World Wrestling Federation Lifestyles of the Brutal & Infamous #21842

History

The WWF one-shot series, of which this book is a part, grew out of a licensing arrangement Valiant secured through Western Publishing, which already held WWE and Nintendo rights and used them to achieve retail distribution beyond the direct market — reaching Kmart, Walmart, Toys 'R' Us, and Woolco in a digest-adjacent 'illustrated action book' format measuring 6.5 × 9.5 inches rather than standard comic dimensions. Jim Shooter, Valiant's founder and editor-in-chief, personally wrote the Undertaker/Big Boss Man story ('Pain or Peace') and assigned penciling duties to Steve Ditko, whom Shooter had recently brought aboard after Ditko had been let go by Marvel — a remarkable circumstance Shooter later described in interviews, noting that the clear moral polarity of WWF faces and heels satisfied Ditko's famously strict Objectivist standards for storytelling. The first story in the issue, 'Every Man Has His Price,' was written by Laura Hitchcock with art by Don Perlin and a young David Lapham — a collaboration Shooter would later identify as Lapham's first professional comics work.

Trivia · 7 facts

• One-shot published in 1991 by Valiant Comics under the Acclaim/Valiant imprint as part of the WWF 'Illustrated Action Books' line; GCD series index number 21842.
• The book contains two stories: 'Every Man Has His Price' (written by Laura Hitchcock, art by Don Perlin and David Lapham) and 'Pain or Peace' (written by Jim Shooter, pencils by Steve Ditko, inks by Don Perlin).
• The 'Pain or Peace' story features The Undertaker and manager Paul Bearer running a funeral parlor under surveillance by Big Boss Man, who suspects foul play — one of the earliest comics stories to portray The Undertaker's mortuary persona in a narrative context.
• Steve Ditko — co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange — penciled the Undertaker/Big Boss Man story, making this issue a notable late-career Ditko artifact.
• Jim Shooter has recalled in interviews that WWF scripts were among the first work he was able to offer Ditko at Valiant, as the moral clarity of face/heel dynamics aligned with Ditko's creative principles.
• David Lapham (later creator of *Stray Bullets*) worked on the DiBiase/Virgil story in this issue, which multiple sources identify as among his earliest professional comics work.
• All stories from this one-shot series were reprinted in the first four issues of Valiant's companion ongoing title *WWF Battlemania* (1991–1992), which ran five issues before cancellation despite solicitations promoting a 12-issue subscription run.

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