Pak Introduces the New Agents of Atlas in War of the Realms — Review

Writer: Greg Pak / Artist: Gang Hyuk Lim / Marvel Comics Within the first few pages of The War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #1, we are introduced to no less than seven different Asian and Asian-American heroes. That’s not even everyone involved with this new venture from Greg Pak and Gang Hyuk Lim. Now, full disclosure: I don’t know anything about what’s going on with Marvel’s War of the Realms. I’m mostly here for the ensemble, and I’m exceedingly satisfied with the ensemble’s first outing.

Right off the bat, Pak and Lim have both Peral Pangan (a.k.a. Wave, a.k.a. Marvels’ new Filipina water-centric hero) and Lei Ling (a.k.a. Aero, a.k.a. Marvel’s once previously China-exclusive air-based hero) responding to a weird ecological disturbance in the North Pacific Ocean. Personally, as someone who has scoured comic book archives for Filipino superheroes, seeing the phrase “Translated from Tagalog” is something that just makes me so incredibly happy. Pak and Lim establish the characters perfectly with their verbal and body language. We get a good sense of their personalities, a sense of their history, and their power sets with in a few panels. This type of quick characterization is a boon since we quickly meet Ms. Marvel, Silk, Shang-Chi, Brawn, and Jimmy Woo at the start of the issue’s main plot – with a few more new faces to follow in the back half. Set against the backdrop of this universe-changing event, Pak maneuvers the large cast of characters into the conflict again…