A professional wrestler turned comic book writer? To some people, that might sound utterly ridiculous. But it’s nonetheless true. Marvel Comics recently announced that CM Punk – the brash, charismatic, and always-outspoken multiple-time world champion who recently parted ways with WWE has signed on to handle writing duties for February’s Thor Annual #1.
Punk (whose real name is Phil Brooks) has been paired with artist and personal friend Rob Guillory, who also new to Marvel, to produce “a story about young Thor,” according to multiple sources. In an exclusive interview with Marvel, Punk stated that “the idea was, let’s do a story about young Thor as kind of a brash, bratty teenager who’s like, ‘I’m totally worthy of this hammer. My dad’s full of [expletive]. I don’t know why I’m not ‘worthy’ of the hammer. Look at all this cool stuff I did.’ And it’s more or less like a drinking story. He’s gonna be sitting around with a few choice characters from the Marvel Universe, and they’re all gonna be drinking, and Thor’s gonna basically be complaining about essentially why his dad won’t give him the keys to the car.”
While Punk may be known more for his fast-paced, hard-hitting wrestling style, his tremendous amount of tattoos, and his well-documented “straight edge” lifestyle, he’s also pretty well known as an avid geek and comic book fan. And while this may be Punk’s very first comic book story ever published, he’s certainly no stranger to Marvel, or its expansive parade of characters. As ANY wrestling fan can tell you, Punk is known for his use of The Thing’s legendary battle cry of “It’s clobberin’ time!” whenever he makes his way to the ring, and is a well-known fan of The Walking Dead which he has stated many times during his frequent appearances on AMC’s Talking Dead. Punk also wrote the introduction to the hardcover edition of Avengers vs. X-Men and is a self-admitted lifelong fan of comics, so it’s not like the guy isn’t completely qualified here.
As if that weren’t enough to get both wrestling and comic book fans excited, Punk has already stated that while he is very happy to be writing Thor, there’s another character he wants to write even more:
“In my mind, for some odd reason, I’ve just got this Punisher story in my head, and I think it’s super, super awesome. I can read Jason Aaron’s Punisher and everybody else’s [take on the] character and it’s good, but I think that my Punisher story is pretty badass. So everything I do for Marvel is going to be leading up to, ‘Please just let me write my Punisher story.’ So until they let me do that, you’re gonna get all kinds of other stories about all kinds of other characters until they satisfy this need I have to write Frank Castle.”
Marvel’s Thor Annual #1 drops this February. With the former longest-reigning WWE champion of the past 25 years that’s well-documented as “the best in the world” in pro-wrestling, it’s a whole new challenge to see if CM Punk‘s got the chops to stake that same claim in the realm of comic book writing.
Guess we’ll all have to wait and see what happens in the main event this February. In the meantime, check out the cover for Thor Annual #1 which Marvel was kind enough to give us a sneak peek of!
-Dave Harlequin
Editor: Nerd Nation Magazine
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