Professional wrestling and superheroes have a lot in common: colorful characters, bombastic outfits, and feats of strength unable to be pulled off by mere mortals. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that there’s a big crossover between wrestling fans and comic book fans (yours truly included). Hell, you could argue that DC K.O. is largely just a riff on wrestling, with Daniel Warren Johnson’s awesome wrestling-themed variants and the AEW crossover variants from Dan Mora. Spinning out of those variants (and the fact that both companies are either owned by or have deals with Warner Bros), DC and All Elite Wrestling combine forces in DC x AEW, where the stars of AEW and the various members of the DC roster team up and throw down in thrilling and hilarious ways.
The final match at the Wrestling Across The Multiverse (W.A.M. for short) intergalactic championship between Mercedes Moné and Deceilia Starshame is in the last moments. Believing that Moné cheated to win, Starshame is determined to keep the belt from her hands, and shattering it into various X Shards and scattering them across the DC universe is the best way to accomplish that. But as the Justice League arrive to investigate this major event, the wrestlers of AEW appear from backstage demanding to have the belt given to Mone. With the two teams at odds, the decision comes down to join forces to find the various X shards in an attempt to reforge the belt. As the various spandex-clad warriors split up, the real reason behind Moné’s desire for the belt is revealed….
Steve Orlando’s script does an excellent job of playing with the admittedly absurd setup for getting the AEW wrestlers and the DC heroes together. Presenting the W.A.M. event as an “AEW-sponsored” match, the reasoning for getting the team-up going is a bit over the top, but at the same time, isn’t that kind of the point? Orlando, himself a big wrestling fan, has a great time presenting the events of the comic as if it’s a live AEW event we’re viewing from home, complete with announcer voiceover from AEW’s Excalibur and Booster Gold, a team-up that I truly wasn’t expecting when I opened the comic, but works perfectly.
Those unexpected matchups continue as the comic goes, with hero and wrestler teams that are both surprising and extremely fun. There’s the ones you expect, like Wonder Woman and Willow Nightingale or Batman and Darby Allin, but as the comic goes on the team ups get more unique, yet still work with the characters involved. At first glance I wouldn’t put Harley Quinn and Orange Cassidy opposite one another, but the more I thought about it, the more it makes complete sense. Although I was wondering where a certain big blue was throughout the story. Maybe he’s throwing down with MJF?
DC
Drawing real-life figures matched up with superheroes is always a tough balancing act to pull off, but Travis Mercer’s art does a good job of pulling off the various matchups in this issue. Some of his AEW likenesses don’t work entirely well – there’s a sameness to the details of Jon Moxley, “Hangman” Adam Page, and others on the team – making me wish for a little more detail with their respective looks in the issue. However, this could be because I see these people twice a week every week on my TV, so their current looks are not going to be exactly matched up with a comic made a few months ago.
Despite this, DC x AEW is a great showcase for what Mercer can do on the superhero side of things, as the issue allows him to really go all over the DC universe with varied locations and characters. Mercer plays up the bombastic nature of the book by giving almost all of these teamups a big splash page moment, making for a fun, over the top feel for the mini event.
Mashing up the DC and AEW rosters has felt like a long time coming, and I’m happy to say that the final result is a lot of fun. It probably won’t get DC fans to check out Dynamite or Collision next week, but it just might get AEW fans to head into the comic shop and try out some DC books. At the very least, we get a very entertaining comic that highlights the exciting and bombastic nature of comics and wrestling, and to me that’s All Elite.
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