Brown, Bryan G. – First Fight #4

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First Fight #4

I don’t look at things like the Diamond pre-order catalog (assuming that’s even still a thing), and I don’t know if Bryan’s comics would even be listed in such a thing. But for whatever reason I couldn’t help but think of this being described as “a grown man trains for an MMA fight while losing to everybody but a 15 year old kid.” Accurate, but not at all the whole story. For those of you who haven’t been following this series, Bryan lost his first match, was out of it for three years and decided to get back into fighting. This issue deals with Bryan taking some family members to an MMA event to show them what he was getting into and training with both adults and kids to get himself into fighting shape. I have to say that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me not to check around online to see how this story ends (or at least how it’s progressed if he’s still fighting), mostly because we live in a culture of instant gratification and the production time involved in making and distributing comics is bound to keep him behind real life. With that in mind, it would be helpful if he maybe included a timeline somewhere along the line, although with the events he hasn’t covered yet left out so we can avoid “spoilers.” Of his real life. Maybe “spoilers” is not the right word in this case. Anyway, Bryan is doing the right thing here and taking his time, showing his training and what he’s going through every step of the way. It would be easy for him to put the equivalent of a training montage in here and then just showing his fights, but it’s important to see exactly what goes into an undertaking like this. As a man who’s perpetually not in great shape with periodic bursts of trying to get INTO better shape, I really appreciated his panel when he realized that he couldn’t move the next morning after a particularly tough day of training. I do have one minor quibble: in a story showing how easy it is to do damage to your hand if you hit somebody with your fist, he used the example of Homer Simpson hitting Barney in a bar while Moe stands by. As somebody who’s been watching The Simpsons for the better part of 23 years, I can’t remember such a thing happening. Unless it did, in which case I hope somebody is good enough to remind me of the episode. OK, fine, that isn’t an actual complaint at all, and Bryan probably just wanted to draw some Simpsons characters, which isn’t a crime. This series is still well worth checking out, even if you’re not a fan of fighting and feel squeamish about the whole concept. Believe it or not, the things you’re most squeamish about are also the things that the professional fighters try not to do. Read and be amazed!