Rival Angels Season 3 Volume 2

Part of a Kickstarter reward package.

Title: Rival Angels: Season 3 Volume 2
Date: 2018
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley, Cale Ranots
Artist: Alan Evans, Cale Ranots
Colorist: Aaron Daly, Mabel Lim, Kay King

After 10 years without missing an update, the pro wrestling webcomic Rival Angels wrapped up with a massive cross-promotional storyline, collected in this final trade paperback volume.

Although multiple backstage storylines are wrapped up here, the wrestling really takes center stage, with a classic wrestling angle in the style of Kenny Omega's current cross-promotional reign in AEW, AAA, and Impact.

In the Rival Angels world, this kicks off with all four of the Upstarts buying front-row tickets when Japanese promotion BRA does a Chicago stop on their US tour. This serves to reignite storylines that were left behind when Sabrina Mancini left Japan at the end of Season 2, Volume 1.

A cross-promotional PPV is quickly organized, headlined by Olympic medalist Camille Cote challenging Yvonne Carmichel for the Rival Angels World Championship. And that's just the beginning of the final push that results in the emergence of a powerful new faction, and completes the journey of the Upstarts to the main event level.

The wrestling angles and matches are pretty much spot-on perfect here, and the interactions between Sabrina and Sun are a highlight, although all of the Upstarts get their moments.

There are also a few nice epilogues bits that take a look into the future, as well as a backup story by Cale Ranots that goes into the technical aspects of BJJ and catch wrestling in a training session.

Considering the epic journey of this series, this was a great conclusion that really showcased the creator's love of pro wrestling, and sent the fans home happy.

Rating: 9/10

Rival Angels: Season 3 Volume 1

Part of a Kickstarter reward package.

Title: Rival Angels: Season 3 Volume 1
Date: 2017
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans, Dave Reynolds
Colorist: Aaron Daly

The action here focuses primarily on Ultradragon (Sabrina and Sun) and their quest for the tag team championship, as Sabrina deals with her doubts about not being able to "win the big one". Meanwhile the Upstarts continue on their slow path toward forgiving past issues and restoring their friendships. And there's a new threat on the horizon as Olympic medalist Camile Cote debuts, and proceeds to destroy everyone in her path.

This was a really focused story, which has not always been the case with Rival Angels. It's nice to see the pacing balance between in-ring action and out-of-ring soap opera continue to improve.

Ultradragon's quest for tag team gold was a great storyline, but Brooke had some excellent moments as well as she had taken on a more serious role in the story. Def Tech's plot was on more of a slow burn during this volume, but there was enough there to keep things interesting.

A new segment at the start of each chapter featuring a page of internet fan commentary was a nice addition, and a decent representation/parody of online wrestling fans.

A Christmas-themed story drawn by Dave Reynolds gave some background insights into Sabrina's relationship with her family.

Rating: 8/10

Rival Angels: Season 2 Volume 2

Part of a Kickstarter reward package.

Title: Rival Angels: Season 2 Volume 2
Date: 2016
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans, Keith Malkowski
Colorist: Aaron Daly

The Upstarts reunite as "Ultragirl" Sabrina Mancini returns to Rival Angels after her time in Japan. She returns just a Brooke gets booted out of Hell's Belles and saves the rest of the Upstarts from a beatdown. But even with the possibility of Brooke and Sabrina mending the rift between them, the Upstarts' show of unity with prove to be fleeting.

While the backstage soap opera was still a big part of this volume, the wrestling was the focus, particularly the build to the Bad Blood PPV event. This volume gave the best overview of the Rival Angels federation that we've seen so far, and the continuity and flow of many different subplots and storylines came together very nicely.

The ending was less directly focused on the Upstarts than it could have been, but it still marked a big moment for Rival Angels, and there was plenty of intriguing setup for the continuing story.

Rating: 7.5/10

Rival Angels Season 2 Volume 1

Part of a Kickstarter reward package.

Title: Rival Angels: Season 2 Volume 1
Date: 2014
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans
Colorist: Aaron Daly

Rookie wrestler Sabrina "Ultragirl" Mancini travels to Japan to join Tokyo-based Millennium Wrestling Association. She makes new friends, faces new and old rivals, and deals with the sexism of an organization in which womens wrestling is not a priority in spite of the talent of the womens roster.

The parallels to pre-"Womens Evolution" WWE are pretty clear, right down to the Hulk Hogan stand-in who serves as one of the sexist authority figures.

Sabrina's romantic plotline with Lightweight Champion Yoshihiro Yamamoto has some sweet moments, and the backstage intrigue involving various factions was complex enough to keep things interesting.

One thing that worked well here compared to previous volumes was the use of more of a rapid-fire highlights style to tell a bunch of wrestling stories in a small number of panels. I found it really effective in advancing plot, while saving the blow-by-blow action for a few important matches. Sabrina's full match with Black Widow was given the space it needed as a major event.

While I missed Krystin, who was back in Rival Angels and didn't appear in this volume, Sun got in a pretty awesome feel-good moment, along with some good character interaction.

The soap-opera cliffhanger was a classic cliche, but I am interested in seeing where the story goes next.

Rating: 7/10

Rival Angels: Damsels of Destruction: Wrestling Maneuvers And Techniques Issue: Volume 2

Bought as part of a package from the creator's Kickstarter.

Title: Rival Angels: Damsels of Destruction: Wrestling Maneuvers And Techniques
Issue: Volume 2
Date: 2014
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans

I reviewed the first volume of this supplementary minicomic series here, and this is basically more of the same. This is an all-artwork collection to accompany the Rival Angels webcomic and graphic novel series about four rookie women pro wrestlers.

This volume skips the commentary aside from a quick introduction, and lets the action speak for itself. There are some classic wrestling moves here, along with some less commonly seen ones, and a few of the more over-the-top gimmicky moves that fans will know from WWE.

The artwork is lovely, and it's fun seeing familiar characters from the series in action. This isn't really necessary as a part of the series, but it makes for a fun bonus item.

Rating: 6/10

Rival Angels: Damsels of Destruction: Wrestling Maneuvers And Techniques Volume 1

My friend received this as a bonus when she bought Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 4 (reviewed here) for me from the creative team at a convention in the Midwest in 2017.

Title: Rival Angels: Damsels of Destruction: Wrestling Maneuvers And Techniques
Issue: Volume 1
Date: 2014
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans

Full-color minicomic featuring full-page artwork depicting classic pro wrestling holds applied by (and to) characters from the Rival Angels wrestling webcomic series.

Many of these are quite nice. A few suffer from the challenge of trying to capture fast-moving action in a still drawing. But overall, the holds look great.

Commentary is supplied by (who else?) Rival Angels commentary team Dawn Ellison and Jeff Krew, who are admittedly not my favorite part of Rival Angels, but at least their obnoxiousness is mostly reigned in here.

There is no plot, but this is still a nice supplement to the Rival Angels series, especially for pro wrestling who like to see their favorite moves.

Rating: 5.5/10

Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 4

A friend picked this up for me and got it signed for me at Anime Milwaukee 2017.

Title: Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 4
Date: 2012
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans
Colorist: Aaron Daly

As a WWE fan, this series continues to impress me with its clear love for pro wrestling. This issue tool place almost entirely at a single PPV show, the Rival Angels Federation's equivalent of Wrestlemania.

All four of the "Upstarts", who have been the focus of the comic, have matches on the card, with Sabrina "Ultragirl" Mancini pulling double duty. She's got her first title match, the finals in the TV title championship, followed by an "I Quit" match inside a cage with Hell's Belles faction leader Chloe DeSade.

Doing an entire wrestling card in comic form in a challenging endeavor, as the pacing of comics isn't going to work as well as video for capturing the action, and there is the danger that the story will seem repetitive with multiple matches needing to be covered. This volume does an impressive job of handling those challenges, making good use of backstage subplots to break up the action happening in the ring, and providing good variety in the matches themselves.

Plenty of classic wrestling tropes were on full display here, with matches won by outside interference, post-match beatdowns, and drama between the commissioner and the talent.

The dialogue could be a bit stilted at times, especially when going for humor, and the attempt to portray the announce team doesn't quite feel "real", but there is no denying the fun of this series.

The final match was a great climax to the Ultragirl's first really big rivalry, and the storyline following the ppv event set the stage for some new directions as the series moves into its second season.

Rating: 8/10

Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 3

I'm reviewing live from Anime Boston 2014! Sitting here at my table in Artists Alley (Table #43 if you're at the con! Come up and check out our comics!), while I review the first of several items I've purchased here at the con.

Title: Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 3
Date: 2011
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans, Lora Innes
Colorist: Dustin Yee, Aaron Daly
Cover: Lora Innes
Back Cover: Sarah Ellerton

This is the third trade paperback collection from the Rival Angels webcomic, which tells the stories of four women trying to make names for themselves in a WWE-style womens pro wrestling league.

The focus of this volume is on the frie
ndship between babyface rookie Sabrina Mancini and rookie heel Sun "Lil Dragon" Wong. When Sun joins heel faction Damage Inc., their friendship gets strained to the breaking point.

In the ring, the "main event" of this volume is Sabrina's semi-final match in the ongoing Television Championship tournament and the continuation of Sabrina's feud with Chloe DeSade's Hell's Belles group.

As with the first two volumes, writer/artist Alan Evans's love and knowledge of pro wrestling shines through with tons of familiar moves, classic wrestling tropes, and a good sense of match pacing and booking. I also enjoyed the geeky references and one-liners in the dialogue.

This volume also does a lot of work expanding the subplots happening both in the ring and outside. There is a lot going on here, and it sets up plenty of future twists and turns.

Rating: 8/10

Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 2

Title: Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 2
Date: 2010
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley, Dan Head
Artist: Alan Evans, Dan Head
Colorist: Dustin Yee, Jessica Hunsberger, Marcia da Piedade Nunes Patricio


Trade paperback compilation of the Rival Angels webcomic. I picked up the first volume last summer at Otakon, and bought this one when I ran into creator Alan Evans at Anime Boston 2013.

This is a pro wrestling comic, telling the story of fur rookie wrestlers in their first year in the "big league" of the Rival Angels federation. Kayfabe story. All of the in-ring action is considered real.

In the previous review I mentioned that Alan Evans knows his wrestling. The action is familiar enough to be authentic and original enough to stay interesting. There were some in-ring moments that would look awesome in an actual wrestling match (the "tsunami"!).

What I especially liked in this volume, though, was the out-of-ring character development, especially the relationship between "Ultragirl" Sabrina Mancini and "Lil Dragon" Sun Wong. They have some great scenes just developing their friendship, even as events are happening that will threaten the friendship down the road.

The story had good, complex backstage intrigue happening, and it also used flashbacks to give more insight into the backgrounds of some of the lead characters, including what amounted to a complete origin story for Sun.

This volume showed a lot more character depth, and the out-of-ring storylines moved away from the reality-TV flavor that characterized the first volume.

I'm a longtime wrestling fan. I bought this volume because it was a good story about wrestling. I'll be buying the next volume just because it's a good story.

Rating: 8/10

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