It's exactly that sort of thing that gets snooty Sandman readers insisting they're picking up graphic novels as opposed to comic books. Comic books still conjures up the stereotypical image of big dudes in tiny costumes being violent and making bad puns whilst posing in anatomically impossible ways. All of which are things that can be found within the pages of Warrior #3, the Christmas special of the comic starring and written by former WWE wrestler Ultimate Warrior. Not to speak ill of the dead, what with the grappler having passed on this year, but on the basis of this the Ultimate Warrior was an insane person. Like, genuinely. The first couple of issues of Warrior are a bizarre, alternate universe taken on Spawn where instead of a demonic superhero he's a professional wrestler with ideas above his station and about five times the bloodlust, but you can kinda dismiss them in the same manner as all extreme!!! nineties comic books. The Christmas special, meanwhile, sees Warrior doing all manner of nasty things to Santa Claus. That includes locking him in some sort of hellish North Pole sex dungeon and various other depraved acts in a series of textless double-page spreads. For the more literary types, you can find reams and reams of seemingly unedited rants in the other half of the book, in a garish red font against a polarised drawing of Ultimate Warrior destroying a sleigh, wherein Warrior claiming that he wrote this comic to help out Santa in exchange for a few cases of nude Barbies. And to all a good night.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
