WWE #13

Writers: Samoa Joe, Michael Kingston, Julian May, Kevin Panetta, Lan Pitts
Artists: Daniel Bayliss, Kendall Goode, Rodrigo Lorenzo, Michel Mulipola
Colorist: Doug Garbark
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Boom! Studios

With Raw’s 25 year anniversary coming up, WWE dedicated this issue to telling four stories from exciting moments in Raw’s history. The four covers for this issue are quite amazing as a huge wrestling fan. I could honestly just write about how much I love all four of the different covers for pages and pages, but I will spare you and only touch on each of them.

First, the regular cover by Dan Mora is a great collage of four legends of wrestling against a background that is red transitioned into a shot of the crowd and the ring. It is a great solid WWE comic book cover. The second cover, a variant by Adam Riches, is simply a closeup of a Kurt Angle action figure in the box hanging on a hook in a store, which fits so perfectly in the size of the comic book.

The next variant is by Brent Schoonover and it features The Undertaker and members of the Ministry of Darkness standing on the entrance stage in front of Undertaker’s logo completely on fire. Underneath them is The Shield against a red background and in front of a red cheering crowd. These two wrestling stables are both iconic within the history of wrestling as a whole and them both on this cover is beautiful. Last, we have a cover by Adam X Vass and it is of the infamous List of Jericho. This cover is beautifully done with what is supposed to be Jericho’s doodles and names he’s written as people he plans to seek revenge on. It is especially amazing with Kevin Owens’ name written at the bottom, signifying the falling out they had when Kevin Owens betrayed Chris Jericho at the festival of friendship.

This issue features four stories, the first being “Undrafted” which is co-written by Samoa Joe himself. This story is a fantastic conversation between Joe and Mick Foley right before the draft. Samoa Joe delivers a badass monologue, which is brought to life by Michel Mulipola’s artwork showing Joe in incredible action shots with several big names in wrestling.

The second story, “The Yes! Movement,” portrays one of my favorite moments in wrestling: Daniel Bryan’s Raw takeover to get his match at Wrestlemania for the title. I especially love the comic book portrayal of this story because it captures the intensity and heart of Daniel Bryan. I also enjoy that behind the panels of this story is drawn pink faceless crowds in the middle of the Yes! chant in support of Daniel Bryan.

The third story is another favorite wrestling moment of mine. We see Jeff Hardy’s ladder match against the Undertaker on Raw with Jeff Hardy’s thoughts throughout the brutal iconic match. This story features amazing action scenes and reveals to us that Jeff Hardy’s inner voice in the middle of a match is as badass and tenacious as he seems on the outside.

Finally, the fourth story shows us yet another one of my favorite moments in wrestling history: The Festival of Friendship. This story is so well-done because it captures the humor that Chris Jericho is so well known for. We see behind the scenes of Jericho’s preparation for the Festival of Friendship which includes purchasing the sculpture he had made for Kevin Owens, Jericho sitting in the park painting his gift for Owens while also managing to put a stranger in the park on the List of Jericho, and then him going to Friendship the Magician’s mom house to hire him for the big night. The story is full of hilarious artwork and dialogue and is very enjoyable for anyone who has seen what actually ends up happening at the Festival of Friendship.

WWE did a great job at using this issue to highlight famous moments in Raw’s history across the different eras in WWE. Each part of the issue includes awesome pro-wrestling action, legendary wrestlers, and has plenty of humor through the entire last story. Any fans of wrestling will have a lot of fun with the issue and is must-have, especially for those four amazing covers.