Korea’s biggest webtoon debate — finally explained.
K-Drama & Film
Watch Agent Kim Reactivated and you’ll eventually arrive at the same question every webtoon reader has been arguing about for years.
Of the three — who is actually the strongest?
Kim Bujang, Seong Han-su, Park Jin-cheol. Three fathers. Three completely different fighting styles. One team that, when assembled, can take on nation-state-level threats. Even Park Tae-jun, the creator of the universe they all inhabit, has said publicly that ranking the three definitively is something he finds difficult.
But their styles are distinct. Here’s the breakdown.
First — Korea’s Avengers, Except It’s the Supporting Characters
Think of it as the Avengers. But with a difference. In Marvel, it’s the main heroes who assemble. These three are different.
Lookism, Viral Hit, My Life as a Loser — three massively successful Korean webtoons, each with tens of millions of readers, all available in English on the Webtoon app. Kim Bujang, Seong Han-su, and Park Jin-cheol were supporting characters in those original stories. The dangerous adult in the background. The one the main characters should have been more afraid of.
- Kim Bujang — first appeared in Lookism as a supporting fighter
- Seong Han-su — first appeared in Viral Hit as a background adult figure
- Park Jin-cheol — a powerful supporting character across the Park Tae-jun Universe
Agent Kim Reactivated is the first time all three get to be the main characters. Korea’s webtoon Avengers — except nobody was paying much attention to them in the original stories. That was the point.
The original working title for the webtoon was Crazy Dad. That probably tells you everything.
Kim Bujang — Code Name 66, the Aesthetics of Assassination
Kim Bujang doesn’t fight to look impressive. He fights to end things as quickly and completely as possible. No wasted movement. No unnecessary escalation. He starts with his hands and ends with whatever is nearest — a chair, a glass bottle, a wire.
His signature weapon is the eun-sa (은사) — a wire thin as a strand of hair but with devastating cutting force. Silent approach, no evidence left behind. An assassin’s tool.
In the webtoon, Seong Han-su tells Kim Bujang’s daughter Min-ji: “Your dad — he’s known in the industry as a genuine lunatic.” That’s a compliment.
The controversy: The version of Kim Bujang that appears in Lookism and the version in his own webtoon are so different in power level that readers have been arguing for years about whether they’re really the same character. Park Tae-jun himself publicly questioned whether the webtoon was drawing Kim Bujang too strong. It’s the tension between what a protagonist needs to be and what the original worldbuilding established.
Seong Han-su — The Completed Martial Artist, and the Personality Patch
Seong Han-su’s fighting is closer to art than combat. A former national taekwondo gold medalist introduced in Viral Hit. In pure one-on-one unarmed combat, most readers consider him the apex predator of the entire universe. Against opponents carrying firearms, he demonstrates reaction speed that strains the boundaries of what a human being should be capable of.
But this character has a unique mechanic: the Personality Patch.
At full personality — 100% — Seong Han-su is calm, controlled, and measured. As that number drops, his combat output rises sharply. At low personality states, he has sent both Kim Bujang and Park Jin-cheol flying with a single kick — not as a power comparison scene, but as a demonstration of what the Personality Patch actually does. When his personality reaches single digits, he fights on even terms for a time against the story’s final villain. A phone call from his wife brings him back to his senses immediately. That’s part of the mechanic too.
The controversy: The Personality Patch is widely criticized as a stretch. There’s also a separate claim that Seong Han-su at his peak was over 125% of his current level — meaning the debate about how strong he actually is hasn’t been settled by the webtoon itself.
Park Jin-cheol — War, Not Fighting
When Park Jin-cheol enters a scene, the genre changes. From action to war film.
Where others throw punches, Park Jin-cheol plants C4 and opens fire with automatic weapons. His codename is Otter — specifically the Giant River Otter of the Amazon, an apex predator that hunts animals larger than itself. He has been shown functioning in combat while incapacitated by sleeping gas.
Fans joke that Park Jin-cheol’s effective combat range is “practically unlimited.” The joke has some basis. Nam Sil-jang — a top-tier fighter in the Park Tae-jun Universe, someone who has gone up against both Kim Bujang and Park Jin-cheol directly — once decided that breaking his own arm by jumping from a moving vehicle was preferable to facing Park Jin-cheol in close range.
The controversy: Some of Park Jin-cheol’s later actions in the webtoon divided readers sharply. What some called character collapse, others called completely in character. The debate is still going.
So Who Is Actually the Strongest
Force them into the same fight and the answer changes depending on the rules.
Bare hands, one on one? Most readers point to Seong Han-su. Assassination and intelligence work? Kim Bujang. An open battlefield? Park Jin-cheol. Each of them is the strongest — in the kind of fight they were built for.
That’s probably why this debate has lasted for years without resolution. And it’s why assembling all three in the same story isn’t just fan service. It’s the only logical conclusion.
Agent Kim Reactivated puts them in the same frame for the first time. In live action.
New to Agent Kim Reactivated? Start here first.
Agent Kim Reactivated: What You Need to Know Before You Watch
Want the full backstory on Manager Kim — Code Name 66 himself?
Who Is Code Name 66? Manager Kim’s Backstory Explained
Want to understand Park Jin-cheol — the man who turns every fight into a war zone?
Agent Kim Reactivated: Who Is Park Jin-cheol, the “God of War”?
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If you’re watching the drama — which moment made you understand why these three are considered legends? Drop it in the comments. And if you have a definitive answer to who’s strongest, I’d genuinely like to hear the argument.
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