Scout Comics Announces ‘Codename Ric Flair’ For Spring 2023

Ric Flair, the Rolex wearing, diamond ring wearing, wheelin’, dealin’, limousine ridin’, jet flyin’ son of a gun is jumping on the wrestling comics bandwagon with his very own series next Spring. Written by James Haick III, with artist Rafael Loureiro, colorists Renato Pacheco and Yen Nitro, and letterer DC Hopkins, Codename Ric Flair is set to hit the spinner racks in April 2023. 

The new comic details The Nature Boy’s fact-or-fiction forays as an international superspy in the 1980s and 1990s. The series purports that Flair, who did in fact travel around the world for wrestling matches, was also a secret agent for the US government, using his persona as the ultimate wrestling heel as the perfect cover.

Richard Fliehr, a mild-mannered professional wrestler, almost dies in a small twin engine plane on the way to a regional wrestling match. The doctors not only save his life – they rebuild him better than before. Treatment makes him stronger than ever and Fliehr is reborn as Ric Flair aka The Nature Boy, who must now use his wrestling persona as cover while he works to save the world as a secret agent.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Chuck Barris’ Confessions of a Dangerous Mind made similar claims regarding Barris’ alleged service to the CIA under the cover of a traveling game show host. 

“We grew up on two things in the 1980’s and 1990’s – Saturday Morning Cartoons and wrestling,” said writer James Haick III. “When we heard there was an opportunity to do a comic series with The Nature Boy Ric Flair we both jumped at the opportunity to work together again. This has been nearly three years in the making!”