Writer & Penciller: Daniel Warren Johnson / Colour Artist: Mike Spicer / Letterer: Rus Wooton / Collects: Do A Powerbomb #1-#7 / Trade Paperback / Image Comics
Buy the complete series here Buy more comics here
Review by Paul Dunne
17th June 2023 (Released: 1st March 2023)
The Pitch: From the creator of MURDER FALCON and Wonder Woman: Dead Earth comes the wrestling adventure of the decade!
Lona Steelrose wants to be a pro wrestler, but she's living under the shadow of her mother, the best to ever do it. Everything changes when a wrestling-obsessed necromancer brings her to another dimension and asks her to join the DEATHLYFE tournament, the grandest - and most dangerous- pro-wrestling tournament of all time! It's The Wrestler meets Dragonball Z in a tale where the competitors get more than they ever bargained for!
I should probably start by saying I don't like wrestling. Not college, not sumo, not WWF, or whatever the fuck they're calling it now. I just can't stand it. This wasn't always the case. I have memories, slowly fading as I approach my fifties, of the recently departed Dickie Davies and his magnificent 'tache, presenting World Wide of Sports on a Saturday, because sport was the only thing they programmed on a Saturday on TV in the UK back in the early 80's. Think I'm joking? Every channel: BBC, Football. Channel 4, the gee-gees. And ITV? World of Sport. Which was wrestling. In the UK. And therefore a total misnomer. Nowadays - and if ever there was a single word that would mark me out as being too old for this shit it's that one - nowadays, wrestling is very different. I stopped watching it and moved on to comics and film. My friends were into wrestling still, and my nephew is a wrestler now. But I couldn't stand it anymore.
My fond memories of Dickie Davis, Big Daddy, and Giant Haystacks were trampled on by American guys (and latterly, women), who just wore too much baby oil and took themselves way too seriously. I mean, UK wrestling was such a feature of our lives we even dubbed a teacher at my Secondary School 'Giant Haystacks', simply because he had the misfortune to be rotund, tall, long-haired, and sported a massive unkempt beard. On side note, I have to mention that my mother, God rest her soul, who was visiting the school to talk about my bad behaviour, took one look at that teacher and hissed "Well, if that's what the teachers look like, no wonder the kids are a mess!". But anyway...
Wrestling became a fashionable hobby to get into. They would do 'moves' on each other and bang on endlessly about British Bulldog and The Undertaker. I had to pretend to be mildly interested. Like I gave a fuck. And I just couldn't take it seriously. I mean, honestly! Grown men in tight costumes, using made-up names, running around pretending to punch each other... There was no way I would be into that!* How could you take anyone who uses that much baby oil seriously? I left wrestling behind. But even as I moved from the World of Sport to the world of work, the spandex bullshit had a foothold. My workmates loved this crap. You'd l hear them talking about it, endlessly... It was horrible... Look, I thought I was working with adults, here! Now, in case you can't read between the lines, or have spent too much time in the front row of sporting events filled with people who could tell you the exact ratio of Sudafed to Red Bull you need for a good time, this is me saying, in no uncertain terms, that I hate this shit. The only thing I like to wrestle with is how fast it takes me to walk away when people bring it up as a subject.
But I have a dilemma here. A dilemma that occurs often enough that I have to give it a name: The Moneyball Dilemma. You see, I have no idea what Baseball's rules are. What it's about. Why everyone in America likes it? But I've watched the movie Moneyball about 8 times in the last 3 years. Field of Dreams? Well, I weep like a baby whenever I see it. Bull Durham? A work of art. Hate football. Love Ted Lasso. What this has to do with is hating the game... But not hating the game it inspires. Or sports art is better than sports if you like brevity. Like David Byrne, you may ask yourself some questions at this point, like why is this prick who hates wrestling and sports reviewing the wrestling comic I liked/am thinking of buying? It's a fair point. You see, I like Daniel Warren Johnson. I like Mike Spicer. I like comics... But how are those guys gonna bring me the dramatic intensity I love from a sport I don't? How will they move me as Moneyball, Field of Dreams, Bull Durahm and Ted Lasso did?
Well, they do it by making the artificial drama of wrestling with its fake feuds and storylines epic and real, then adding a supernatural bent along with the real-world, relatable pain of losing a parent. Simple really. Why didn't I think of that? Oh yeah... Because I don't have the talent! DWJ - I hope forgives me for calling him that, but that intro paragraph was really long and my fingers hurt now, so I have to save energy where I can because work, smarter, not harder, you know? - DJW gives us a heavily Asian-influenced milieu for the first couple of issues before rocking us up to the doors of hell. In this hell (I think it's hell) that allows Johnson to comment on the baying fandom that may be too overly invested in the artificiality of wrestling, to the point where the assumption is reality, not performance. In short, those that would take the artificial drama of wrestling and craft a reality from it. Most things we watch and read are reality + artificiality (drama). This is artificiality + drama, with the very real possibility that hey, you could die. But if that's the worse that could happen then Lona Steelrose is already in hell, because her mother, Yua Steelrose, has died in an accident brought about when her opponent, Cobrasun slips from the ropes in their match.
Yua seems, at first, to be the lead character in this. Like all good characters in fantasy and melodrama, she has more than one name to go by - the iron flower, the unbreakable blossom... All names that both feminise and butch her up. They beautify her fortitude. It's this kind of gender mix that infuses the story with a different kind of drama. After all, we see thousands of father / son stories, but far fewer that center on mother/daughter equivalents. Especially ones that are as full of blood, sweat, and tears as this is. Yua's demise brings forth an early Succession as Lona trains to be the wrestler her mother was and failing, largely because the legacy she carries with her is too much weight for any trainer to bear, especially her Uncle. She is cast out to the streets by him, chastised by her father, and left to the mercy of Willard Necroton, a necromancer who offers her a once-in-a-lifetime deal: find a tag team partner, compete in his tournament and Necroton will grant her heart's desire: bringing her mother back to life.
Of course, it may not be as straightforward as that. Lona has to start making adult choices, ones that may resonate beyond her vocational desires. She teams with Cobrasun, also carrying a universe of guilt for being the one to break the unbreakable blossom. Their opponents are revealed to have their own histories, muddying the notion of who should we root for. Johnson proves himself to master of the page turn, lord of the twist... He creates cliff-hanging, cut-to-commercial moments that will leave you glad the next chapter is only a flick of the wrist away, rather than a thirty-day, nail-biting endurance test. This is one of those stories that you feel the term 'page-turner' was invented for. There's a real emotional punch here, alongside the physical Impact of DJW's art, using electric, thunderous movement in the matches and a quiet, intimate atmosphere for the off-the-mat moments. He structures the story beautifully, carefully placing all the moving parts where they need to be. Mike Spicer's colours complete the look, bringing the neon buzz that we think of when we think of Asia to the page, jolting the book through with further voltage. Rus Wooton completes the effect, communicating fully the slap of bodies on the mat, the roar of the crowd, and the quiet love of Lona as she asks her mum for just one more story. There are a limited number of great artworks about wrestling, pretty much all of them in film or TV - The Wrestler, All The Marbles, Glow, and Vision Quest (Crazy for You), but if there's a God up there watching, they'll make Do A Powerbomb part of that very specific canon. This is a great book, one that may stand the test of time and become one of your favourites. I loved it. And I don't even like wrestling.
*Yeah, I’m aware of the irony.
Do A Powerbomb is available now. Buy the complete set here. Buy more comics here.
