A Dysfunctional Class Community…
You definitely wouldn’t want to attend a school like this, where the world’s deadliest assassins are trained under the leadership of Master Lin, who looks like a 157-year-old shriveled-up vegetable. Why not? Because at this school, most students would make better targets than pupils. From the offspring of Stalin’s assassin to simple gangster wannabes and the children of drug dealers, all the way to descendants of CIA and FBI agents (Seriously? Shouldn’t they be in some sort of law enforcement academy instead?!), they all follow the deadly curriculum of the Assassin’s Class in peaceful discord.
On top of that, they form cliques within the school (black gangsters, drug-affiliated gangsters, racists, slightly-less-racists, Yakuza friends etc.). It’s like something out of a romantic young adult novel or a teen soap opera: the basic premise is a bit questionable, and it strongly reeks of one of the most unpleasant young adult trends of the 2000s—the one where all sorts of mismatched creatures are thrown together in the same educational institution, from vampires to werewolves.
On his first day, the new student is even sent out into the city to kill for educational purposes, so there’s a bit of inconsistency in the curriculum too…
The Protagonist of Deadly Class is a Jerk
Despite this, the beginning is pretty good; the first two chapters of Reagan Youth set up a dark, dramatic story effectively. But by the third chapter, you realize that the main character, Marcus, is a jerk. This is all thanks to a twist that’s deliberately designed to be unpredictable and shocking, but ends up being completely pointless. Muchas gracias! It doesn’t take long to discover that Marcus is not just a jerk—he’s a LOSER jerk. From this point on, you have a protagonist you absolutely hate.
The Twists in Deadly Class Don’t Work
Moreover, starting from the fourth chapter, Reagan Youth becomes unfocused and erratic. What would you expect from a comic set in an assassin school? If you guessed that the main characters would ditch school (What on earth is the janitor doing during all this?! – I ask) and head off to Las Vegas, then you’ve hit the jackpot. Here, again, there’s a sense that the goal is to deliver the biggest and most shocking twists possible, but due to the lack of proper buildup and preparation, it naturally fails to achieve the desired impact. With more time and better character development, it might have worked a few issues later. But as it stands, it just ends up feeling boring and soap opera-like.
This is especially puzzling because, just like the well-crafted and impactful opening chapters of Reagan Youth, the overarching plot—Marcus’s past—is also well-developed and properly paced. The only issue is whether you’ll stick around long enough to reach the end of the Deadly Class journey with the pathetic and clumsy Marcus.
Rating: 6.9/10.
Deadly Class, Volume 1: Reagan Youth by Rick Remender
176 pages, Paperback
Published in 2018 by Image Comics