Royals #5 // Review
Minah and Castor are on the run. In a car. There’s someone chasing them who seems to want them dead. He’s armed with a gun. They’re armed with rifles. There’s two of them. There’s one of him. Still...it’s very dangerous for both of them in the first few pages of Royals #5. Writer Derek Kirk Kim continues a fast-paced action thriller with Jacob Perez. The plot makes a few quick turns in an extended chase that moves through a few different locations in Seoul including a Catholic church during Easter mass. Suffice it to say, everyone involved is going to have to keep the blood violence quiet during one of the bigger church services of the year.
Minah and Castor are going to have a hell of a time avoiding the trained killer who is after them. Nevertheless, they’re going to have to head straight to the church to try to rescue Minah’s twin sister Minee. Somewhere in the mix, Castor’s brother realizes that he can’t just leave without helping-out. Getting involved in one of the most totally dangerous gangs in South Korea is going to take a lot of ingenuity...and perhaps an Easter Bunny suit...
Derek Kirk Kim keeps the action moving quite efficiently. On one level, the entire issue could be seen as a chase sequence that started back in issue #5. It’s been a hell of a ride thus far and it’s been great fun, but sooner or later everyone’s going to need a breather otherwise the action is going to start to unravel. The contrast between murder, the mob and an Easter church service is actually kind of a fun bit of juxtaposition that adds quite a bit of atmosphere to the fifth issue of the series.
There’s a very distinctive feel about the series that has built-up over the course of the first four issues that carries-over quite well. The action that Perez renders for the page feels fresh and distinct even when it’s not being really, really weird. A fight sequence between a bunny-suited Paul and well-dressed thugs makes for a distinctly fun fight sequence that might have otherwise been kind of dull. Perez gives the big mascot costume a strong presence on the page that feels authentic enough. There’s a scene in which Paul directs Castor via intel gathered from surveillance cameras that could have hit the page with dull incoherence, but Perez lends it a kind of grace that feels refreshingly novel.
Kim and Perez have nailed some really interesting moments over the course of the fifth issue that feel like they’re reinventing aspects of crime-based action fiction in a way that is still quite familiar and approachable. It all feels like it’s in the right space in the right place as Minah, Castor and Paul tumble through some more life-threatening heroics in the heart of a criminal empire. Crime-based action has been done so much that it tends to come across with a bit of a yawn in any format. Kim and Perez have found a sharp and original approach to the genre that makes it fun again.
