We said goodbye to the bad boys of the institute, to the outcasts, to the popular ones, closed King’s Dominion and ends lethal class
last installment of lethal class, series by Rick Remender and Wes Craig, an arc full of melancholy and memories, of friends and enemies, and as is the tradition in Lethal Class there is blood, death and action that overflows the pages. The experiences of the institute, of the street and of a time as troubled as the 80s have given way to the present, the years have passed and the world has changed. Marcus and his life are not what he expected, life is different once you live it. The collection that each month translated adolescent angst, non-conformity and laziness of generation X reached the 21st century and changed, but did not forget his cries for a better world.
Here the journey ends. One of the best comics so far in the 21st century has come to an end. And it is an ending that has its spectacular moment, its explosions and battles, but in the end, it is a story of friends, youth and celebration. After many years of enjoying it, it will now be missing from our must-have comics lists, and we are going to miss it greatly.
It is by its own right one of the series that I liked the most on a personal level. Violent, badass, hyperactive, sensitive, hesitant, music lover (if there isn’t a spotify list with the songs that appear in the series, it’s because someone lacks vision), rebellious, deep, hateful, vindictive, depressing, dark, funny, brilliant , intelligent, positive… It’s a life.
lethal class is a series that begins by focusing on the time of greatest change, adolescence, but which is fed by complex childhoods, sometimes very fucked up, other times less, whether secondary or main characters have a rich world of their own. And as life is changing, evolving, adding new things every day, but what remains in the past continues to mark who we are.
I have been lucky enough to read it while it was being developed and it has been years of looking forward to each release. This reminder makes me think about what I should say for those who haven’t read lethal class. It’s very simple:
Because it’s awesome, you don’t need more. Awesome script. Awesome drawing.
It all starts with the story of a teenage outcast from the 80s (one of those who are called generation X) who luckily falls into an elitist academy where assassins, criminal leaders and monsters are trained, come on, a normal institute with weird classes like poisons or firearms. He sold himself as Harry Potter but with murderers and in dodgy.
Not even close. Is much more. It is a story that represents the 80s without restrictions or filters, everything bad that it had is thrown at your face by Remender and Craig so that you can see that even though they have put perfume on it to sell it, it is still manure. The shitty high school life, with more dangers, but with the usual, bullying, love affairs, drugs, fights, exams, laughter and parties. It’s all the good and bad of those screwed up years.
We go up a level and enter the criminals and their gangs, like a game of thrones with uzis and katanas. That complicates everything. And incidentally, he leaves amazing action sequences where Wes Craig shines and shows that less is more, his simple and direct line is much more powerful and impressive than any almost photographic realistic work. But the important thing is still the family that is formed, love, trust, bonds and how they are formed and destroyed or strengthened.
It is an x-ray of an era that we see more and more sweetened in series and movies. And here there is no sugar, there is salt and vinegar on the wounds. The real 80s, fucked up, full of drugs and violence, shitty politicians and a future that smelled black while youth died. It is also a fresco of music, thought, what generation X was.
It’s like the Douglas Coupland book but he’s high on amphetamines and crack while operating a chainsaw. There is reality in Deadly Class, and a lot of it, and it’s not pretty.Rick Remender and Wes Craig have created one of the most powerful series we’ve seen, with bullets, blood, drugs, sex, love, friendship, music, thinking against the grain and with a taste of a young man recriminating the world that he has been given a place of shit. It’s the documentary The Decline of Western Civilization in comic version mixed with a John Woo action movie when he was in Hong Kong (Better tomorrow, Hard boiled, The Killer) and counted as Allen Ginsberg’s Howl if you liked extreme action.
This is what I would like to have read at the age of 16. I’m sure many who read this think I’m exaggerating, but at 16 I was a weird guy, one of those who weren’t popular, who talked a lot and didn’t know as much, who didn’t have a bad time, but he didn’t live in Sensación de vivir or Sweet Valley. Lethal Class is an exorcism against that demon that is romanticizing the 80s.
And if this trip is not in itself amazing. The authors decide to finish the whole story, jumping and jumping, making it clear that adolescence is important to know who you are and who you will be. And no one says that life gets better with growing up. Change And there are new fights to fight, and happy moments and great pains, is to live, is to keep fighting until the end.
Conclusion
lethal class It is one of my favorite series and will continue to be. It is a work that will be stuck in its time, the present, but it will serve as a testimony that we continue to look back and make times that were not perfect rosy. Rick Remender and Wes Craig have given birth to a comic that is art, for what it tells and how it is told. Remender puts a lot of sensations and feelings and Craig turns it into a powerful comic in its image, fast and violent, and at the same time affectionate and full of feelings, it is the cry of Generation X in a present that wants to steal the scars that it has left life.