Royals #1 // Review
It’s Easter Week. Seoul, South Korea. There are a couple of guys from America who are there. Brothers. Castor and Paul. They’re both having a conversation that only the two of them understand. And not because it’s in English. The conversation that they’re both having can’t be heard by anyone else because it’s all in their heads. Castor and Paul have a psychic connection. They’re about to get into a tremendous amount of trouble in Royals #1. Writer Derek Kirk Kim and artist Jacob Perez open open a really fun buddy crime thriller tha shows a tremendous amount of promise.
Castor is on his way out to the Thunder Cove Casino. He’s competing in a high-profile tournament with some of the biggest names in poker. Paul is...going to a small bar to watch the tournament on television. Castor is up against some of the biggest players in the world. It’s not problem: the psychic connection with his brother can work from across town and Paul can see everyone else’s hand live in real time...on television in the bar. It shouldn’t be a problem winning a huge poker game...again. There’s a problem, though: Castor’s biggest opponent is the guy who owns the casino. He’s also rumored to be the head of the largest organized crime outfit in Seoul...
Kim’s got a really short premise for the series. And the two characters in question happen to be really interesting guys. Castor is the slick, superficial womanizer while Paul is a cautious, sensitive type. There’s real love between the brothers, who DO seem to have a strong connection that serves as a fun center for the series. Outside of the basic premise, Kim delivers a script that has brilliant pacing about it. He introduces the perfect number of extra elements into the story to keep all of the action moving quite efficiently.
Kim's script requires a great deal of subtlety in execution of drama. Perez delivers the intricate subtle to other drama to the page in a wave that also respects the distinct flavor and visual presence of Seoul. That's a really sharp economy about Perez's work that deliverance, a profound sense of presence and depth and detail with a minimal amount of lines. The result is a very well developed atmosphere and a very cleverly rendered amount of dramatic detail without bogging down the page and too much detail. It's a graphically appealing presentation that serves the story quite well.
Kim Kato in a whole bunch of different directions. But basic elements of the shared connection between these two brothers could be placed to through the pieces of a whole bunch of different genres of drama and action. If they can survive this particular story, then they'll have great potential to move into a whole bunch of other genres, including international spy, thrillers, and new monster, romantic dramas, and so on. It's really a great deal of different possibilities with two people who we have this solid us like a connection.
