Jon Moxley On Comics, the Red Hood, And Why It's Probably Batman's Fault (Exclusive)

Jon Moxley has read a lot of comics over the last two years. The AEW ace, best known for his bruising, violent, and often bloody matches, surprised many when he appeared at New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom event wearing an outfit inspired by the Red Hood. While comics-inspired gear isn't uncommon in the world of wrestling, it was a first for Moxley and a reminder that the no holds barred wrestler has been an avid reader of comics for several years. 

"I'm not sure whose idea that was," Moxley told ComicBook.com's Christian Hoffer in an interview earlier this week. "But I like the pageantry sometimes, especially big shows and big fights and stuff like that. I keep it pretty simple, so usually, it's not really my thing. But sometimes, well, I want to have some fun too. Everybody else gets to wear these ridiculous outfits and I want to dress like Liberace and come to the ring at least one time." Moxley noted that his homage to Red Hood was understated compared to other costumes and that he got "talked into it," but it remains that Moxley showed off his appreciation for comics in one of the biggest wrestling events of the year. 

Several years ago, Moxley appeared on his wife Renee Paquette's podcast "The Sessions with Renee Paquette" and mentioned that he had started to read comics avidly after going to rehab. It was an offhand comment, but one that led to a simple question that went unanswered for several years – what comics does Jon Moxley read? Moxley's Red Hood entrance gear provided an opportunity to finally get an answer that question. "I would say I like all the Bat Universe, probably the most of the general mainstream superhero types," Moxley said. "If I had to pick, I like DC probably better than Marvel, but really it's probably just for the Bat-related characters and everything that spawns off of that. If you took away Batman and anybody related to Batman, I don't know that I would like DC that much at all."

Moxley launched into a long explanation of the various Batman characters, mentioning Batman, the various Robins, Batgirl, and Huntress as characters he enjoys. However, it was Red Hood that Moxley called his favorite character. "[The Red Hood] is probably my favorite because he just makes the most sense," Moxley said. "Even though he's nuts and he goes a little overboard sometimes, he's very much of the opinion that why don't we just kill the bad guys instead of just putting them in jail." Moxley noted that characters like the Joker, who seem to frequently escape incarceration, can't be handled the same way as normal characters. "At some point you're looking at Batman like, 'Dude, you're really, it's becoming your fault," Moxley said. "You know what I mean? You're the problem here."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Moxley's taste in comics trend towards the grounded instead of the supernatural or fantastic. "Generally I like comics with the Bat first, but not anything," Moxley said. "[I like] anything that's good. I like the comics more grounded in something close to reality. I'd rather read the stories about characters that are going to bust a bunch of gangs, or there's a murder or something like that. As opposed to there's aliens from another dimension and they've broken into this dimension. As soon as you start adding in time travel and multiverses and there's three different ones of the same guy and they're all from different universes, then I started getting a little confused. I like the grittier, down to earth comics."

When asked about his favorite comics, Moxley mentioned a mix of recent hits and classics. He mentioned Rafael Grampa's Gargoyle in Gotham as a recent comic he enjoyed ("It's kind of like the movie Seven," Moxley said. "Very dark and rainy and you could really, feels like it's a real place.") and also called out Scott Snyder and Dan Panosian's Canary and Gotham Central as series he's enjoyed. 

Another comic that Moxley surprisingly enjoyed were the recent Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics by James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams. "There's two books and then the movie was pretty good," Moxley said. "Batman's a little bit of a cheesy version of Batman, but they make it work and it makes a lot of in-jokes at itself. It's cool when you get a crossover because you can use the one thing to make fun of the other thing. And the Shredder/Batman fight was actually pretty dope." Moxley also said he enjoyed the animated Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. "The movie was surprisingly good," Moxley said. "I was like, 'this is going to be horseshit,' But they actually somehow pulled it off to where it's actually pretty cool." 

One final comic Moxley called out was TMNT: The Last Ronin, which was written by original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird alongside Tom Waltz, with illustrations by Esau and Isaac Escorza, Ben Bishop, and Eastman. "There's actually some pretty good serious internal stories," Moxley said of the Roninverse, mentioning that he had read both the original series and its spin-off series The Lost Years. 

While it's clear that Moxley reads a ton of comics, he surprisingly doesn't have much of a physical collection nor does he keep a pull list at a local comics store. Instead Moxley reads his comics mostly on the Kindle, something that he credits for helping him fall down the "comics rabbit hole." "I read a lot of books," Moxley explained. "If you're on the road a lot, you finish your book and you got another one at home, but you need something new while still traveling. You might not be able to get a physical book or there might not be one you like at that little shop in the airport or whatever. With the Kindle it was like, 'Okay, any book you want, you can just read right now." 

After starting to dabble on the Kindle, he noticed that he could also read comics on it, helped along by the guided view functionality that comes with comics purchases. "And then I went into this whole rabbit hole over the last few years," Moxley said. "I probably spent...I don't even know, but as much as probably many big comic book fans have spent in the last 10 years, 20 years in the last two years, just on clicking on my Kindle."

Come back to ComicBook.com later this week to hear Moxley's thoughts on philosophy along with what he's looking to do in 2024 and why he won't name a "dream match" he'd like to see in AEW.