CM Punk’s reaction to AEW shows his mind is on a job other than wrestling

Since the first reports on its creation popped up last year, there have been jokes/hopes/speculation about CM Punk and All Elite Wrestling. Rumors about wrestling’s most famous expatriate possibly working Cody Rhodes & The Young Buck’s ALL IN show persisted until the event ended, and AEW presents an even bigger opportunity to “stick it to WWE” - something fans imagine Punk would like to do, even while he says he just wants to move on from the wrestling business altogether.

Now, in a conversation with comedian and fellow pop culture nerd Mike Lawrence on Twitter, the Straight-Edge Superstar has commented on AEW. Several times, even! But all of his comments are jokes about 90’s comics books.

Lawrence compares Tony Khan’s new company to when high profile comics artists like Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee left Marvel Comics to form Image Comics in 1992. Image succeeded in creating a new, major alternative to the work-for-hire system still utilized by Marvel & fellow “Big Two” publisher DC, and has birthed numerous creator-owned properties such as Spawn and The Walking Dead. But it wasn’t without numerous growing pains, and the current Image is a lot different than what it was during the last decade of the 20th century - pumping out diverse, boundary-pushing work more than alternative super-heroes.

Anyway, that’s all just a bit of backstory for our non-comics readers for these tweet exchanges which feature Punk yukking it up about the early days of Image, including long publishing delays, Liefeld’s inability to draw feet and the 90’s trend of giving every character what amounted to Batman’s utility belt all over their costumes:

Several people, including Shane Helms, found Lawrence’s comparison an interesting one. And numerous side discussions in the thread pursued that conversation. Punk would not be dissuaded however:

And then the man who created Youngblood, starred in Levi’s commercials and drew more pouches & less feet than anybody chimed in and shut the Punkster down:

It’s a fun thread all around, and an interesting discussion about two industries/artforms that have a lot of crossover among fans, creators and both.

But a big takeaway is that Drax co-writer Phil Brooks still doesn’t want to talk wrestling.

Which of course won’t stop the “CM Punk to AEW imminent” jokes/rumors.