Five Weapons

Five Weapons 1-10

I’m can’t remember if I first read this before or after Deadly Class, but having read both now, this feels like Deadly Class for kids.  For a comic about kids learning to be assassins, I don’t think they tally a single kill.  Pretty disappointing.

It’s all a little bit too cute.  The protagonist is a kid who has taken a vow against using weapons and must resort to using his smarts and powers of deduction to outwit and outlast his fellow students.  Each issue ends on a cliffhanger, where Enrique is moments away from certain death, yet certain in his ability to emerge victorious.

I found it odd that Jimmie Robinson would choose such abrupt, anticlimactic finishes to each issue.  The final panels always take up a tiny strip along the bottom of the page, drastically reducing their dramatic impact.  

It wasn’t until I remembered one of Robinson’s visual clues in the second issue that the endings made more sense.

Each issue’s ending reads exactly like the ones in Encyclopedia Brown’s cases.  Encyclopedia would always finish a story along the lines of, “It’s too bad he didn’t count on one thing!”  The reader would then have to flip to the end of the book to read the solution, just as the reader here needs to read the next issue to learn how Enrique would get out of his predicament.  

The story itself is underwhelming.  The “outsider slowly wins the respect of everyone he deals with” trope can be an winning one (see Anne of Green Gables), but everything here is just a touch too easy for the main character.  For all the situations he find himself trapped in, he’s never in any kind of true danger, and that robs the plot of any serious stakes.  

I’d give this to my future kids to read, which is the only reason I’m keeping it around.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine