Since Hulk Hogan decided to borrow his moniker from Bruce Banner, comics and pro wrestling have been intertwined, with promotions like WWE and WCW working with legitimate comics companies to adapt their characters into the medium of sequential art. While the quality of the comics have varied over the years, no WWE comic has ever achieved the notoriety that the Ultimate Warrior achieved with his comics.
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Released in 1996 at the same time as his WWE comeback, the series, simply titled Warrior, offered some of the most berserk comics of the decade, and have become a meme in the 21st century. Let’s take a look at this Warrior and what fans should know about one of the strangest wrestling comics ever made.
10 Not Warrior’s First Comic Appearance
While the 1996 Warrior series is infamous among fans, it’s actually not Ultimate Warrior’s first appearance as a comic book character. In 1991, Valiant Comics released licensed WWE (back then known as WWF) comics called WWF Battlemania, which were first published in bi-monthly issues and later collected into smaller-sized trade paperbacks. Boasting such surprising talent as Spider-Man creator Steve Ditko, writer Dwayne McDuffie, Valiant founder Jim Shooter, and a young David Lapham, Battlemania certainly offered a better quality than many other wrestling comics, with Warrior appearing in stories where he took on Sgt. Slaughter and The Undertaker.
9 Published By Ultimate Creations
The publishing of Warrior is credited to Ultimate Creations, a company responsible for managing Warrior’s trademarks and releasing Warrior-related products. Ultimate Creations is likely most notable for its litigation, having sued the video game company THQ in 2005 because players using WWE games’ create-a-wrestlers could easily fabricate an unofficial version of Ultimate Warrior (they settled in 2008). They also threatened the website Something Awful with legal action due to a post that accused Warrior of being a racist. The five issues of Warrior are the only comics Ultimate Creations ever put out.
8 Written By Warrior Himself
Fans who remember The Ultimate Warrior certainly remember his promos, which were as full of unbridled intensity as they were completely incoherent. The Warrior comic book series — touted as “Created by The Living… of a Man Named Warrior” on the credits page — was entirely written by Warrior, as should be obvious by how pretty much all narration resembles Warrior’s promo style.
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In fact, Warrior does so much writing in the series — not just in the interior story pages of the comic, but also in columns at the beginning and end of issues.
7 Had Legitimate Talent Working On The Book
Despite being self-published by Warrior’s company, the Warrior comic wasn’t a one-man show, and actually featured some decent talent. Illustrating the first three issues was Jim Callahan, who drew Malibu Comics’ Hardcase, and delivers a surprisingly competent take on the 1990s Image Comics style, with colors by J.D. Smith who worked on Witchblade in the ‘90s and Ultimate Spider-Man in the 2000s. Tying the whole book together is veteran letterer Richard Starkings and his company, Comicraft, who handle not only the letters, but also the logo and book design. As a result, the Warrior comics actually look like a professionally created comic book rather than berserk outsider art.
6 All About “Destrucity”
One of the big things about Warrior after his initial WWE run was his obsession with his own nonsensical belief system called “Destrucity.”Warrior the comic functions as a delivery system for Destrucity, which involves living according to eight disciples, quoted as follows: “physical, beliefs, moment of mastery, attitude, commitment, association, integrity, and wisdom.” Basically, Destrucity is about controlling one’s reality, and is the means by which those who embody the Warrior are imbued with Warrior powers (?). To confuse matters, in the comic book, Destrucity also appears to be a physical location.
5 The Comic Admits That It’s Confusing
The narrative of Warrior is two-fold, following the creation of the Warrior persona in another dimension as he fights various creatures, while the real-life professional wrestler Warrior, wakes up from a coma to find that he’s suddenly more aggressive and violent. But the comic itself is hard to follow, which Warrior repeatedly acknowledges in the opening columns of subsequent issues — which read like his promos. On top of that, Warrior has two sets of narrative captions, each one a different color, which is further complicated by the fact that the colors were accidentally switched in Issue #1.
4 Warrior’s Tassels Are Sentient
Incoherence aside, much of Warrior is emblematic of gritty, edgy 1990s comics like Spawn and particularly Venom, where a man is bonded with forces beyond his understanding that can communicate with him. In Warrior, rather than a goo-like symbiote, Warrior must contend with his own signature tassel arm bands.
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In Warrior, the tassels are called “Belief Banners,” which have a quality akin to something like Spawn’s cape, failing wildly and defying consistent size and physics. The Belief Bands also literally talk, and are responsible for delivering valuable exposition to Warrior (and the readers).
3 Readers Actually See Parts Unknown
In WWE, The Ultimate Warrior was famously billed from “Parts Unknown,” but in Warrior the comic, the newly born Warrior actually travels to Parts Unknown after he sacrifices a pair of snake-like creatures. Warrior identifies Parts Unknown as “the locale that holds captive my final challenges,” and the comic further explains it as a location where “one’s higher self waits patiently” while their physical form works through life. It’s also described as “a manufacturing plant, of sorts” to help those who have what it takes to become a Warrior combat those in the universe who behave selfishly — or something.
2 Issue #4 Is Entirely Black And White
While the first three issues are of a consistent quality, Warrior #4 is where everything goes off the rails. As evidenced by a four-page backmatter tirade (again, like his promos) titled “Callahan Is a Piece Of S---!” it appears that Jim Callahan and Warrior had some sort of falling out around Issue #3, resulting in the entire creative team (save Warrior) departing the book. Because of this, Warrior #4 is suddenly in black-and-white — including the cover — with Warrior now responsible for the amateurish lettering and unreadable design of the book. Replacing Callihan are brothers Joe and Rob Sharp, whose style is more cartoony but also pretty solid.
1 The Infamous Christmas Special
Warrior #4 ends on a cliffhanger with no fifth issue ever being released. But there was a fifth publication released as part of the series: a Christmas special. Not a narrative comic, the special featured all pin-ups (not uncommon in the industry) with Warrior doing various holiday activities. This is the issue that fans likely know best, as it took on a meme quality in the following years due to a pin-up that involves Warrior either rescuing or imprisoning a half-naked Santa Claus bound in chains, as well as one where he’s beaten up Santa and is putting on his outfit. In other words, it’s the only issue of Warrior that’s easy to understand.
