You've got to love that. I mean how could you not? Rick Remender is able to write such a convincing story; I actually believed that Marcus had thoroughly murdered Viktor at long last. From the moment we set foot in King's Dominion, it felt as if the Russian meathead was doomed to become a formidable antagonist. An antagonist who was going to meet a grisly, bloody, and excessively violent end at the hands of our protagonist. That makes it all the more interesting to see both of these damaged characters finally reconcile their differences despite all that they have been through. The tragedy of their circumstances continues to shape who they are, but it truly feels as though Marcus has let go of some of the hatred that he has been holding onto since Willie's death. It is a moment of quiet introspection in a series that spends a lot of time murdering people in an array of interesting ways.
Speaking of murdering people in interesting ways, Brandy reprises her role as an agent of chaos in a world that is growing more malcontent with each passing issue. I've never been a fan of Brandy, but I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to psychotically murdering people she is one of the best. Somehow, when Helmut, Petra, Zenzele, and Tosawhi are making their grand escape BOOM there she is with a machine gun to stop them in their tracks! Somehow, when Marcus confronts Petra about her role in killing Willie BOOM there she is with a stick slapping Marcus over the head and stabbing Petra in the throat! SOMEHOW! When Helmut desperately sprints to Petra's side and the other members of their fellowship arrive on the scene! BOOM! There she is taking off at high speed in time to avoid the arrival of the Kuroki Yakuza Syndicate! If nothing else, her uncanny ability to avoid the worst parts of a fight speak to the level of her capability as a student of King's Dominion. All of these revelations, contemplations, and action sequences would make for fearsome literary prowess on their own. Combined with Wes Craig's art, Jordan Boyd's colour, and Rus Wooton's lettering? This trio make DEADLY CLASS what it is, and take the story to new heights of power. The level of detail evident in each page of this issue stand as testament to how much time and effort went in to creating each character, background, and panel. From the glisten of stars to the shadows on the water, from the hail of bullets to the shards of glass, from minimalist pallet to the flying bird accents, you can really feel that every aspect of the comic has been meticulously laid out. At the same time, there is this overwhelming sense of motion and chaos that so heavily differentiates standstill comics from our real world that Craig, Boyd, and Wooton have woven into their work. The mixture of subtle, and in your face artistry seems to perfectly capture the essence of what DEADLY CLASS is about. The duality of Remender's story in how it toes the line between violence and meditative introspection are made visual through Craig, Boyd, and Wooton's work. Having managed to escape the clutches of the Kuroki Yakuza Syndicate with the help of Viktor's excellent sniper skills things are not looking good for Marcus and friends. Sure, they've managed to avoid a variety of near death scenarios. Yes, they've overcome hardship and heartbreak over the course of their journey. BUT, they aren't even close to dealing with all of the loose ends. Saya is still at the mercy of her incompetent older brother. Brandy is injured but certainly looking to settle the score with Marcus and his companions. Tohsawi's grandmother still didn't get the milk for her morning coffee, and with all these freeloaders hanging around her farm? Who can say when she'll snap? Love Like Blood has proven itself to be an exceptional story arc, and an amazing addition to the DEADLY CLASS story. Over the last four months, Rick Remender, Wes Craig, Jordan Boyd, and Rus Wooton have lead us on a journey that started with Marcus meeting the new recruits of King's Dominion. Since that surprising introduction events have extrapolated dramatically and not for the better. With our protagonists hiding out with Tohsawi's family, and Petra dead it is difficult to say how they intend to deal with their present circumstances. Even though we are now stepping into unknown, and uncharted territory there is one thing that can be said with decisive certainty. The conclusion to this story arc is going to be mind blowing! Written By: ALAN "VIENNA" SINGH
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You ever have one of those people that you hate? I mean, really hate? And for no particular reason? Just someone that you hate for absolutely no reason? Someone who just rubs you the wrong way without having to do anything? That's how I view Brandy in a nutshell. The only difference being that she has actually done a LOT wrong, and my hatred is totally justified. In that regard I have to tip my hat off to Rick Remender for creating a character who is wholly unlikable for good reasons.
Of course, all this talk about hating Brandy is really going to boggle the mind when I say that she was exceptional in this issue of DEADLY CLASS. No, I know I said that I hate her, but this issue does her a bunch of favours and highlights her qualities with blood-shedding finality. Which is ironic because I found myself appreciating her because of her ability to get her enemies to shed their blood. Funny how that works. In addition to Brandy showing off, there were some fairly serious developments carried throughout the issue. Usually having multiple characters and then splitting them up when the going gets tough is a task that many authors and illustrators struggle with. That's why more often then not we end up seeing a singular protagonist, and we tend to follow them around over the course of an issue. Every now and then comic creators might switch to the perspective of an up and coming villain, but generally the formula stays the same. Rick Remender, Wes Craig, Jordan Boyd, Rus Wooton, and Sebastian Girner aren't the type of team to stick to the conventional though, and that really comes across in this issue as we quickly run through all of the protagonists in rapid succession. Remender capitalizes on the chaos and murder throughout as we flit between viewpoints. No more than a handful of pages are spent on each group of individuals, and it makes the entirety of the issue feel shorter. There is a deeply kinetic quality that is locked within the pages of DEADLY CLASS that Craig, Boyd and Wooton use to powerful effect. The afore mentioned effect is riveting, and keeps you engrossed as events unfold at pace. That's not to say that there wasn't a lot of obvious outcomes waiting for us at the end of this phase of the Love Like Blood storyline. Maria was already at Quan's throat as of last issue, so watching her peel the rat gives a morbid pleasure that anyone can revel in. Naturally, Maria rushing off to aid Marcus was all but written in the stars at this stage. What really took the cake, stole the show, and had me leaping and shouting like a mad man was reading Brandy as she murders her way through a host of Kuroki Yakazu members like it is her day job. She's still a terrible human, but it has become abundantly clear that her tutelage at King's Dominion was not wasted. Also, the fact that she's been shot and is likely bleeding out really makes all of these events feel like a final stand for a character that everyone hates. Strangely enough, watching her do what she does in this issue makes for a very cathartic moment, and one can almost feel some level of empathy for her in these pages. All of these positive emotions get weirdly tied up in whatever affection one might have for Zenzele and Tosahwi because they subsequently try to murder her for trying to murder them back at the start of this storyline. Frankly speaking, even after the presumed loss of Marcus way back when, it has been a trial to fall in love with the new freshmen of King's Dominion. It isn't that they are wholly unlikable, its just that none of them are particularly attention grabbing. Yes, there is a lot of betrayal and bad blood going around, but none of it feels real in the wake of what readers experienced before their arrival. In light of this, this phase of the story feels much more captivating and really has me feeling for Helmut who spectacularly rescues his classmates with Petra's help. Now, I'm not an expert on psychological states of being. I've never suffered depression so it is literally impossible for me to claim that I understand the emotional paradigms that said feeling embodies. The DEADLY CLASS team does a pretty damn good job of bringing the psychological traumas of killing to the fore front. One need only look at the hallucinations suffered by Marcus to know where his head is at even as Viktor attempts to drown him to death. At this stage I generally have some thoughts about what will happen in the issues to come. This is, after all, the third installment of a five part story. With that said, I say in full confidence that I have no idea where Remender is heading with this. The story has stepped away from the cutthroat King's Dominion, and whether that will factor into current events is entirely in the air. Quan is technically helping the Yakuza, but even he knows that he's on borrowed time. Saya is at the mercy of her psychotic brother. Helmut and Petra have managed to locate both Tosahwi and Zenzele so one might assume that they'll head to the rendezvous point to await the arrival of the others. Marcus and Maria are (have?) faced down Viktor, but given the state of his mind, who can really say whether this is the end of their conflict? DEADLY CLASS is an exceptional work of fiction, and it does a splendid job of bringing together teenage angst, high school life, and murder. There are so many television shows, movies, and comics built upon a similar premise, but there are only a couple that really stay in the public eye. This is a series that gets these elements right, and creates an interesting paradigm about what growing into adult life is all about. Yes, there is quite a bit of death going around, but the grounded premise is the same. Rick Remender, Wes Craig, Jordan Boyd, Rus Wooton, and Sebastian Girner are an exceptional team, and their dedication to the series is palpable from panel to panel. If nothing else, this issue of DEADLY CLASS gave a lot of shine to characters who are often overshadowed by their class seniors. Next issue has no choice but to take this story to new heights, because at this stage anything can happen! Written By: ALAN "VIENNA" SINGH In Vitam Mortem. Assuming that you've been brushing up on your Latin linguistic skills, you probably know that this phrase means, "In Life, Death." A pretty literal translation, and one that wholely encapsulates the ideologies espoused by King's Dominion. That ideology is simple and straight forward, make a life's work of killing people if you want to live. Of course, murdering people for a living - even when you have powerful backers - isn't necessarily as easy as it might first seem. I mean, let's consider things at the Atelier for the Deadly Arts. You're living in the late 1980's, everyone and their mom is doing drugs, people have random sex orgies in front of their single friends, and members of the yakuza are out here trying to murder you. That's about the whole premise of what went down in Issue #32 of DEADLY CLASS, and this time around Rick Remender, Wes Craig, Jordon Boyd, and Rus Wooton are not pulling any punches. And yes, I do mean that literally cause there was quite a bit of fisticuffs popping off in this most recent issue.
One to one, I just wanted to say that I'm probably in love with Saya. Her character has charmed me form the moment I laid eyes on her, and she's only grown more incredible with each issue. She has her problems, of course, but they aren't enough to ever keep her down. Even when her brother, Kenji has her locked up, chained down, and bloodied, she has a fierce and formidable quality that I find equal parts valorous and amorous. If that makes me a weird guy, then so be it. With that off my chest, Kenji has solidified himself as Saya's polar opposite in just about every way humanly possible. Duality is an ever present facet of theology in the Eastern world, and the relationship between these two siblings draws on this heritage. Where Saya is much more calm, cool, and attractive, Kenji is instead volatile, hot-blooded, and ugly in a way that can only be seen through Wes Craig's illustrations. These personalities quirks themselves are relatively harmless, but given Kenji's childlike temper tantrums and need for general mayhem, they operate instead as a vehicle for his special brand of violence. In a manner that draws inspiration from every JAMES BOND villain ever, Kenji reveals to Saya all that he plans to do in order to humiliate her. That means shaming her before the faculty at King's Dominion, taking over their family's yakuza clan, and murdering our hero Marcus Lopez. Kenji's generous exposition even explains to readers why he is going to these extreme lengths in order to get back at Saya! It's all because she took the punishment for a crime that he had committed which inadvertently made him look like a little bitch in front of their father once the truth came to light! Wait. What? The pettiness of people never ceases to amaze me. Here is a guy who goes around letting his sister clean up his messes, and then cries about it years later. Admittedly, Saya is poised to become the leader of their family's yakuza clan, but it is a grudge held from their childhood which essential serves as the driving force for Kenji's actions. That means killing their father, tying up Saya, trying to ruin her life, and killing their mother were all predicated on a childhood mishap. Could a character be any more terrible and psychotic of a villain? Enough about Kenji and his personal vendetta though; lets instead focus on our new and old protagonists as they attempt to escape Puerto Penasco. Unlike our villains - all of whom are deeply disturbed, and enamored with hyperviolence - our protagonists are much more empathetic. So when Petra traps a police officer in a bathroom with toxic vapors, she doesn't think, "Wow! That was so easy, fuck that guy!" Instead, she thinks, "This isn't and can't be real, because it disturbs me to have to murder someone at a moral and psychological level." A cute enough paradigm for a student going to a school that teaches you how to murder people for a living. It's with these kinds of thoughts running through her head that she and Helmut make their slow escape from their dire situation. Where Petra certainly struggles with the moral repercussions of murdering a no name cop, those same repercussions are the farthest thing from Marcus' mind as he lays into Victor with fresh bloodlust. From the first issue of DEADLY CLASS, we've known Victor to be the classic troglodyte male archetype. Power hungry, prone to violence, and filled with a penchant for random acts of cruelty. Is it any wonder that his harsh personality rubs everyone the wrong way? This and a long history have blackmail and bodies have lead Marcus to this moment, on a pier, throwing down against a guy we can only describe as his archrival. Unfortunately, zeal and a strong desire to kill someone are useless if you don't have the capability to act on them, and we get a sense of that as Victor slowly begins to overwhelm Marcus. Although Marcus' situation worsens, at least Tosahwi and Zenzele are not blooded and likely to catch some strange illness from throwing around fish guts. No, they are much more likely to be riddled with machine gun rounds which is a much more hygienic way to go out. With the notable exception of all the blood that is liable to spill from their smoldering corpses of course. That's not to say that they will die, but with Brandy wounded and about to be murdered by the yakuza anything can happen. Particularly given the fact that Tosahwi and Zenzele are hiding in a cupboard with Zenzele having a very strange mental breakdown while she recants her tragic history to a concerned Tosahwi. Yes, yes, things have been getting ridiculously out of hand in this issue of DEADLY CLASS. Nobody is safe, and with everyone desperately trying to stay alive it feels like only a matter of time before one of the protagonists is struck down by Rick Remender's pen. The plot thickens, as they say. Beyond the story of DEADLY CLASS, Wes Craig, Jordon Boyde, and Rus Wooton have done an exceptional job with the illustrations, colouring, and type facing respectively. Saya's hallucinatory day dream, Zenzele's tragic backstory, and text overlap during Marcus' fight against Victor are just some of the outstanding areas that this trio have left their mark. Without their combined efforts, I can't rightly say that DEADLY CLASS would be what it is today. Regrettably, Maria and Quan were both missing from this issue, and I'm looking forward to seeing them catch up with the others in the upcoming issues. I know that with Marcus getting slapped around by Victor, there is little doubt in my mind that our loving heroine from Juarez, Mexico will come to his rescue. With the remainder of the team still fighting the good fight, and still three more issues to go, who can say where the trail of bodies will end? We can only hope that our protagonists make it through, and that they live to see the next story arc. Written By: ALAN "VIENNA" SINGH |
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