We met several students at Jeongwon High School who are at the beginning of their journeys with their special abilities. We also met their grizzled parents, who hid their own superpowers while toiling away as ordinary shopkeepers and restaurateurs, and a mysterious operative trying to wipe them all out.

The stakes rise and the kids start hitting their stride, but suddenly the show takes a trip down memory lane, down which it has strolled for the past six episodes. And what a remarkable journey it has been.

Prior to their lives as cautious parents, all three were agents of the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP), working under the thumb of its malevolent Director Min (Moon Sung-keun).

In the name of anti-communism, Min gives his agents cruel directives and eventually some of them balk at these. This prompts him to order Mi-hyun to shadow Doo-sik, the agency’s top black-ops agent.

Instead the pair fall madly in love, go into hiding and give birth to a child who will grow up to become high-school senior Kim Bong-seok (Lee Jeong-ha), who inherits his father’s flying ability.

Ju-won’s story starts before his time at the agency. He was a gangster known as the Monster for his ability to immediately recover from any injury. He helps his gang muscle into a bigger territory, only to experience shocking betrayal.

Following a brutal showdown, he hides out in a motel and falls in love with local escort Hwang Ji-hee (Kwan Sun-young). After saving her from local thugs he is finally tracked down by his enemies and Min, who recruits him.

Years later the secret division of the agency is revived and Min returns, more demented than ever. Tragedy strikes for our heroes as Doo-sik is apprehended and Ji-hee perishes in an accident.

Quite a lot is stuffed into this midsection, but Kang cleanly and emotionally delivers the story through criss-crossing chronologies in character-driven episodes. These deep dives into a rotating roster of protagonists are a hallmark of Kang’s acclaimed webtoon work, which also includes 26 Years.

Given its large cast, high concept and big budget, this structure invites a comparison to Western television series such as Lost – although Moving is even more sophisticated and fluid than classic American broadcast shows.

The elastic emotional canvas and sweeping, epic feel that Kang and series director Park In-je (Kingdom season two) have concocted has few parallels.

While dynamic action sequences and vivid images occur throughout the series, they are especially effective when matched with the story’s aching romantic highs.

In sequences such as when Ju-won’s “Hulk” barrels through a wall to save Ji-hee or when Doo-sik pretends to shoot Mi-hyun while he escapes the agency, the show captivates us and sets our hearts aflutter.

Moving can achieve these emotional highs because it respects its characters and builds its story and action around them organically.

Though Kang gives us the illusion that everything is connected by drip-feeding us new revelations, the world he has created doesn’t always makes sense. What do feel real are the characters and, since we have become so invested in them, questions raised along the way fade into the background.

With the past catching up to the present and two generations of superheroes on the cusp of colliding, where might Moving take us next?

Moving is streaming on Disney+.