REVIEW: Deadly Class #19

Rick, Wes, and Jordan did a great job this week with Deadly Class #19. The art was killer, as always. And the writing, though a bit extraneous, was well done.

Rick started this issue with a panel of the B-52“s vinyl, which was a great way to pull the reader into the story. The dialogue was relatable to every single person who has ever listened to music; either you’ve said that to someone, or someone has said that to you, about the bands you listen to. And the rest of this first page is really powerful, putting forth themes about originality vs conformity. Which leads into this engaging diatribe by Viktor later on, who shines some light on very honest problems with American culture. Then, however, the issue just teeters out.

While I love all of Rick’s projects at the moment, this issue just really seemed to be unnecessary. By the end of the issue, I was left wondering what I learned in this issue that was imperative for the story to come. Maybe he could have consolidated this issue with the next, using the events of this issue as some sort of flash-back. Either way, the writing was still well done. And reading this issue only gives us more insight into his world. So I honestly didn“t mind the long tangent.

Moving to Wes“ work, the art for this issue was great. Lots of movement, which creates the necessary atmosphere of urgency and danger. I liked how much pain and struggle was worked into each and every character throughout this issue. Wes paid very close attention to details, and his lines were clean. He also did a fantastic job with the inks. Removing the humanity from Viktor by allowing only his smile to be seen, through the pure black shadow, was genius. There was one confusing part in this issue, though. This story happens during a thunderstorm, but for some reason we can see the moon; That is just me being nit-picky though, since it does not affect the issue what-so-ever.

The colors in this book were probably the best in the series so far. The overall palette is beautiful, and Jordan does a great job conveying levels of anxiety. The transitions between complementary colors during the chase scene at the beginning perfectly highlights what is import, as well as who is dangerous. However, he did go overboard with the line holds this issue. Using this effect outside of small objects, like water, fire, smoke, etc…, is usually unnecessary, and it can even take away from the original ink work.

Overall, this issue of Deadly Class was good. The art was great, the colors were fantastic, and the writing was well structured. If you are new to the series, I would not start here. However, if you have been keeping up, I would suggest you pick this up. It may not be a necessary issue, but it is always fun going further into Rick“s mind. I give Deadly Class #19, 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Wes Craig
Colorist: Jordan Boyd

Author Profile

Dylan Hicks

I just graduated from MSUD with my BAS in Mathematics. I live in a small 1 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, and our two cats. I work full time for NTIA-ITS as a Computer Scientist. All I really do is engineer mathematical models and write code all day. I took up this second job at Comic Crusaders as a way to become more involved with the comic book community. Since I was a child I have loved comics. I grew up reading Spider-Man, Shi, New Mutants, Spider Woman, and Gen13. As I got older, however, my tastes started to shift from almost exclusively Marvel to various independent labels. Now I read a huge variety of comics: Valiant, Black Mask, Aspen, Avatar, Image, Dynamite, Boom, Aftershock, etc.. If anyone wants to know, my favorite publisher, hands down, is Valiant.
I am also working on writing a few comic books myself. I have about 4 ideas in the fire, but only 1 of them is really getting anywhere; I have 6 of the 10 books finished. In addition to writing, I am also a practicing colorist. If you want to checkout any of my writing samples, or coloring samples, please check out my DeviantArt and let me know what you think.
dirtgrubdylan.deviantart.com.
Some more about me? I love black metal and video games. I usually spend most of my time hanging out with my girlfriend. We have been together for 6 years, so at this point she is basically my best friend. But when I am not with her, I get together with my friends to drink some beer and play some Magic, the Gathering. And, as pretentious as this is, I am also working on starting my own engineering firm. So that involves me reading a lot of textbooks on Mathematics and Computer Science.
So yeah, if you have made it this far thank you very much! I am crazy excited to start my career in writing. Let's see what I can do with this.