Free Comic Book Day 2021- Solo Leveling

 By Mark Rodriguez

One of the cool things about Free Comic Book is discovering new and interesting stories other than the usual Marvel and DC fare. The cover for this one looked pretty interesting and the overall presentation stood out. Unlike most comics this one came with a glossier thicker feeling cover and the pages feel more like regular paper, not newspaper but also not whatever comics are using nowadays. Plus the art style kinda has that Anime/JRPG look going for it, so it piqued my curiosity.

The story opens with Jinwoo Sung, struggling to lift his sword, already slashed up and bleeding badly. He's an E Rank Hunter, the lowest of the Hunter's Association, and the weakest of them all, as he's facing off against giant demonic monsters arms with spears and other long-range blade weapons. One of them raises their spear, ready to swing it down for the kill. Jinwoo thinks to himself that he never thought he'd find himself in this situation.

Sometime earlier, we see Jinwoo walking the streets of Seoul Korea. He's just a tad stronger and can heal a tad faster than a regular human, so he barely considers himself an E Rank Hunter. He doesn't like being a Hunter, every job he takes puts his life on the line. However as a high school graduate with no special skills or training, he doesn't have too many options and the Hunter's Association helps with his mother's hospital bills. 

At a construction site, a guy named Kim is being wished luck on his next raid when a guy he knows shows up. Kim asked his buddy Park if he hadn't quit hunting/ Park says he did until his wife had a second child and raiding brings in a big pay day. Park wonders how good he'll do since he was never too good and had only gotten worse since he quit. Just then Jinwoo arrives and Kim welcomes him happily. As Jimwoo walks off, Park asks if he's a strong hunter since everyone seems happy to see him. Kim says Park has been gone a while, everyone knows Jinwoo as the 'weakest hunter of all mankind'. 

Park thought the weakest one was an Jongin Choi, the S Rank Hunter, but turns out Jinwoo is even weaker. Kim says the good news about Jinwoo being among them is that it means today's raid shouldn't be too dangerous. Kim tries to keep it low so the kid wouldn't hear them talking about him, but he's able to hear it all. Jinwoo tries to get some coffee but they're all out. Just then someone yells loudly over seeing Jinwoo with bandages on his face. This is a woman named Joohee, who knows him and is also joining the crew on today's raid.

Jinwoo explains he was in an E Rank dungeon and he was the only one that got hospitalized. Since everybody else on that particular raid was way stronger, they didn't bother to bring a healer along. Jinwoo tells her not to worry about it, it's not the team's fault he's so weak. The raid is about to begin so they have to go.

A man named Song says they're all here for a big payday and he appoints himself as leader. He's the strongest guy on their team so everyone, including Jinwoo agrees. The team prepares to enter the dungeon. As the Hunters enter, Song tells Jin to stay back and be careful. As they leave, the coffee guy feels bad not having coffee left for Jinwoo, since he's never seen him returned uninjured. The other guy asks him what level the dungeon is, and the coffee guys says it's a D Rank, so Jinwoo should be fine...

The other Hunters are killing monsters left and right, Jinwoo is already injured and getting healed by Joohee who asks him why he continues to work as a Hunter anyway. She then asks if there's a reason he won't quit being a Hunter. Jinwoo keeps his reasons to himself and just tells her it's a hobby and he'd be bored without it. She tell him his hobby is going to get him killed someday. 

The raid ends and the Hunters get Essence Stones, which can be traded for currency. Jinwoo explains an Essence Stone from a C Rank Magic Beast could be worth Ten Million, but there was no way he can defeat such a monster. All he got was a smaller E Rank Essence Stone which was barely worth risking his life over. 

Just then Song discovers a second entrance, indicating this was a double dungeon. He conjures up a fireball and tosses it into the dark passageway. Song warns the crew to be careful, the gate won't close until they defeat the boss. 

My Opinions-

I've always loved these types of stories where video game physics and whatnot seem to apply in the real world. I guess you can apply Fighting Game physics to stuff like DBZ and My Hero Academia since the characters have special moves and whatnot, but nothing is more 'video-gamey' than bringing in RPG elements where characters go on raids, level up, have healers and the like. I'm not saying I'm an expert on RPGs by any means, but I do know enough about the tropes to follow along in a story like this.

The story is cool so far, Jinwoo is a brave guy pushing himself to risk his very life to save his mom's life. I'm sure he's going to gain some sort of big power boost, but he still fought his way through multiple injuries and near death experiences to get there. Kinda reminds me of people like Captain America and Midoriya. You can say they were given their powers, but they still struggled to earn them. Had Steve Rogers not been so determined to join the military despite his weak constitution and just settles for working at a deli, he never would have been given the Super Soldier serum. Had Midoriya just given up the day he found out he was born without powers, he never would have gotten the power of One For All. It looks like Jinwoo will soon unlock this Solo Leveling power, but he fought his way to get there.

The story so far is pretty good and it does a good job to introduce us to the main character, his motivations and a bit about how this world operates. People can choose to go on raids to earn big money, and the people, the monsters and the dungeons themselves go by a rank system. Solo Leveling seems to be based on a very popular Korean Webcomic and now it's finally made its way here. Well, they got my attention. I guess the only downside here is we never get to see Jinwoo's power up or transformation or whatever, as we see on the cover... but I guess I should buy myself a copy to find out how we get there.