In every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without actively retconnng away the previous story. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today, we look at how Marvel handled losing their star character from their WCW comic book series.

In 1992, Marvel launched a licensed comic book series based on WCW: World CHampionship Wrestling. It was written by Mike Lackey, with art by Ron Wilson and Don Hudson.

The first issue's cover was devoted to Lex Luger...

The first issue opens up talking about Luger...

Indeed, the first two issues were all about Luger. In the first issue, he wins the title by seemingly paralyzing wrestler Ron Simmons (I love how matter-after-fact the announcing is - "Oh man, he just crippled that guy!").

Luger is once again on the cover to the second issue...

In that issue, we learn that his "crippling people" technique was frowned upon and now he has to defend his title by taking on, well, pretty much EVERYONE...

And damned if he didn't do just that! Dude just kicked everyone's collective ass!

The issue ends with a big set-up about Luger being the new champ...

Luger, of course, then promptly quit WCW. He went to go work for Vince McMahon's short-lived World Bodybuilding Federation. He was injured in a motorcycle accident and barely got to do anything for the organization before it folded and Luger ended up at WWF before eventually returning to WCW.

So anyhow, how did the comic deal with Luger vanishing? Luckily, the third issue was already planned as a one-off issue, so then just in #4, we simply learn that, oh, the belt was vacated! No mention of Luger at all.

The match for the belt was between Sting and the Ghoul, a brand-new creation for the Marvel comic book. We learned why Marvel introduced a new character at the end of the fight, as it turns out that "The Ghoul" was just a disguise...

Awesomely over-the-top. This was an oddly fun comic book, really.

That's it for this installment. If anyone else has a suggestion of an interesting abandoned comic book plot, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!