The Fall 2024 K-Comics Guide

SSS-Class Revival Hunter

What's It About? 

Some people are just born lucky, fated to enjoy all the riches and fame, while those beneath fade into obscurity. Confucius Kim, an F-class hunter with zero skills, is definitely not one of the fortunate ones. He spends his days bemoaning his lame existence and enviously following the exploits of the star hunter Flame Emperor, for whom the mysterious, monster-filled Tower is nothing but a red carpet. Then one day, Confucius gets the chance to finally catch up to his idol when he receives the ability to copy other people's skills. The only catch? He has to be killed by them first!

SSS-Class Revival Hunter has a story by Sinnoa and art by Bill K, with an adaptation by Neida. English translation by Kakao Entertainment. This volume was lettered by Ivo Marques. Published by Ize Press (October 22, 2024).

SSS-Class Revival Hunter is available in print from Ize Press.

Is It Worth Reading?

When you're making a story, it's important to make your events flow into each other so that the whole thing doesn't feel like a giant chain of “and then this happened”. And SSS-Class Revival Hunter doesn't really seem to pull that off. After living in squalor in the town of Babylon, Gongja Kim is granted an S-rank skill by the world-spanning Tower purely because of how pathetic he is. And the skill lets him inherit one random ability from whoever kills him. So he gets killed by a jerkass hero named the Flame Emperor, which lets him go back in time by 24 hours every time he's killed. So Gongja kills himself 4050 times so he can kill Flame Emperor before he gains his skills, but some other hero can sense Gongja having killed himself over four thousand times and argh.

I don't think webtoons are an inherently inferior medium, but I feel like SSS-Class Revival Hero suffers from the heavily episodic format. Stakes and goals don't really flow into each other all that well (the whole series basically goes on its ear the moment Gongja inherits another hero's disembodied mentor). Even if they did, it's all in service of another story about a guy with a “useless” ability coasting his way to fame and fortune because his “useless” ability is secretly cracked—with RPG mechanics thrown in, because why would we want a unique framework for our magic system in this kind of setting? Some characters don't even get proper names—the “Master Alchemist” that Gongja meets is just “Master Alchemist”.

There are some unique flourishes in SSS-Class Revival Hero, like one neat scene where Gongja's face is reflected in Ms. Alchemist's glasses while talking to him. And the art is otherwise lush and detailed. Being a webtoon, pages have tons of blank space surrounding disembodied panels, with the occasional full-page montage. The art is nevertheless the highlight of the comic, I wish the story itself was better. SSS-Class Revival Hero isn't offensively bad, just another series for the pile. Mildly recommended.

Did you enjoy Solo Leveling, but maybe the supporting characters weren't villainous or annoying enough? Do you yearn for the power to overthink every opportunity to exact revenge and gain something tangible from it? Do you want your power fantasies to come with an obnoxious spirit only you can see? Then come on in, SSS-Class Revival Hunter is ready for you!

I'm almost certainly being too glib about it, because honestly, as game-inspired power fantasies go, this is actually a lot of fun. It has ranks and powers, but no levels or tedious leveling, and if protagonist Gongja starts insufferable, he gets away from that pretty fast. And it's not hard to see how he hit that point in the first place: stuck as a low-ranking hunter after a mysterious tower appeared in his world, Gongja is barely scraping by with his limited skills, watching while other people make it big. It's not that he desperately wants fame and fortune, it's more that he'd like his life to be better, and the only way to do that seems to be to get a random skill card from the powers that be. Then when he finally does get one, it's not for his good heart or anything so wholesome: it's for his insane jealousy of other people. Even worse? It only activates if he dies, and while we might (correctly) assume a reincarnation aspect since the card doesn't specify it, he doesn't.

What's appealing about Gongja and his story is that he's equally motivated by doing something good and wanting something selfish. When he discovers that the so-called Flame Emperor is a raging asshole who murders a woman (and then Gongja), he uses his power, plus one he stole with his skill from his murderer, to make sure that the killer is no longer going to be a problem. He uses another skill garnered from a second murder to make himself stronger and do a good turn for someone he knows always puts others before herself. He wants accolades and money, too, doesn't get me wrong; he just isn't laser-focused on himself, which makes him a better protagonist than he at first seems.

The world-building, unfortunately, feels rushed and a little shoddy, leaving more questions than answers, and what answers we do get feel cribbed from other similar stories. The art makes good use of color, but the lines aren't great, although it reads well enough. This is one of those books that's good for when you just want to turn your brain off for a spell, an adventure it's best not to think too hard about. If that's what you're looking for, then definitely dive in.