1973, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Before Dahmer, there was The Deviant Killer. Dressed as a mall santa wielding an axe, he killed three people - including two teenage boys - before he was stopped. Randall Olsen, a closeted store manager, was convicted of the killings.
50 years later and Michael, a comics writer obsessed with serial killers, is researching his new book on the case and interviewing the now elderly Olsen - and suddenly The Deviant Killer is back and murdering young men again. With Olsen behind bars, is this a copycat killer, or the real killer who was never arrested making a return - and what does Michael have to do with it all?
The Deviant, Book One is a pretty decent crime comic. James Tynion IV is as long-winded as ever in telling what story we get, and aspects of it feel pointless, but there’s enough here that hooked me into wanting to see how the story plays out.
Olsen, for example, is a character without any real mystery. He’s a lynchpin and yet, from the beginning, he feels like a patsy - the fall guy for the real killer, convicted mainly because he had secretly taken photos of the victims prior to their deaths as they were undressing, and that, coupled with attitudes towards gays in the ‘70s, led to his present incarceration.
The story namechecks The Silence of the Lambs, perhaps wanting us to think of Michael and Olsen’s interviews as similar to Hannibal and Clarice’s, except Hannibal is 100% guilty of murder and cannibalism - and yet he wins the audience over anyway. That’s part of the brilliance of Thomas Harris’ novel. Tynion’s Olsen though is the opposite - the way he’s written, the only surprising thing about the character would be if he was guilty.
Similarly, the present-day Deviant Killer’s identity is thrown out almost immediately and that too would only turn out to be surprising if that person turned out to be the actual killer. It’s a lot of really obvious misdirection in the storytelling that I’d thought an experienced writer like Tynion would’ve moved past at this point in his career.
I also feel like Tynion is trying to say something about attitudes to homosexuality, then and now, which was once viewed as deviant and is now (generally) accepted as normal. But what exactly he’s trying to say is unclear - again, you’d think someone who’s written as many comics as Tynion would’ve learned to finesse themes in his stories by now.
Joshua Hixson’s art put me in mind of Sean Phillips’ and, coupled with the crime story, makes the comic feel like a Brubaker/Phillips book (albeit one of their weaker entries). The art is very serviceable though and occasionally, with the full page splashes of the Deviant Killer and the chapter page interstitials, lends a cinematic flair to the book.
Rather than Silence of the Lambs, The Deviant reads more like Mindhunter (great show - so disappointed it only got 2 seasons), as Michael tries to get into the mind of a killer through interviews without any real stakes. Michael is an intriguing character - his coldness and general awkwardness keeps him at a distance from the reader so we’re not totally sure who he is or what he’s really like, to the story’s benefit.
Paul, the scarred cop who arrested Olsen back in the day, is an interesting wildcard and I’m glad Special Agent Hall is there to add some much-needed propulsion to the plot. The Deviant Killer himself is a great creation - the addition of a Jigsaw-like mask beneath the fake beard is an inspired touch and the story really takes off in his appearances. Tynion does just enough to keep from making the book feel unsatisfying, though I do feel the pacing could be snappier and I could’ve done without the almost amateurish misdirection.
If you enjoy Brubaker/Phillips’ comics or Mindhunter, The Deviant, Book One isn’t as good as either but it’s in the same vein and is entertaining enough - worth a look for crime/horror comics fans.
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