NYCC Panel Review: The Art Of Leveling Up
by Frank Martin
Depending on the type of story being told, power levels can be very important in comics. They are a way to distinguish stronger characters from weaker ones. They are also a way to chronicle the hero’s journey as they become stronger over time. This is especially true in manga, as the stories take a long time to explore a character’s arc, while giving them increasingly difficult villains to face. Examples include Dragon Ball and Naruto, as these stories have main characters who constantly train and get stronger. This exact topic was explored in an informative New York Comic Con panel.
The panel, which was called The Art of Leveling Up, featured Brendon Chen, creator of Just A Goblin; Uru-Chan, creator of unOrdinary; Whyt Manga, creator of Apple Black; and Frederick Jones, publisher of SaturdayAM. It made sense to fill the session with manga creators, granted that power systems play a huge role in that medium and style of storytelling. Each creator detailed how they devised their own power systems, sometimes through strength or sometimes using items. They also talked about the struggles they run into coming up with obstacles when a character is overpowered. One of the greatest analogies used during the discussion was when they described fights as a game of tic-tac-toe, where the villain and hero constantly one-up each other in terms of who is stronger.
But it wasn’t all about manga. There was some talk about how power systems in manga compared to those in western comics, specifically superheroes from Marvel and DC. It was pointed out that superhero comics are more cyclical, which is to say that a character’s journey doesn’t have a linear start and end point. Instead, characters face obstacles that ultimately end before entering a new one. It doesn’t allow a character to grow over time the same way they do in manga. For instance, Wolverine jumps into a fight and defeats his villain in more or less one scene. There’s not this back-and-forth of one-upmanship that draws out fights in manga. It shows a very clear distinction in how the power systems of these two formats operate, and the panel did a nice job discussing that.
