GLOW has been held captive by young stowaway Elizabeth’s mom, Sherri. She’s a scene-stealing con artist who wants to use the wrestling show as her ticket to fortune and fame — but not if her daughter has anything to say about it. All the fun, glamor, and shenanigans come to a head in GLOW vs. the Babyface #4 by AJ Mendez, Aimee Garcia, and artist Hannah Templer.
This series has been an absolutely delightful, fun, inspiring, nostalgia-filled journey across four issues. While the fourth book wraps up this arc, I hope there will be future installments written by Garcia and Mendez. Along with the incredibly talented illustrations by Hannah Templer, they’ve brought to life the embodied spirit of the GLOW TV show and packed this comic with so many great moments. Halfway through issue #4, it made me think about the sport of professional wrestling and being an actor or actresses.
And I thought to myself, “they endure a lot of work.” GLOW vs. the Babyface #4, along with the other three issues, begs the question, what is it like to be a professional wrestler and an actress? What is it like trying to keep up an image that the media feels is noteworthy? It’s dealing with relationships, people trying to stab you in the back and dealing with family — blood related or not. It’s an intimate look at what it’s like when the cameras are turned off and all the glitz and glam fans come to love are not on display.
Aside from that, the issue does a great job of instilling strong messages to young readers about not trying to cut corners in life like Elizabeth’s mom, Sherri. It’s really just a great book that shows you all the headaches and hard work it takes to bring a production like wrestling to life. The battles don’t stop once you leave the wrestling ring — life is a constant battle. Another thing worth mentioning is how precisely accurate the dialogue is between the individual characters. The book feels like the writers were literally on set with the actors when they were writing it. And I’m not sure how they pulled off no captions, but there aren’t any in the issue and you can still follow everything very well.
Hannah Templer, along with colorist Rebecca Nalty, has done a fantastic job bringing this book to life. Templer’s pencil work captured the true essence of each character design perfectly, from the eye shadow on Melrose to the small specks of beard scruff on Sam’s face. The location, outfits, and setting all genuinely felt like the ’80s. The color choices for the clothes, hair, skin tone were very accurate as well.
Templer made great use of panel counts to make each page feel as inventive and fun as it was reading the book. The fight between the GLOW women and strippers are some of the funniest parts of the book. All of her character positioning and motions seem so well thought out and natural.
Lastly is the great use of coloring and lighting during the panels where some of the GLOW women are in the strip club. The pages have a cool shimmery look that flows evenly with everything else.
The Verdict
GLOW vs. the Babyface #4 is a great last issue. It ties up all loose ends and has a lot of strong subject matter that readers will not only enjoy but learn from as well. I hope we get to see more comic stories from Mendez and Garcia. I’d personally like to see them do maybe a Ghostbusters or Ninja Turtles story next. Or even their own original comic idea. Either way, it’s been a blast reading this series and if you haven’t read it already you definitely should give it a try.
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