Comic Review: Heel Turn #1

Violent Jack is a longtime professional wrestler, one of the most hardcore there is and one of the most hated.

As he enters the final years of his career, the odds are stacked against him, be it relevance, and performance. Despite this, he ain’t going down quietly. Can even the most repugnant fighter in wrestling get a shot at redemption?

Mike Ha writes various characters who each have their own brand of aggressive fury. Despite Jack’s accomplishments as a wrestler, he is not above the personal demons that plague him. Ha does not shy away from the vulgarities that exist in a field such as wrestling, but he is able to recreate the sort of environment that once was and still is in some circles of wrestling that probably couldn’t admit much about. There is a genuine honesty to the writing that feels like something you hear about in wrestling podcasts when retired wrestlers talk about their career and all the behind-the-scenes stuff that wasn’t as glorious as it seemed to audiences who only knew what was in front of the camera. Violent Jack as a character is a cautionary tale who displays a level of arrogance and insanity that is too beautiful of a trainwreck to look away from. He’s definitely someone trying to hold on to the last vestiges of his glory days, refusing to bow out, even if it means by going to unhealthy extremes to do so. The comic is pretty gratuitous but for all the right reasons. It doesn’t glorify the stuff that it displays, it just shows that beyond all the lights, glitter, and accolades of such entertainment, there is always some seedy stuff behind the scenes that is hidden until light is shined on it.

Ha has a fully developed art style that is stylized and shares the same kind of spirited DNA to the likes of Keisuke Itagaki’s work on Baki the Grappler, Yudetamago’s Kinnikuman (Ultimate Muscle), and Bengus’s Street Fighter, in regards to the level of fury that is displayed between characters during a match. Ha has a way of making the fights brutal, bloody, and vicious, diving headfirst into the bloody pits of pain, and never shying away from some of the realities that come with that world that wrestler’s often tell stories about. Given that Ha has a deep history with wrestling, his passion for it translates brilliantly on the page as the protagonist rampages on with blood and fury. From the choreographed combat to the choice of lettering and color pairings, Ha does it all and effectively executes the kind of tone that he aimed to achieve for this series.

If you’re a fan of Baki the Grappler, Ultimate Muscle/ Kinnikuman, James Stokoe, Daniel Warren Johnson, entertainment wrestling such as WWE, WCW, TNA, AEW, anything Seinen anime, and manga, or even Subway Mania that doesn’t shy away from some heavy content that is often associated with such sports but is also entertaining for what it is, I highly recommend adding this to your pull list, especially if you’re seeking to read the works of self-published cartoonists.