Comic Book Review
Warrior #1
Ultimate Creations

As a child of the 80s growing up watching the living cartoon characters of the World Wrestling Federation, segueing into an adult watching and reviewing things like a shoot interview DVD with Warrior and the more recent Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD, one could make the case I've trained my whole life to be the official historian of Warrior. In fact, when I went to WrestleReunion 2 last summer, one of the only disappointments I had the entire weekend was finding out that one of the gimmick table dealers had just sold out of a DVD version of Warrior's infamous "queering don't work" speech at the University of Connecticut. However, as a fan of Warrior's whackiness – and more importantly, as a comic book geetk – I was missing one piece of Warrior's legacy. Now, thanks to Figure 4 Weekly reader Jonathan Riefler, the first issue of the Warrior comic book has made its way to my hands.

On to the comic!

Incredibly, the first thing you read when opening the comic book is a full page essay on DESTRUCITY. A full page~! First up? A dictionary definition, for those scholars of you who weren't sure exactly how to use the word in a conversation.

de•stru•cit•y (di-stroo'sit-i) …tri-fold in its definition, therefore meaning… 1. The name of the Galaxy in WARRIOR wherein the "Terrain of Testament" lies. 2. The Living of one's life in the Way of a Warrior according to Warrior's 8 Disciplines. Those are as follows: 1) Physical 2) Beliefs 2) Moment of Mastery 4) Attitude 5) Commitment 6) Association 7) Integrity 8) Wisdom 3. The creating of a truce between one's Destiny and one's Reality. Promising to stay true to what one is destined to be, yet accepting what is the now… one's reality.

And that's just the top of the page! What follows is an epic length write-up of what DESTRUCITY is. It is all under the heading of "Warrior Writes from Warrior's World" and to say "Derek Deciphering through Disbelief" would be a true understatement. Then the comic begins in earnest, with a shot of Warrior floating through what looks to be a dream world. There is a whole lot of words on this page to describe what is going on and none of them make any sense. Here's an example: The evolution of this destiny dictates I stay true to the "animal" in self. So I live only for the "being" and the fulfillment of my true destiny: to completely become the energy of belief in self.

WTF doesn't even begin to describe what I am looking at. Warrior is also floating around in a singlet and wrestling boots while also wearing tassels around the biceps that seriously would hang about one foot past the length of Warrior's arm if stretched out. This would not be the last we see of tassels, consider yourself warned.

Next up is a two page splash with (I think) Warrior going from the dream world into the physical world. There are demons surrounding Warrior and his singlet begin to rip off as if Warrior was breaking free of some imaginary chains. I'm three pages into the comic and I have absolutely no idea what is going on. It's like reading on of Warrior's insane rants in picture form.

Warrior then crashes down onto a desert surface, stripped of his clothes and lying in a fetal position. I'd have to go back and see if this is completely stolen from Savage Dragon's origin, but for non-comic readers, think of how the Terminator got to Earth.

Warrior doesn't know where he is from, but he is quickly hit by a dreaded SOUND EFFECT!

I have absolutely no idea what hits Warrior, but it apparently knocks him cold. The next three panels show that time has passed by first showing Warrior being rained on, then covered in snow, and finally back to the dry heat. Fear not Warrior fans, although Warrior has not moved one muscle during all of this time – including the one he's known mostly for this decade, his mouth - but thankfully Warrior has not suffered any muscle atrophy. And did I say all his clothes were burned off? Well, not exactly. Warrior's boots still remain, and his singlet has been burned down to a pair of wrestling trunks. Warrior finally regains consciousness and begins to run. Where? We do not know, but Warrior explains: Bad ass dream or not… stillness allows the who… what… why to find me… I'll jack a track ahead before they intercept me here…

Warrior runs and runs and runs until he skids to a stop in a scene you only see in road runner cartoons. Warrior has arrived at a big lake and sees a mental image of the WARRIOR SYMBOL! Warrior touched the water and began to see an image in the water.
The image then rose out of the water (much like my favorite Spider-Man villain of all, Hydro-man) to take the image of Warrior's father.

Warrior's father (or it could be "God," I'm not sure and the comic isn't clear) looks a lot like the Maestro in the much better comic Hulk: Future Imperfect. Warrior is then told of the eight disciplines, mixed with possible flashbacks to Warrior's life. In one image Warrior is holding a woman and his tassels are, I-shit-you-not, now long enough to stretch well past his feet.

As the image of Warrior's father fades away, a pack of Jawa-like demons appear behind Warrior. I'm not sure what's going on. Warrior then sees the face of a hot chick in the water and dives in. Warrior swims to the bottom of the lake until shouting (not thinking, shouting, under water) "my journey home begins now…"

The next page has Warrior bursting out of the water, like Aquaman, continuing his shout with "the student is ready…"

Next page has Warrior jumping into the middle of the Jawa-like demons and finishing up his shout by yelling "…and you are not!" Oh dear lord, this deserves a spotlight of it's own….

I'm not sure I can make it all the way through this, but for you, Dear Reader, I will continue!

Warrior then begins an extended five page fight scene with the demons, showing some color and even giving them a little offense. Triple H: the comic book, this is not! Out of absolutely nowhere the battle goes from a jungle setting to a setting straight out of the ice planet Hoth. Maybe these demons control the weather. After getting their asses kicked, the demons gather together and then disappear in a brilliant flash of light, leaving another crater behind. I forgot to mention that throughout the fight scene it was interesting to see how the artist of the book drew Warrior's muscles, specifically the lats. To any person who has actually seen a human being before, well, you've never seen one like this.

Warrior walked over to one of the demons that lay dead on the ground and used his bare hands to draw the WARRIOR SYMBOL - in blood no less - on the demon's back. Now that's hardcore. Warrior is then hit by a big fire ball in the sky.
When the dust settles, Warrior now has his trademark face paint on while also wearing gold boots and gloves. As an added bonus, his tassels have now grown to epic length!

But that's not the end! Next page has a shot of what looks like New York City. We close in on a hospital and eventually see a man unconscious while a woman sits by his bed crying. The woman sobs, " 'sniff' Can't… no, don't want to… imagine… my life… without… 'sniff' … him…" Yes, "want" was the only word bolded in that sentence. The whole book had odd choices of bolding to show emphasis and reminded me of that classic Seinfeld in which Elaine's book editor Mr. Littman can't believe her bizarre use of exclamation points.

Anyhoo, as the woman said " 'sniff' him…" we had a close up of the unconscious man's face and that very same face started off the next page in the middle of a mysterious orb that hovered over a man's hand. The page then
had a full page shot of a goatee'd man saying "BELIEVE THIS…" The bottom of the page has a caption box reading " …in and of another moment…"

And that's it. Book over.

WTF?

Bonus Material: After the main comic is over, there is another two page manifesto by Warrior on stuff like "belief" and more destrucity. Then comes a five page mini-comic book, in color, that is basically an ad for WARRIOR UNIVERSITY. It also makes absolutely no sense, but that should come as no surprise by now. The artist, Jim Callahan, gets a full page to give his thanks to everyone who he has every met in life. A full page ad for Warrior products follows, promising Warrior Wear and Warrior Gym products. There's also a pitch for the comic book with a laudatory quote from none other than "Arnold S. of Santa Monica, CA." Arnold says: Warrior shows no prejudice… it kicks everything from skinny butt to big… fat… chewy ASS… intensely awesome..

Overall Thoughts: This comic definitely sets the all time record for the amount of ellipses used in the history of the written word. Even the review of the comic written above is full of ellipses. Just incredible. But when you think about, Warrior did shoot promos using never ending sentences, so the use of ellipses by Warrior the writer should be expected. The artwork was straight out of most books you would have found in 1996, taking advantage of the insane popularity of Rob Liefeld at the time. Certainly only for the most hard core of Warrior fans only.

THAT SAID, I have read on the net that in a future issue of the Warrior comic book, Warrior comes face to face with none other than SANTA CLAUS. This I must see, and if any faithful reader out there has a copy of this legendary book, send us an email! In fact, if anyone has issue #2, for God's sake have the decency to tell me who the f--- was the guy at the end of issue #1 and if this entire story lead ANYWHERE.

And since Warrior was an example of a bad comic book, I thought I would throw in some Derek Burgan Approved books that even non-comic fans would enjoy:

 Daredevil: Born Again

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Watchmen: Absolute Edition

Identity Crisis

Fables volume 1: Legends in Exile

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Top Ten

Special Thanks to Keith Lipinski and Celian Varini for their help with this review. A big shout out Jonathan Riefler again for the comic. Check out his eFed to say thank you to this fine young man.