Image Comics releases a Mexican wrestling sports genre about a luchador who is being betrayed by his friends and gains a mysterious power to rule it all in La Mano Del Destino, the graphic novel. 
So this comic, I can relate to one of the children’s Saturday morning shows such as Mucha Lucha from Warner Bros, however this comic on Image takes some different opportunities to transform into a wrestling bout with magic written all over it. The comic is created by J. Gonzo, aka Jason Gonzales, he’s a Chicano artist born and raised in Cypress, CA. He spent more than 20 years using creative skills at some ad agencies, toy and comic companies, and other media, even creating his own comic which is this one.
The front cover of this comic looks more than just any other ordinary Mexican comic book that you’ve ever seen. But the art of this comic is so satisfying, Here we are the main character of a masked luchador staring menacingly at you, while the background shows that these two wrestlers are having an exhibition match. I want to talk about the art of that character, the first thing that he did is that he designed the mask very well, even though having a mask at a Lucha libre sport is like having a personality. The guy’s face is so unreal because the way he draws the eye pupils and his lips are just too much, to begin with, meaning that he studied Latino human headshots. I’d imagine where that art style came from after I’d witnessed it by reading another comic called La Voz de MAYO Tata Rambo.
Anyway, the story starts with an exhibition match where a luchador gets interrupted from beating that poor luchador down the ground and beat his guts out. However, there are some men who actually know that luchador and they’re willing to find out who he truly is. So before that, he used to go by the name of Ernesto the General of the greatest luchadores there ever was, he won so many matches as he defended his title, but during the match, one of his so-called friends attacked him because the manager bribed them to unmask Ernesto. Everything became a ruse until he found a power that made him become The Hand of Destiny. Whatever that is, the mask and the gear is not normal and its completely used by magic. Everything in his life is being manipulated by the boss who can’t control the Rudos because his business is very savvy, and his power cannot touch him. More likely that he has his own soldiers to take that luchador down. He beat every single of the boss’ soldiers down, but until later on, the mastermind of all the things that he endured is his brother. He set up a cage match to have him surrounded by 5 other luchadores to take him out, but as soon as he’s on the brink of defeat, he tore the champion’s belt in half, causing the whole arena to cause a sonic boom to other wrestlers and he beat every one of them.
The story can be more interesting to know that the luchador is determined to be the best, even when he wore his gear as Ernesto, he was an honorable fighter, right until his friends betrayed him, he became La Mano del Destino just to take revenge. I never thought that the story can turn into a plot twist that the mastermind of all of this is his half-brother who actually manipulated all the other fighters just to take him out of the ring. The art style is just amazing, just after I witnessed after reading Tata Ramo like a year ago, this comic’s art gives a lot of action of the fighters wrestling, if you have ever seen a match from WWE then this comic makes you think that you’re reading an actual WWE match with magic powers. The panels of every page whenever there is a wrestling match going on, the artist intends to use to pose the characters as if they’re fighting in real life. I’d witnessed human models posing differently when the whole drawing became more like scribbles whenever I have done some gesture exercises, I’d imagined who the fight scenes would go on whenever I read this comic, the poses are given much more in action because whenever the characters interact their opponent during the match the raw emotion that is coming from these wrestlers, it shows a lot of power to describe this as art. So The Hand of Destiny is a Mexican wrestling comic that you never get to disappoint. If you ever want to witness the action of Mexican wrestling, then this is for you.
Anthony Andujar Jr. 
Newsdesk