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vaeh 's review for:
Deadly Class Volume 1: Reagan Youth
by Rick Remender
The whole thing is a mess. There are elements that work really well, and there is a story here that could be quite compelling with characters that are dynamic and interesting and create a new spin on the assassin school trope. But 'Deadly Class' Vol. 1 is bogged down by it's premise that it never fully embraces, and this makes for a very confusing first volume.
It never quite embraces its premise of an assassin school, the plot is rushed and the setting is unconvincing, but at the halfway mark it changes into something different and arguably better than its premise proposed. But what it changes into, while more compelling doesn't fit with its set up of a school of mafia offspring come to realise their bloody legacies. (At least in how it is presented.)
The second half follows the group of kids from various crime families (and the main character who has no such pedigree) trying to reckon with the violence that they've inherited and must make sense of, if they hope to survive it.
The story turns away from a school of would be assassins into a rag-tag group of messed up kids, with nothing connecting them except the expectation of violence and the want and need for something more.
This second half leans itself towards the coming of age story, much more than the begining half does. The story suddenly slows down, seeming to be much more interested in exploring these teenagers' budding frienships and their problems that stem from the seedy world they've been dumped in.
This story works better, but only because the volume finally takes its time to set up the characters, setting and plot. Everything that came before feels unnecessary, vol. 1 feels almost like two stories slapped together, but the characters are what pulls it together and keeps it from completely collapsing in on itself.
Volume 1 ends feeling like its plot and characters are opposed, that they have been crafted with two different stories in mind.
With that all being said, I'm still interested to read on in the hopes that vol. 2 is able to recify the rift that I felt brought down vol. 1. And marry the 2 stories Deadly Class is trying to tell.
It never quite embraces its premise of an assassin school, the plot is rushed and the setting is unconvincing, but at the halfway mark it changes into something different and arguably better than its premise proposed. But what it changes into, while more compelling doesn't fit with its set up of a school of mafia offspring come to realise their bloody legacies. (At least in how it is presented.)
The second half follows the group of kids from various crime families (and the main character who has no such pedigree) trying to reckon with the violence that they've inherited and must make sense of, if they hope to survive it.
The story turns away from a school of would be assassins into a rag-tag group of messed up kids, with nothing connecting them except the expectation of violence and the want and need for something more.
This second half leans itself towards the coming of age story, much more than the begining half does. The story suddenly slows down, seeming to be much more interested in exploring these teenagers' budding frienships and their problems that stem from the seedy world they've been dumped in.
This story works better, but only because the volume finally takes its time to set up the characters, setting and plot. Everything that came before feels unnecessary, vol. 1 feels almost like two stories slapped together, but the characters are what pulls it together and keeps it from completely collapsing in on itself.
Volume 1 ends feeling like its plot and characters are opposed, that they have been crafted with two different stories in mind.
With that all being said, I'm still interested to read on in the hopes that vol. 2 is able to recify the rift that I felt brought down vol. 1. And marry the 2 stories Deadly Class is trying to tell.