DEADLY CLASS, Volume 1 (Image Comics, July 2014) by Rick Remender, writer; Wes Craig, illustrator; and Lee Loughridge, colorist.
Paperback, 160 pages. ISBN # 1632150034 (ISBN13: 9781632150035)
Summary from the Goodreads website . . . . .
It’s 1987. Marcus Lopez hates school. His grades suck. The jocks are hassling his friends. He can’t focus in class.
But the jocks are the children of Joseph Stalin’s top assassin, the teachers are members of an ancient league of assassins, the class he's failing is “Dismemberment 101,” and his crush has a double-digit body count.
Welcome to the most brutal high school on earth, where the world’s top crime families send the next generation of assassins to be trained. Murder is an art. Killing is a craft. At Kings Dominion School for the Deadly Arts, the dagger in your back isn’t always metaphorical.
Collecting the first arc of the most critically acclaimed new series of 2014, by writer RICK REMENDER (Black Science, Fear Agent) and rising star artist WESLEY CRAIG (Batman). Experience the 1980s underground through the eyes of the world’s most damaged and dangerous teenagers.
Collects DEADLY CLASS #1-6.
My review on the Goodreads website . . . . .
Four-star rating. Bookshelves: first-in-series, assassins, comic books, coming-of-age, urban crime, violence.
I wanted to read this in advance of the upcoming television series, which, if it follows the same script should be a great one to watch. However, the director and cinematographer are going to have their hands full trying to duplicate and match the amazing art style of Wes Craig.
Craig is definitely an illustrator to keep an eye on. His brilliant use of small panoramic panels and silhouettes to depict scenes of hyper violence and action work to great effect and really lend a punch to the proceedings. The chase scene in Issue #1 is not to be missed.
I've had an indifferent opinion to the story-telling of Rick Remender prior to this, but I'm really enjoying this one. While I haven't read everything that he's published, this could very well be his best work -- it's certainly my favorite -- and makes me want to check out Remender's Black Science and Low series. The difference here is that the fiction is based in part, granted after much exaggeration, on Remender's teen days on the mean 1980's streets of Phoenix, Arizona.
Despite having done something awful (and not fully revealed, just hinted at) in his past, main character Marcus is a sympathetic soul that you learn to care what happens to him. He gets put through the wringer in more ways than one before this first story arc ends.
The other characters are also well developed, and I can see some of them getting a bigger spotlight in future issues. That's a good thing too, as I suspect not all of them are going to be around as the series moves forward. This is certainly one worth checking out.
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