2 out of 5

Just because a story has been told a million ways doesn’t mean it can’t be told again, renewed by a new storyteller. That’s John Kenn Mortensen’s hope, anyway, applying his Edward Gorey-by-way-of-black-metal art style to his first graphic novel, The Wrestler. And there are some excellent bookends here – the punchline is particularly great – with, as one could expect of Mortensen, some great character designs, but John’s first swipe at narrative goes awry in a few key ways, overcomplicating its predictable narrative and maybe pushing a bit too hard on making sure we know this book means business.

Our titular wrestler is Sledgehammer, now retired, and very drunk. And waking up in a boat with a silent ferryman that I would think most would presume to be tied to the River Styx, i.e. we’re already going to suspect that some deal brought Sledgehammer to his current status. Indeed, across flashbacks, Sledge starts to recall meeting with “Louie,” a well dressed businessman with a proposition and car with the license plate ‘666 LU C4’ and dot dot dot, Sledge is a famous wrestler. …Until he’s not.

It’s clear Mortensen’s not trying to be subtle with any of this, but that makes some of the broken way he tells the story especially puzzling. Meetings with Louie are fractured very unnecessarily; there is one dramatic beat it makes sense to highlight, but I would say the effectiveness of this gets undermined by John’s windy-wordy way of dialoguing, and cutting too frequently between past and present. It winds up making the timeline not existent, such that it seems all of the major events took place in a very short period of time, and then it’s 25 years later and here’s our story; there’s no real build up.

And no real pay off: if this is all meant to be pretty obvious stuff, and just leaning into the heavy metal imagery of hell and demons and one more looming fight Sledge has to face, then that fight should be pretty epic – it should be the point.

Eh. Again, as expected, good designs, but not great comic booking – the pacing is done more like a movie than a comic, and John doesn’t yet have a great grasp for word bubbles, so eye direction in conversation is a little wonky. To be fair, an editor could’ve helped out here…

This is all really critical, but I’d want to back up a little bit and say that I’m criticizing with a fair amount of positivity just underneath: the book has a good undercurrent of energy, and it’s really just some structural / execution things to tighten up. Those aren’t minor, but I really do see a great zine-style book in here, and that energy makes me feel that John can get there. So here’s hoping he doesn’t get too dispirited by my review – I know I’m making and breaking careers here – and continues to give us some more narrative comics alongside his picture books.

The design of The Wrestler (Justin Allen-Spencer) is in line with Mortensen’s other Fanta books, which is nice; they look good together on the shelf. And I love that the thank you page is done in black metal logos.