Impact World Champion Eric Young on His Love of Comics, Playing Super Eric

Long before he was main eventing Bound for Glory as the reigning Impact World Champion, Eric Young was a popular midcarder in TNA playing the dual roles of himself and Super Eric. The mask and cape-wearing persona was one of the many ways Young established himself as a fan-favorite, and it gave Young the chance to channel his love of comics and superheroes. In a new interview with ComicBook.com heading into Bound for Glory, Young talked about his fandom.

“I’m a comic book nerd. So wearing a mask and a cape — the cape is dangerous. Climbing the ropes and stuff, you’re tripping all over it, but I loved it,” Young said. “It was short-lived, but the gimmick itself, everywhere we went people loved to see it. And Shark Boy and Curry Man, the Prince Justice Brotherhood, that whole thing… there was a terribly made t-shirt, but it sold like crazy. It was like number three on the selling list with Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy there. So you’re never going to overtake those guys, but it was very short-lived but very, very cool for me to experience something like that. [It was] kind of another layer of the onion of Eric Young’s story and career, which is cool. And I can say, it was only for like maybe six to eight weeks, but I was a superhero.”

Young then listed some of his favorite characters.

“I’ve been a Daredevil fan for a long time. Punisher, Captain America. I’m Canadian, so that’s a little odd, but I love the Captain American stuff. The Captain America: Winter Soldier [storyline] is kind of what really got me back into comics. I’ve always been into them and interested in them, but I was really diehard into them and then I went away for a few years. But the Winter Soldier arc, that whole thing is what really got me crazy back into it and I started buying trades and looking for new stuff. I love a bunch of independent stuff. I love Saga. The Boys is, in my opinion, one of the greatest story arcs of all time. I’m trying to think of some other stuff. I love Preacher. The list is vast and, as you know, that’s an expensive habit to have that many different things that you really like.

“I’ve subsided on that and I love to hold the book in my hand and stuff, but a lot of stuff I do and read now is digital just because it’s easier, it doesn’t take up space,” he continued. “And I don’t have to argue with my wife about where we’re going to put these 30 books in this long box somewhere in my house. But it’s always been a huge passion of mine. I’ve played roleplay, Marvel role-playing games when I was a kid. I had like the first four or five sets of the Marvel Universe cards and collected those like crazy. It’s always been part of my life and I think it always will be.”

He also gave his two cents on The Boys television series, which recently wrapped up its second season on Amazon Prime.

“It’s very well done. Look, it’s never going to be the comic because that can’t air on television,” Young said. “The number one reason I like it was this interesting take of, well, who said if you get a superpower, you’re going to be good and you’re going to be a good person? The reality is power and control can corrupt people that seem incorruptible. So that to me really blew my mind and really made me think. And I like that comic books are… obviously, some people, older people like my age look at it like it’s childish. But the reality is there’s so many amazing stories and so many amazing storytellers writing comics and using that medium that it’s endless.

“You get done reading one thing and then you talk to somebody that’s reading them and they’re telling you about a whole nother thing that you haven’t even heard of,” he added. “Now you’ve got to buy all those or read all of those. So it just kind of never ends, which is cool.”

Impact Wrestling’s Bound for Glory takes place on Saturday night on pay-per-view. Young will compete in the main event by defending the Impact World Championship against Rich Swann.