Deadly Class vol. 1: Reagan Youth

A few months back, I wrote (briefly) about the first volume of a series called “Five Weapons.”  Essentially it was “Harry Potter” with child assassins standing in for child magicians, and whether or not it worked for you all came down to how hard you didn’t want to think about the incongruity of that premise.  Now we have the first volume of writer Rick Remender and artist Wes Craig’s “Deadly Class” which has a similar premise, but with a darker tone that’s better suited for the material.  It tells the story of Marcus Arguello, a homeless kid living on the streets of San Francisco, who has nothing going for him until he wanders into an assassination gone wrong.  After surviving the experience, he finds himself recruited into the Kings Dominion School of the Deadly Arts to be trained as an assassin for the most ruthless crime families in the world.  As befitting such an occupation, the experience is structured much like high school with its schedule, cliques, and harassment in the shower — all the better to turn its students into vicious killers.

In what may turn out to be a long-term problem for the series, the most interesting parts of “Deadly Class” are the ones that don’t directly revolve around Kings Dominion and its stated mission.  Things like seeing Marcus’ time on the streets and the acid-fueled trip he takes to Vegas with some of his classmates do a good job of illustrating his character and making him into a sympathetic lead.  The Vegas trip also provides a wealth of teen drama to chew on, and I find that stuff much easier to take when it’s accompanied by drugs, guns, knives, and an appropriate level of violence.  (See also:  “Battle Royale.”)  It also provides an incredible psychedelic showcase for Craig, whose work has been solid up to this point, as he pulls out all of the surreal visual stops for Marcus’ experience.  Much as I’m interested in seeing how the character adapts to life at Kings Dominion, the school itself doesn’t feel completely fleshed out at this point and the character meant to act as Marcus’ main antagonist feels like he walked in from another comic entirely.  This first volume isn’t a bad debut for the series, but there’s still work to be done to make it a truly good title in the volumes that will follow.