Yi Soon Shin: Korea's Warrior and Defender Done Right

With a second volume of a planned trilogy on the way from writer Onrie Kompan and artist Giovanni Timpano, the recently-released hardcover edition of Yi Soon Shin: Warrior and Defender is truly a fascinating piece of comics literature. Not only is the book well-written and beautifully-rendered, but it's accompanied by interviews and commentary by the creators that reflect how close the book came to not being able to be made on a number of occasions--which resonates when you're reading a beautiful hardcover presentation with a foreword by comics legend Stan Lee. At the heart of the story is the true-life (and larger-than-life) character of Admiral Yi Sun Shin. Admiral Yi never received naval training or participated in naval combat prior to a massive war with Japan, he went to his grave as one of few admirals in world history who remained undefeated after commanding as many naval battles as he did (at least 23). In one such battle, he was outnumbered 333 ships to only 13 and managed to hold the Japanese Navy at bay. Kompan has latched onto this fascinating figure in world history and created a world around him, filled with characters real, fictional and fictionalized (for instance, a pair of samurai warriors who are depicted as having a homosexual relationship in the book were real historical figures but there is no credible evidence to suggest they were a couple, or even gay). Timpano, meanwhile, has crafted a lush, visually impressive world full of the type of detail you'd generally expect from someone like George Perez. Every inch of the comic is filled with something that crackles with life, and even the panels in which there's an empty background have clouds, or rain, or something beyond just dead air. If there's a weakness to his approach, it's that like most very detailed comics artists, his work can feel a bit static at times, as though it's a photograph and not a movie. That's not the case with the battle sequences, though, which are some of the best fight choreography I've seen in a comic this year.

Both men pay great detail to the details of the historical period, crafting a culture and a look for the comic that is as "right" as you're likely to find without a massive Hollywood budget. It also helps to throw into sharp relief when things feel anachronistic or brutal or ugly. The book is, as you see in most good historical fiction, not particularly married to the hard, cold historical facts but doesn't dare to embellish the items that are well-enough known that straying from them would render the work incredible. A special acknowledgment should probably go out to colorist Adriana De Los Santos, whose work instills the comic with a kind of Technicolor feeling that evokes classic movies; its colors are deeper and more lush even than they would be in real life, but since this is a war story and not a superhero comic, it doesn't look garish and uninviting, but instead lends it a unique look that stands out against dozens of samurai books done in faint watercolors or war books done in subdued brown tones. This rather remarkable work would be worth reading as a simple historical fiction that followed the course of Admiral Yi's unique life--but an addition to the story by Kompan in the form of Baron Seo (see the trailer embedded below) creates an antagonist worthy of Yi's singular presence in the story. After all--how do you create high stakes for a man that history has already told us can't lose any of his historical battles? Create one that's never been recorded. Seo, a brutal and foul-mouthed character who would fit as well in a Tarantino film as in this piece of ships and samurai history, is a complex and engaging villain who knows how to turn every character in the book to his advantage--and against Yi. Yi Soon Shin: Warrior and Defender is available at bookstores or through the book's official website. A second series, the middle chapter of three planned books in the story, will debut soon and ComicBook.com will talk to Kompan about it closer to the release.