Deadly Class Review: Assassin School in the ’80s
Rick Remender and Wes Craig's stylish, savage assassin-school saga.
By Web Admin
Imagine The Breakfast Club rewritten by a punk-rock nihilist and set in a boarding school where the curriculum is murder. That’s roughly the pitch for Deadly Class, the coming-of-age crime saga by writer Rick Remender and artist Wes Craig. Launched by Image Comics in 2014, it follows a homeless teenager recruited into a secret academy that trains the children of the world’s crime syndicates to become assassins. It’s stylish, savage, achingly sincere about teenage misery, and one of the most distinctive Image books of the last decade. Here’s our full review of Deadly Class — what it is, who made it, and whether it’s worth your time.
A content note first: this is a violent, drug-soaked series about troubled teenagers, and it deals frankly with depression, abuse, and suicide. It’s for mature readers, and we’ll say more about that below.
What is Deadly Class?
Deadly Class is a creator-owned series written by Rick Remender (Uncanny X-Force, Low) with art by Wes Craig and colors by Lee Loughridge, published by Image Comics starting in 2014. It’s set in 1987 San Francisco and centers on Marcus Lopez Arguello, a homeless teenager haunted by tragedy, who is recruited into King’s Dominion Atelier of the Deadly Arts — an elite, hidden academy where the heirs of crime families, cartels, and death cults learn the trade of killing.
Volume 1, “Reagan Youth,” collects the first six issues and lays out the school, its cliques, and Marcus’s fraught place in it. Because the students are the children of murderers, the usual high-school social dynamics — cliques, crushes, betrayals — play out with lethal stakes.
The story: high school, but everyone’s armed
At its core, Deadly Class is a coming-of-age story that just happens to be drenched in blood. Remender uses the assassin-school premise as a heightened metaphor for how brutal adolescence actually feels — the sense that one wrong move socially could be fatal, the intensity of first love and first betrayal, the crushing weight of not fitting in. Marcus is a deeply depressed narrator, and the book takes his pain seriously even as the plot escalates into set-piece violence.
The first arc builds to a road trip to Las Vegas that goes catastrophically wrong, cementing the series’ pattern: moments of genuine tenderness and teenage connection, shattered by sudden, irreversible violence. Nobody is safe. Characters you come to love do not always survive, and that willingness to follow through on its stakes is a big part of what gives the book its charge.
The setting: 1987 and the punk underground
Remender, who came up in the punk and skate scenes, pours his own youth into the book. The 1987 setting isn’t nostalgic set dressing — it’s specific and lived-in, full of references to punk and post-punk music, Reagan-era anxiety, and the grimy romance of the San Francisco underground. There’s an authenticity to the alienation here that you can’t fake, and it grounds the more outlandish assassin-academy elements in real feeling.
The art: Wes Craig’s kinetic pages
Wes Craig’s artwork is a huge reason to read the series. His storytelling is wildly inventive — he breaks the grid constantly, using unconventional panel shapes, silhouette sequences, and full-page designs to control rhythm and mood. An acid-trip sequence early in the run is justly famous for how it uses the page itself to disorient you. Lee Loughridge’s bold, often monochromatic color palettes give each scene its own emotional temperature. It’s some of the most exciting cartooning at Image.
The themes: depression, belonging, and violence
What separates Deadly Class from mere shock-value gore is how sincerely it treats its characters’ inner lives. This is a book about depression, about the desperate teenage need to belong, and about the ways violence gets passed down and normalized. Marcus’s struggles with suicidal thoughts and grief are handled with real weight. The killing is stylish, yes — but the book never loses sight of the wounded kids doing it.
Meet the cast
- Marcus Lopez Arguello — the depressed, orphaned narrator trying to survive King’s Dominion.
- Saya Kuroki — a yakuza heir, one of the school’s most skilled and enigmatic students.
- Maria Salazar — a cartel-connected student caught in a dangerous relationship.
- Master Lin — the academy’s headmaster, whose motives are anything but simple.
Content warning
Please take this seriously. Deadly Class contains graphic violence, drug use, sexual content, and frank, sustained depictions of depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Those themes are handled with care rather than exploitation, but they are pervasive. This is a book for mature readers, and readers who are sensitive to depictions of suicide should approach with caution.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Emotionally raw and genuinely moving beneath the violence
- Wes Craig’s inventive, kinetic page layouts
- A vivid, authentic 1987 punk atmosphere
- Real stakes — no character is ever truly safe
Cons
- Heavy themes: depression, suicide, drug use
- Relentlessly bleak stretches
- Graphic violence throughout — strictly for adults
How Deadly Class compares to other teen-crime comics
If you like coming-of-age stories with an edge, here’s how Deadly Class sits among comparable Image books.
| Book | Creators | Hook | Approx. price (Vol. 1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deadly Class | Remender & Craig | Assassin high school, 1987 | ~US$9 |
| Paper Girls | Vaughan & Chiang | 1980s kids, sci-fi mystery | ~US$10 |
| Southern Bastards | Aaron & Latour | Rural Southern noir | ~US$10 |
For more books in this register, browse our best Image Comics roundup and our guide to the best crime and noir comics.
The TV show: how does it compare?
Sony and the Russo brothers adapted Deadly Class into a live-action TV series that ran for a single season in 2019. It captured the show’s punk energy and cast well, but was cancelled after ten episodes, leaving the story unfinished on screen. The comic remains the definitive version — and it goes far further and darker than the show ever got to. If the series left you wanting more, the source material is where to go. For more small-screen crossovers on the way, see our roundup of comic adaptations coming soon.
Which edition should you buy?
The series is complete at 56 issues, so you can commit knowing it has a proper ending.
| Edition | Collects | Approx. price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 1: Reagan Youth | Issues #1–6 | ~US$9 | Trying it out |
| Deluxe hardcovers | ~2 volumes each | ~US$35 | Showcasing the art |
| Individual trades 1–11 | ~6 issues each | ~US$17 each | Following the full run |
The verdict
Deadly Class is one of the most emotionally honest comics to wear such a violent exterior. Beneath the assassin-school premise and the stylish carnage is a genuinely moving story about being young, lost, and desperate to belong. Remender’s sincerity and Craig’s fearless art make it a standout of the modern Image era. It’s heavy going, but for adult readers who want something with real feeling behind the fireworks, it’s a must-read — and a highlight of our best Image Comics list and the wider Indie & Image hub.
Frequently asked questions
Is Deadly Class finished?
Yes. The main series concluded at issue #56, so you can read the whole story from beginning to end with a proper ending.
Do I need to watch the TV show first?
No. The comic came first and is the complete, definitive version. The 2019 TV adaptation only covers the early part of the story before it was cancelled.
Is Deadly Class appropriate for teens?
Despite starring teenagers, it’s written for adults, with graphic violence, drug use, and heavy themes including suicide. We’d point younger readers to gentler picks in our best Image Comics guide.
How dark does it get?
Very. It deals frankly with depression and suicide, and it’s willing to kill off beloved characters. That emotional honesty is its strength, but it makes for a heavy read.
Next, see what else the studios are adapting in our comic adaptations coming roundup, or browse the whole Indie & Image hub.
