneuverable. Hardest to catch. And

then go after the big dog and the ambulance.

So she tells him how to do all this stuff. And

they're just spectators at this place. And then

he's like, good call. Let's do it. What? Do I

look like a spectator? We're winning this thing.

And he points out to her, you've got an eye for

combat when you stay out of your own head for

five minutes and let loose, you're damn near

unstoppable. One thing I'd be kind of curious

about, too, is if these are elements of, well,

that and elements of Dean's personal character.

Like, I wonder if he's a car guy. I'm curious

about some of that, if the writers know or if

this is something they've given to them or, you

know, it's one of the things. I mean, we don't

know these people. Right. I don't know. I just

find a lot of this interesting. It's almost...

It's a snippet of... It's a snippet of the backstage

stuff without it actually potentially being a

snippet of the backstage stuff. Right, yeah.

It's a story that's molded around actual events

that happened in the ring, like, you know, SummerSlam

or whatever. You know, a pay -per -view or Monday

Night Raw episode or whatever. Stuff that actually

did happen. but the story is outside of that

and it gives these stars that gives their characters

even more to go on and it gives us even better

insight to them yeah so i enjoy these and i said

it previously i'll say it again i think they're

well written I think it's going to be a really

hard job to write and to draw these. And everybody

who works on this is apparently down for the

challenge because they keep doing a good job.

Enough that I'll actually read these and actually

keep going and reviewing them. I generally won't

review anything that I really hate. Yeah, I'm

the same way. Except for some of those pay -per

-views. Never going back to the mayhem Mike stuff

again. Yep. Um, remember last episode we did

in episode three 16, we're talking about young

Seth versus, you know, real life Seth, you know,

yes. Where we thought that didn't really work

with the art. You know, we get to the scene here

where it's junkyard wrestler Dean. Oh, the old,

yeah. And we get to a panel where he, we get

to his flashback as a kid and it goes to hit

to the current. I mean, The artists like fully,

like they got it. They nailed it. Young Dean

looks exactly like old, like current Dean. And

I said this last time too, and that is just that

I don't know, you know, I didn't know Seth Rollins

when he was younger. So maybe, maybe it's exactly

what he looks like. I should say, yeah, I should

say given the artist's talent and getting everybody

else right. that it probably is willing to give

them the benefit of the doubt at this point.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they can get old pictures

from the characters or the superstars or whatever

and then just draw from that. Issue 7 basically

focuses on the part of the arc here where it's

Dean versus the Wyatts. Which I had partially,

when I talk about things that I sort of forgot

about, I kind of forgot he feuded with them.

Yeah, me too. Like, it wasn't, I don't think

it lasted that long. Apparently it wasn't memorable

because we both forgot. Yeah, I completely forgot

about this. In my defense, my memory's shot.

So they quote -unquote kidnapped Sasha. Yep.

And Dean obviously comes to her rescue and everything

else. Dean's a really cool character. He can

be the brash lunatic when he wants to be. He

can also be a sneaky as hell motherfucker when

he wants to be too. Because he puts on that goat

face and wow. I mean, just blends almost right

in. Which I think he did as part of the feud,

but yeah. The way I remember this storyline,

it was 2015 or something or other. I forget.

I'll have to look at this the next time they

show one of the in -ring, because they'll show

whatever the date is. But yeah, so this part

of the story, it's the whole Wyatt family thing

with Sasha and Dean. This is creepy. Like, I

find the Wyatt family on television annoying

as hell and boring as hell, but in the comic

here, this is friggin' creepy. Well, maybe if

they had been written a little better, like they

are in the comic. Yeah, exactly. That's part

of the problem, but yes. And yes. Like, you know,

we get to the scene where Sasha's like, you said

this was business, Wyatt. You said this was my

choice. Your choice, yes indeed. What we have

here is a family affair. Couldn't force you in

if I tried. No ma 'am. Free will rules the roost.

Pit to pulpit. And back again. But that don't

mean you get to up and leave us. You know, I

mean, just wow. And then obviously Dean crashes

in, saves her. They both kick ass. They actually

both destroy the Wyatt family. Yep. The fact

that he modified her car to be a monster truck

is amazing. Then in the eighth issue and the

finale is the Money in the Bank story retold.

Which, again, I like it more than I did. I don't

even remember Money in the Bank from this year.

I really don't. I remember this year. No, I mean

from this year that this is the story. I don't

remember. I remember Dean winning it, but I don't

remember. No, I'm in complete agreement. I don't

remember what the lead up to it was or any of

that. If I remember right, I think that's the

year they had everybody on ladders interview

each other. That was not a good... It was not

good, anyway. No, not good at all. When wrestling

is good, it can reflect real life. It can reflect

real relationships. When wrestling is bad, it's

a bunch of people just talking to each other

that have nothing in common and are just... thrown

together for no reason, and go, let's fight.

That was an example of the let's fight. The comic

is an example of people coming together, be it

Sasha helping him again in this issue, or actually

Sasha in the previous issues. It's mostly Sasha.

Yeah, it's mostly Sasha. um you know as we get

through issue eight here you know her monster

truck thing that they escaped the wyatt family

uh dean has her monster truck thing and the tires

fall off so okay he's walking again or he's hitching

again just like he was when his car shelly broke

down and sasha shows up with bailey in the hug

life movie that's right yeah And then we get

to T -Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada, June 19th,

2016. So this takes place between 2015, 2016

or something or other because this is Money in

the Bank. Which I don't remember at all. I don't

remember either. What I love about this, and

this is what I said in the last episode of this

that we had done for this series. I love the

internal monologue, and I love the main character,

whichever the main character's storyline is.

I absolutely love that. We have Brock and Paul

showing up again, and Dean just can't deal with

that right now. He has to go win money in the

bank. So he basically locks Brock in one of the

trucks. I love that. Yeah. I think that's hilarious.

So this Money in the Bank 2016 KO is going after

it, obviously. But Dean ends up getting it. And

the sad thing is, I don't remember his cash in,

which is nuts. Don't look at me. I don't know.

I don't remember. It ends with Sasha and Bayley.

Bayley's, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Yes,

way to go, Dino. Pretty boss. And it ends there.

And I love this. I'm loving this. If after this

you want to go daily reviewing one issue per

day, I don't care. I'll do that all day long.

I love this. I think this is so cool. I think

this is kind of the refresher. One of the refresher

titles that I needed to... To reignite my...

I mean, I've had interest in reading comics and

all that, but I've been doing this show for five

years. Not that it's getting old, but you gotta

find new things and different things besides

just capes and cowls. Can't just be nostalgia

all the time, Mike. Stop. The other thing I wanted

to mention, I had mentioned it much earlier,

but the cover work. The covers to 5 and especially,

I really like the cover to 6. So 5 is the one

with Brock in the background and Sasha in the

car and Dean in front with a well -done kind

of smirk on his face. But man, I love 6, which

is just the car making flames in the shape of

the Ambrose logo. And I read, as good as the

interiors are, I really like the cover artwork

for these, and those two stood out completely

to me. I love Dan Mora's art, his covers. I love

his covers. His covers are so cool. We have,

like, because this is a trade, and most trades

put in the cover gallery, you mentioned the main

one for 5 and 6. We have one with John. That's

an alternate for five. Yep. We have another one

for five that's an alternate for gold dust. Okay,

sure. Yeah, that's an odd one. An alternate for

six is done by Robbie Rodriguez. It's Finn as

the demon. Yep. That's cool. Oh, by the way,

that would be an interesting one to eventually

do as a comic about Finn and the demon. Demon

is basically a comic book character, so that

would work. The only other one I wanted to point

out, too, is 8, which is... I don't know what

it is, if I've gone insane or what. I mean, I

might have, but that's up to other people to

decide. The lights. I don't know what it is,

but I swear, it's the best lights I've ever seen

anyone draw in a comic. It was the first thing

I noticed when I went through the cover gallery.

I don't know. I don't know what it is, but it's

just really well done. Another alternate for

6 was Jake the Snake Roberts, done by Dylan Burnett.

7's main was done by Dan Mora, which is Dean

going through the junkyard in Shelley. I love

the real -life Hot Rod cover for 7. That's so

cool. And like you said, yeah, the cover for

8 is simply amazing. I don't know what it is,

but I'm really drawn to a lot of it. And yeah,

the artwork overall, like I said before, I could

rave about it for a while. It's really well done.

The internal artwork is extremely expressive.

I mean, they give the Wyants crazy eyes half

the time, which definitely works. Oh, yeah. What

did you think of the toy packaging covers? We've

got Asuka, Ravishing Rick Rude, Big Boss Man,

Jimmy Hart. Those are all really, really cool.

And then I just love the end. Dean art with Shelly

and, of course, his logo at the bottom. And obviously

we have the back cover with him, you know, fist

to hand kind of a thing. I absolutely love this.

Like, I honestly, if I had the money, I honestly

don't mind if I had it. I would press buy book

on volume three right now. I don't even care

that it's Roman or whatever. I just, I'm loving

this so much. But he's your favorite. No, he's

not. demons get it right god roman is everybody's

favorite jeez not sadly not really because um

even though we're happy that brock is no longer

around and there's no championship there it's

being defended every night now again finally

after a year and a half or whatever it was man

the booze roman's been getting yeah yeah you're

getting into a mayhem likes episode i know i

know but still it's a thing um all right that's

it final review uh -huh uh volume two the lunatic

fringe absolutely love it uh four and a half

out of five uh there was a little bit of the

stuff with the wyatt's i could do without but

for the most part everything in this is amazing

um Just absolutely love it. What about you? Yeah,

four out of five for me. Same as the previous

issue that there's part of me that almost wonders

if it's better if you don't know the real, the

quote -unquote real story, as in don't watch

the product. Because like I said earlier, I think

it's done better here than some of the stuff.

It very much is, yeah. but yeah four out of five

for me and recommend it yeah absolutely i mean

we even pointed out that we don't remember 2016's

money in the bank we don't remember the lead

-up we don't remember the app we don't remember

dean kent like i didn't remember he won it until

this actually because i don't remember the cash

in i don't remember who he beat exactly i don't

remember if he ever did i'm sure he did because

there's only one person Right now, in current

WWE history, they cashed in and lost, and that's

Baron Corbin. I'm sure there have been others

in the past, but very rarely. Usually when people

win money in the bank, they cash in successfully.

Most of the time. Baron, yeah. Or Baron. Who's

the... Oh, no, wait. Zack Ryder, John Cena, one

of them. That was a... terrible angle john cena

when the we'll talk about this after velvet all

right stop yeah no that's find me on our as at

night beat on twitter there are as wow whatever

i'm i'm at tfg and mike on twitter you can follow

the pull bag at the pull bag on twitter follow

at geek cast radio and also at this week in geek

as well next time around it's been a year Almost

a full year since Joe Reed and I talked about

TMNT comics. In episode 325, we're going to be

reviewing IDW's TMNT issues 73 to 75, The Trial

of Krang. Make your great escape into comics,

and we will catch you next time here inside the

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