Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Deadly Class #1
Image Comics
Remender, Craig & Loughridge
The latest Rick Remender launch is an ambitious one where the first issue is a depressing origin story for the lead character. The risk here is that the audience doesn't come to like the character off the bat and doesn't follow the series. The hope is that the character is so well defined from the opening issue that the comic can build from the ground up the story off of the character base set here. The book provides a realistic setting from 1987 and doesn't try to sink into a super-hero, science-fiction, spy or any other genre. The comic is a character piece where the payoff is at the end. It's something worth checking out and coming in at thirty pages you definitely get your money's worth. I recommend this.
The comic book follows a fourteen year boy that's homeless, penniless and an orphan over the course of about a year. He's hurting, sick and extremely depressed. The book dances through his depression while putting out some flashbacks to give some context to his mood. Eventually the character contemplates suicide when he decides to give life one more chance.
The book turns towards the end as the action picks up. The high concept of the book is introduced along with an interesting supporting cast of characters. The comic has a lot going for it.
The book is written eloquently. Remender uses mostly internal narration and the book works as a result. The reader gets a strong sense of the depression and desperation involved for the lead character. The comic is a little heavy handed on the politics but it might make sense for a teenager to blame others for their plight and direct their anger at Big Brother.
The comic has some timeline issues that are worth mentioning. Primarily because the book's note at the back explains in great detail how this book is to be rooted in the reality world set in 1987. The book begins with a conversation set in January 1987 about the Giants making the playoffs (the book takes place in their rival's home of San Francisco) but the playoffs began in late December 1986 and the Giants were already in them. The second instance is the mentally ill woman that commits suicide. This is called out as an effect of Reagan cutting funding to mental institutions, thus allowing her to wander the streets. However, the boy in the sequence appears to be under the age of eight placing the scene prior to 1981, before Reagan took office. Granted it's visual and open to interpretation but it calls into question a lot of other elements that are supposed to be authentic as a result.
The artwork is terrific. It's in the style similar to American Vampire. The comic book makes tremendous use of background colors to set a mode for each sequence. The details of the characters and their features have a cartoon quality to them that you might see in a Darwyn Cooke comic book and it works very well set against the brilliant color scheme. Each pass through the book I found something new to gaze at in the artwork.
Deadly Class offers up an issue that is mostly origin story but it helps to fully introduce the lead character. The comic book has a lot of background so that the reader gets a good idea what the lead character is all about. The book has some action and advances the overall story to the next phase very nicely. This book is one to pick up without a doubt.
4 out of 5 Geek Goggles
