Creator Daniel Warren Johnson outdoes himself with this issue of Do a Powerbomb. It’s an almost entirely action issue, with Lona and Cobrasun fighting for the championship. The winner gets to resurrect a dead person of their choice—in Lona and Cobrasun’s case, her mom and his wife (actually, it’s unclear if they were married). Lona still doesn’t know Cobrasun’s her father; she assumes he’s helping resurrect her mom because he feels bad about killing her.

I mean, he does feel bad about killing her (during a wrestling match), but there’s so much context. And all of it surrounds the characters as they decide to have a potential fight to the death for the championship. They don’t want the traditional rules—especially since their opponents are from a universe where pro wrestling isn’t staged. They want to be able to fight anywhere in the arena, they don’t want to have to tag in, and they want to use, well, weapons. Barbed wire baseball bats, barbed wire folding chairs. Pretty much anything they can use to cause some damage.

Cobrasun has been fighting in these kind of matches for a decade (or so), but it’s Lona’s first time. She’s scared. Johnson bakes that fear into the greater context. It’s a wrestling match action issue, complete with a ring announcer and wrestling moves, but it’s not just the final match; it’s also so much more dangerous than usual. Even for Powerbomb.

The action’s a truly superb balance between the pro-wrestling theatrics, the additional danger to the wrestlers, as well as the overarching tensions of the comic itself. Johnson teases at Lona and Cobrasun’s opponents’ backstory vise-a-vie needing someone resurrected but waits until the cliffhanger to delineate. In doing so, he introduces an entirely integrated subplot with just a couple issues left.

Powerbomb’s exceptional work.