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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