Now then wrestling fans and comic book fans I thought i'd take a look at something a little different and yet something that combines my love of both worlds. So I thought that WWE has a comic book series still running and so here I am taking a look at it now I know your asking why are you starting with volume 4 well that's because these comic book adapt storylines from the main shows anyway so you can jump in anywhere and pick up the story and so here is my review of WWE Volume 4 Women's Evolution.
If your a wrestling fan you'll know by the name of the volume what this story named after but shockingly that's not the plot at all. The basic story follows Bayley she raises through NXT on her quest to make it to the main roster. In terms of the story is told it's told pretty well given that the volume is only four issues long they don't include her rivalry with Carmella tho.
Now i'm a huge wrestling fan so know Bayley's story and from these four issues I got the feeling that the writer for the series really wasn't that big of fan, Just because even tho they the basics for each match down he skips over alot of key character moments for Bayley and that means that we can't really connect with the character which for me is a key thing since she's the focus point of this whole story so he could have made some effort into detailing those character moments.
I know I didn't really focus that much on the story but that's honestly because outside of the Bayley stuff there really isn't a story to speak of. They could have done a whole story just based on the women's evolution and how it and they change a bit of history because in the first issue of this story they say that it's called the Women's Evolution when at the time it was the Divas Revolution it didn't get the name Women's Evolution until much later.
The writer for this volume is Dennis Hopeless with a side story written by different people and in all honesty the writing for the main Bayley story is pretty basic Dennis gives you the basics of who each wrestler is and gives you nothing new. The side story is focused of Asuka and does actually tie into the main story by the end of the volume and I feel that the writing in that side story is actually worse then the one in the main story because at least in the main story you get a sense of who the characters are which is something you don't get in the side story.
The art for this series is done by Serg Acuna and I have to say that all of the wrestlers both make and female look like there real life counterparts. However there are times where the art looks a little rushed which is odd because Boom Studious usually kills it when it comes to the artwork in there stories and just like the writing is kind of a lot down it's not bad at all but it could have been much better.
For a volume called "Women's Evolution" they don't actually spend anytime explaining why that evolution started. Well to be fair they do explain why the Divas Evolution started that's really it there's nothing about why the Divas Evolution failed and why they needed to rebrand / reboot it with the Women's Evolution which is a shame because it's a key part of it's history and it's something that shouldn't be ignored.
This storyline only lasts three issues lasting from issue fourteen to issue seventeen which really isn't alot of time to tell any kind of story. If you wanted to tell at least a semi decent story then this storyline should have been at least four or five issues long since then you could have included alot of character stuff and added things to each of the characters but as it is all of that goes away and the story get's rushed.
Yeah remember when I said that Bayleys match with Carmella isn't really covered all it gets is two panels and that's it. That really is a shame because it was a really good match and the two really did have good chemistry but none of that comes through in this version of it because there's so little time dedicated to the characters and so little time given to the story of the key matches if anything this volume should have been called WWE Volume 4: The Rise Of Bayley since then cutting things down would have made some form of sense.
Now i'm not sure if this true or not but for some reason they chose to make the comic book version of Bayley a neat freak. Which if your in the know about the wrestling you'd quickly realise that it would be difficult for someone who is a neat to be on the road wrestling every day for a huge amount of the year so why they chose to add this little characteristic is beyond and it's not something that even goes anywhere.
Now since this is an actual wrestling book it means I have to talk about the wrestling featured in it and god knows how i'm going to do that. I'll say that the moves are drawn pretty well with alot of the finishing moves that you'd associate with a few superstars being represented here and I can't help but wonder if the artist was told to put all of there effort into making the moves look good because that's when the artwork is at it's best.
Overall as i've said several times in this review if this volume was about the actual Women's Evolution then it wouldn't be that bad but since it chooses to focus on Bayley it fails in alot of ways all of which i've covered so it gets a 5 out of 10 from me. If you guys like this review i'll give some serious thought into reviewing the WCW comic book from Marvel.