Rival Angels Volume 1: Rookie Year

Title: Rival Angels Volume 1: Rookie Year
Date: 2009
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans
Colorist: Veronica Rosado, Dustin Yee, Jessica Hunsberger
Editor: Justin Riley

Trade paperback compilation of the Rival Angels webcomic. I picked this one up at Otakon and had a nice chat with creator Alan Evans, who is a dedicated pro wrestling fan and who has clearly channeled his love of wrestling into this comic.

Rival Angels tells the story of four rookies called up to the "big league" of womens' pro wrestling. The title of the comic is also the name of the fictional promotion, which is presented as comparable to the real-life WWE, complete with Monday night TV broadcasts and sellout crowds in huge arenas. We also get some glimpses of the other side of the sport: the developmental leagues where the competitors perform for sparse crowds in high school gyms and bingo halls.

The story focuses on Sabrina Mancini, called up early from the developmental territory and pushed as an up-and-coming babyface contender. This is all kayfabe storytelling, so the matches are depicted as real, competitive events. Sabrina faces the challenges of her first major-league matches while learning to live with three other rookie wrestlers that she is forced to share an apartment with as part of her contract.

Alan Evans knows his wrestling, and he also knows how to translate it into comic form. Matches are usually joined in mid-action so that the reader gets the match psychology and the big spots leading into the endgame without having to see every bit of feeling-out-process and restholds. The pacing works really well here, and the action feels authentic and exciting. As a wrestling fan, I was finding myself thinking that the major matches in this volume would be great on television.

The artwork has a couple of places where the rapid motion of high-flying moves is clearly difficult to depict as static drawings, but generally, the competitors look great and the moves look accurate.

I was less interested in some of the out-of-ring storylines. There is some intrigue and backstabbing going on behind the scenes that is interesting, but I would have liked to see better character development for the four roomates. The soap opera of the four different women living in close quarters never goes too far beyond shallow reality-TV style of interaction, and the characters engage in pretty stereotypical party-girl behavior outside of the ring.

Hopefully the character development will improve to match the excellent wrestling storylines as the series moves on.

Rating: 7.5/10