Agents of Slam Review

Agents of Slam Review

Did you know ‘chonies’ is Spanish for underwear? Neither did I until I read Agents of Slam. Sometimes life amazes me with just the soft pitch of what S.L.A.M. really stands for, but if you’re itching to relive the glory days of nostalgic wrestling that reads like G.I. Joe, then Agents of Slam better be on your reading list. I saw the title, and even at half past thirty, I’m still over the moon about this story.

The art is very playful and entertaining, very much reminiscent of Bryan Lee O’Malley‘s Scott Pilgrim series. Agents of Slam takes pro-wrestling out of the ring and into the sphere of the world, turning world-class performers into world-class heroes. Essentially, if WWE or AEW took a group of wrestlers and turned them into a Ghost Recon-style video game, you’d get the best wrestling with action movie features. I mean, just look at what “The Man” Becky Lynch had to say about it.

“Agents of S.L.A.M. takes the simple and awesome concept of professional wrestling and a young fan and turns it up to one hundred. 

It’s got everything you’d want from a graphic novel: superhero pro wrestlers, a world in jeopardy, heel turns, gruesome grannies, friendship, families, and treacherous villains. 

This brilliantly animated, wonderfully written comic is such a fun read! I loved it and highly recommend it.”

–Rebecca Quinn aka Becky Lynch, Professional Wrestler 

It’s pretty obvious that Dave Scheidt is a wrestling fan because I’ve been to Wrestlemania, but never Wrestlevania. It’s not just the wordplay on historic paper views, but the wrestlers of Slam Wrestling that make up the Agents of S.L.A.M. that makes it really special. And to give you an exclusive look at all the wrestlers, there is famous Slam Wrestling vlogger Katie Jones, the key character that the story follows as all her dreams come true.

What I really love about this story is that it creatively utilizes the faction mechanic of pro wrestling to fashion an evil cartel of wrestlers that sets the stage for the big baddie, Master Zero. This faction is called, in short, the W.D.S., which means World Domination Society. They start off as a small-time stable, but when the President of Slam Wrestling announces he’s running for President of the United States, they take their plans for world dominance outside the ring for a global rebranding.

This book even caught the attention of former TNA and current AEW superstar Christopher Daniels.

“I’ve known for years that Dave Scheidt and Scoot McMahon were talented comic creators, and now, they’re poised to win gold with Agents of S.L.A.M.! Tagging in Heidi Black’s vibrant colors to the team, they’ve made an amazing combination of superheroes, professional wrestling, and all-ages action!! Championship material through and through!!”

–“Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels, professional wrestler (AEW) and comic-book collector

Upon being granted an exclusive interview at the White House, she meets Bruno Bravado, who looks like Brutus Beefcake had a kid with Ric Flair and stole Bret Hart’s glasses from the 80s. The designs are simple yet fun and capture that classic wrestling look one would need to fashion a fan following. That exclusive interview soon turns into an all-inclusive backstage pass to the Agents of S.L.A.M. headquarters. Here she meets the rest of the roster of heroic wrestling operatives, such as Volt, The Red Reaper, Tex, President Johnson’s grandma Agatha, The Lion Johnson, and Marv.

You can tell there are more of Slam Wrestling’s rosters apart from the response teams, but you don’t learn about them until later. Things get more exciting as Bruno asks Katie to join them on their mission to stop the W.D.S. from trying to steal the Eagle Championship Belt from the Cosmic Temple. I love the nonsensical twist that our creators give to a simple concept such as a place called the Cosmic Temple, which is really just an ancient temple filled with booby traps.

It felt very inspired by Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom with a dash of Pitfall as the wrestling agents entered the temple in teams of two.

Sadly, it is here on the precipice of Act Three in Chapter One that Bruno Bravado performs his last Fearsome Flex as he falls to his doom, saving Katie from the floor caving in. Suspiciously, not soon after Master Zero appears, thanks to the distraction of Rane and Ivan, the boiler room brawler, Master Zero defeats the 4,000-year-old mummy champion defender and takes possession of the belt powers.

Master Zero offers to give the world to Katie if she comes to the W.D.S. to vlog for him, but she declines so she can search for Bruno. The only thing left of the guy is his cool pink shades, which Red Reaper gives to Katie.

Chapter Two picks up in the Oval Office, where President Johnson receives a can of Grannie’s ‘whipscream’ and successfully ‘whoopspiration’s’ him after he starts to spiral at the news of Bruno’s tragedy. The team sits on the round training table, a gold star embedded at its center, the topic of conversation. How the heck do you remove the eagle championship belt from Master Zero, who was good enough to win it in the first place?

Now he’s even stronger, faster, and can live forever, but Volt has reservations about his wrestling pedigree. Thanks to Katie knowing more about Master Zero’s move, Marv votes for Katie on another mission. I love how Red Reaper keeps throwing the rationality out there that it’s extremely dangerous for someone like Katie to be out there doing what trained professionals should be doing. It’s like fun banter on wrestling disclosures that come across the screen before your wrestling documentary or video game plays.

“When I say S.L.A.M. you say SHAM!”

Marv’s invitation makes way for President Johnson to officially welcome Katie to the Agents of Slam. During the last chapter, the agents explained that the cosmic temple kept the energy of the golden eagle belt from people or aliens tracking it. We’re not sure by this point if Master Zero is aware of that, but the conflict on Eagle Island results in the arrival of the Brah Nation, a group of giant blue aliens in unitards looking for the belt on their energy blip. The Brah Nation was the alien faction that held the belt before losing it to Earth 4,000 years prior to the events of this story.

After Master Zero awakens a dragon, whom he names Dray-gon, and flies over to New York, where he ingeniously begins a propaganda campaign for world domination by cutting a promo to spite his competitor, President Johnson. Master Zero hopes that his claims of President Johnson lying and fixing matches to boost ratings will sway the public to defeat his enemy for him. If Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, could be a part of the Agents of S.L.A.M., he would just say this catchy assembly phrase that Marv screams out. 

“Let’s suit up. It’s S.L.A.M. time!”

All things come to a head as the aliens from Brah’s Nation catch up with Master Zero, challenging him to a match for the eagle belt. I think it just occurred to me that this Eagle Championship is very similar in its rules to WWE’s most recent title, the 24/7 title. While the alien challengers brought their own ring, they lacked a referee, but thanks to the intervention of the Agents of S.L.A.M., Master Zero ploys to suggest Katie as the referee to prevent the Brah’s from making a biased final decision.

Red Reaper tries to convince Rane, his sister, to help him destroy the belt so it can’t destroy the world, but in a flash of surprising events, Master Zero draws power from the belt illegally thanks to Rane’s supernatural power over lightning, which blinds everyone in the ring.

Master Zero slips his ankle hold and hurts the Brah wrestler, forcing Katie, still stunned, to call the match. Normally, in wrestling with big factions or more than three-person groups, the chaotic scraps in and outside the ring can be very entertaining, so I was happy to see that play out as W.D.S. members jumped in to fight the remaining Brah’s after the unfair decision left Master Zero the champion once more.

But, in a crazier turn of events that I smelled from Chapter One, one of the Brah’s caught Master Zero’s mask, revealing to the whole world who Master Zero really is—Bruno Bravado! Why Bruno, why? Bruno Bravado changes his tune, in a classic heel turn, making a quick getaway on Dray-gon with Rane in tow, leaving the Agents of S.L.A.M. more devastated than they were prior to him falling to his doom.

Will the Agents of Slam be able to defeat their former leader, idol, and best friend to recover the universe’s most powerful championship belt? I guess you’ll have to go pick up a copy for yourself and find out what happens through chapters three through five to get to the bottom of it. I think my favorite character in all of this is Red Reaper.

The toxic sibling relationship outlined in the remaining chapters of the book reminds me of the classic Kane and Undertaker storyline from the 90s that played a huge role in redefining the tag-team division in all of pro wrestling later when Kane and Undertaker became the Brothers of Destruction. The BOD showed the wrestling world the value of how sibling rivalry and the supernatural can add value to wrestling psychology. 

The fact that Dave took the supernatural and mythological so far to give this story some panache is indicative of how fun his approach to this story is and can be in the future, should there be any more Agents of S.L.A.M. shenanigans. I hope there are more adventures in the future of this title because this was a wonderful experience. The best of wrestling, fiction, and action-adventure lies within the pages of this title that I’m dubbing ‘The Gem of Oni Press’ because it really is unique in its own way. I would recommend this to any parent looking to onboard their kids into the story potential of comics or if they’re just looking for the next Captain Underpants or Dog Cop-like fix.

Agents of Slam can be yours for $12.99, and with 150+ pages, it’s definitely worth your shelf space. I’d like to thank the folks at Oni Press for sending us a copy for review and my editor, Jackie Daytona, who helped get that copy to me in the flash of a lightning bolt at my personal request. Don’t forget to support your local comic store or visit your favorite artists and creators at cons. As always, stay geeky, share the network, and don’t forget to catch me on the latest episode of Comics’N’Poptarts. *I wonder if Dave thought about pitching this as a cartoon. Well, he should.