Hello everyone!
Some of you have been reading God Complex, and I wanted to share how I came up with the unusual mashup behind the story.
It actually started while I was reading Jinx. In my head, Jaekyung and Dan reminded me a little of Jungkook and Jin. Around the same time, I was rewatching Rocky III & IV, and a question popped into my mind: what if I combined legendary figures from the sports world with characters from the movie and the webtoon to create something entirely new?
If you’ve seen the Rocky films, you already know that Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago are two of Rocky’s most formidable opponents. That got me thinking about San Choi, who, in my multiverse, is Jin’s best friend. As I developed his character, I gradually blended elements of both Clubber Lang’s intensity and Ivan Drago’s overwhelming presence into who San would become.
When I started building San, I didn’t want him to be a copy of either Clubber Lang or Ivan Drago. What interested me was taking pieces of both characters and creating someone who could stand on his own. From Clubber, I borrowed that relentless hunger and intimidating presence. From Drago, I took the discipline, physical dominance, and almost machine-like focus. Then I mixed those traits with San’s own personality, his loyalty, his friendship with Jin, and the role he plays in my multiverse. The result is a character who may feel familiar in some ways but is ultimately his own person.
One of my favorite things about writing is asking “what if?” What if characters from completely different worlds shared the same story? What if traits from real athletes, fictional fighters, and webtoon characters could be blended together to create something new? God Complex is the result of me exploring those questions, and I’m grateful to everyone who’s come along for the ride.
Stygian Atlas
