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By Leroy Douresseaux
August 1, 2007 - 11:21
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| Thanks to barnesandnobel.com for the image. |
The series is set in the year 2054, in the aftermath of an apocalyptic war, in which humans are enslaved, begging for salvation from God. Their rulers are the Beastarians, animal-human hybrids that humanity created to be the ultimate soldiers in mankind’s ever-increasing number of wars. Then, The Judgment of Fire came, and a long, dark winter settled over Earth. When it cleared, man was near extinction, and the Beastarians became merciless tyrants.
Mankind looks for deliverance from the Church and its new weapons – a trio known as the Archangels. Nikki Pedrian, a young woman, is the leader, and the two young men, Tae and Ross, are her eager beast-killers. They’re blessed with superhuman physical attributes which allow them to tear through the Beastarians, who are generally tall, physically massive, and gruesomely bloodthirsty. The Archangels first mission is to find the Holy Mother, the one who will give birth to the new savior – according to prophecy. After some initial success, the angels are about to find out that not everything they know is the way things actually are.
War Angels, Vol. 1 also includes a 20-page preview of Jae-Hwan’s other manhwa series, King of Hell (also available from TOKYOPOP).
THE LOWDOWN: In manhwa (Korean comics), the selling point is not so much the concept or even the script, as it is the execution of the visual storytelling. What War Angels lacks in originality, it makes up for with a beautifully illustrated story and slam-bang, non-stop action. That makes War Angels similar to such manhwa titles as Banya: The Explosive Delivery Man and Phantom.
Jae-Hwan Kim’s art, like some manhwa’s artists’ work, is closer to the ultra-realist styles of such artists as Bryan Hitch and Jim Lee, who reign in American Direct Market comic books. With his penchant for giving each character’s face a distinctive look and personality, however, Jae-Hwan is spiritually closer to George Perez.
Regardless of surface appearances, Jae-Hwan superbly executes his story. For all the beauty of his art, it is his ability to create dramatic conflict and amplify tension. In the book, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema, Lee often emphasizes that an artist must learn to compose a panel in such a way to heighten the sense of drama, which made for comics filled with grandiose melodrama. That’s basically what Jae-Hwan, whose art bears a passing resemblance to Buscema’s, does. As he did with the Warcraft manga, Jae-Hwan has made War Angels a summer potboiler that demands you read it from start to finish with hardly a pause.
POSSIBLE AUDIENCE: War Angels is just as good as any Direct Market superhero comic series, so if you’re reading some of those, you might want to get down with War Angels.
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