by Rick Remender, Wes Craig, Lee Loughridge, Rus Wooton; Image Comics
This is a review of an ongoing series. To read about the first chapter go here.
Deadly Class continues to be a wildly schizophrenic experience for me. The artwork in Deadly Class is superlative: Craig and Loughridge fuse dynamic layouts with particularly active colouring to create some truly innovative and remarkable storytelling. I really enjoyed exploring the art. That said, I *really* do not like the story of Deadly Class. Volume 2 continues where the last issue left off with Marcus Lopez, an orphan turned student at an assassin school who plans to kill Ronald Reagan. This chapter specifically deals with his traumatic orphanage years and the evil redneck from his past come for vengeance. This is supposed to be a subversive story about growing up, youthful jerkiness, and fucked up violence... but it mostly doesn't work for me. A lot of it is just taste, I think. I found most of the over-the-top attempts at shock to be crass or dumb or boring. (A white trash teenager saying horrible, tourettic things while being high on meth, for instance, is just so... not something I care to read.) Some of it, though, is structural: Deadly Class, in my opinion, skips a lot of the character and setting work that makes the big moments feel earned or makes the characters relatable and interesting. Which, when the comic veered on tangents, made it really difficult to be invested. Story problems aside, I still think Deadly Class is a worthwhile comic to read because the artwork is really, really excellent and totally worth the price of admission.
Word count: 248
Previously:
Deadly Class Vol. 1
Deadly class colours
Deadly class layouts
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