Review: ‘Arcade Kings’ #2 Smashes The Strong Punch Button
by Anton Kromoff
Summary
Arcade Kings feels like sitting at your favorite arcade game with a bucket full of quarters, a sour slushy drink, and some epic music blaring through your headphones. It’s as much a great comic to read as it is a feel-good experience.
Overall
10/10Welcome to the table,
“Spare me the lore, loser!”
The line above is just another reason I am comfortable saying Arcade Kings feels like sitting at your favorite arcade game with a bucket full of quarters, a sour slushy drink, and some epic music blaring through your headphones. It’s as much a great comic to read as it is a feel-good experience.
Arcade Kings started strong and issue #2 feels like a level-up. We jump into the adventure with our masked protagonist Joe looking for his kid brother, the blue-haired Ken in another part of town where the arcades and street fighters are in plentiful supply.
As Joe rolls into a new part of town he encounters a new character, Plum. The pacing of the story is so well balanced between reading like a comic and feeling like a side-scroll brawler fighting game. Joe and Plum mix it up across more than a few pages in some really solid and artfully illustrated combat sequences that are punctuated by super moves and phenomenal dialog.
The whole book oozes style without sacrificing substance. That’s what is so cool about it, it’s a popcorn-popping-edge-of-your-seat-smash-the-attack-button-fight-fest but it’s so much more than that. There is a ton of heart and a positive feel-good story wrapped up in this slug-fest that just works in the best possible way.
Joe is this beacon of hope. He has this “can’t stop, won’t stop” attitude that normally irritates me but for some reason, this goofy lovable wanderer is the right balance of humble and happy and serves as the driving force behind Arcade Kings making it really memorable and fun.
The creator, writer, and artist Dylan Burnett along with colorists Walter Baiamonte and Sara Antonellini and letter Andworld Design fill this extra large size issue with so much fun that fans of comics, arcade games, and kung-fu flicks are going to be happy when they grab this off the shelf. You can pick up Arcade Kings #2 from Image comics today!
Until next time, down, down-forward, forward+any punch button!!!
