Five Weapons #5 (of 5)
by Jimmie Robinson
Published: July 3, 2013
By: Jimmie Robinson
Image Comics
Tyler’s life hangs in the balance between a master assassin, saving his parents, and the wrath of the school principal. This could be the biggest caper ever pulled off, or the end of the world at the School of Five Weapons.
Published: July 3, 2013
By: Jimmie Robinson
Image Comics
Tyler’s life hangs in the balance between a master assassin, saving his parents, and the wrath of the school principal. This could be the biggest caper ever pulled off, or the end of the world at the School of Five Weapons.
The first three issues of Five Weapons had a great episodic vibe that almost felt like a Saturday morning cartoon, with the hero pulling off one clever escape after another that led into an enticing cliffhanger. Each of those issues saw Enrique Garcia posing as his childhood friend and the son of a highly revered assassin, Tyler Shainline, and navigating the adversarial climate of the school. He maintained his ruse while making friends and overcoming the odds to defeat star pupils in specialized challenges--and all without the use of a single weapon. And for a school designed to train assassins, it's all about the weapons.
Then the fourth issue introduced a new character, Vera, and sent the storyline madly off into left field. Where it had originally looked like Enrique had come to the school to aide the Shainline family in some mission, while keeping his promise to his father to not use any weapons, it became pretty clear Enrique was more of a pawn than anything else.
Vera, while an intriguing new wrinkle in Enrique's life, there was simply nothing I recall from the three previous issues to foreshadow her arrival. Oh, some veiled back-and-forth between Principal O and the school nurse, but nothing that seemed to serve the main plot of the series. This fifth and final issue answered all the remaining questions raised, but it all felt like a huge info dump in the end.
A bright spot, and a welcome diversion, was the insane fight scene in the middle of the book when Vera, the once prodigious student returned as a embittered adult, challenged the entire school in order to get to Enrique and find out where the Shainline family has gone.
The charm of the series had worn off with me though, so the epic finale fell a bit flat. For readers more in tune with how the story has progressed to this point, you won't be nearly as let down, I'll wager. If you're like me, however, you might not be in such a hurry to revisit the series should it start again with the teaser on the final page.
review: Five Weapons #1
3 Sheep
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