The Deviant #4: A Simple Smile

The Deviant’s first issue started the series strong with disturbing imagery and a dark story foundation. The following issues added a little more character flavor. But the series didn’t advance much beyond building a general darkening mood, requiring some definite patience along the way, That patience pays off with two nice shocks in The Deviant #4.

A four year flashback kicks off The Deviant #4. The issue opens on Michael and Derek at a rave. Michael gets distracted because the party is located just down the street from Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment. This kicks off another moment of Michael expressing concerns over his inner darkness. Then the issue jumps to the present. Michael is visiting Randall in jail, laying out what he wants their upcoming interviews to consist of. In exchange for Randall answering Michael’s questions, Michael will answer Randall’s. As soon as Michael leaves the prison, he’s attacked by Paul (the disfigured cop from the 1970s who Michael interviewed in issue 2). Meanwhile, Derek has let Agent Hall into his and Michael’s apartment.

The Deviant #4 finally serves up a happy looking Michael. It does take place in the flashback, so he could have changed significantly in the four years since. But it tells us that there’s more to Michael than just the dark or broken person we’ve seen so far. It’s a small thing, but it adds a missing dimension. And it’s still in keeping with the character’s overall mood as he’s been presented so far. Hixson captures a nervous, unsure energy in Michael’s wide smiles. And these happier looking moments do still bookend a sequence where Michael muses about Jeffrey Dahmer in a roundabout way of considering his own inner darkness.

The interview segment between Michael and Randall is yet another conversation promising future conversations. Obviously Randall’s past experiences provide the series’ foundation. But the scenes between Randall and Michael in this issue have a kind of aimlessness to them. Assuming the conversation promised here ever takes place, an exchange of personal information between the two promises to be fascinating. But for now, the extended dialogue in this issue feels almost like filler to pad out the issue to reach the double cliffhanger.

Tynion inserts a single page flashback to the killer Santa during Paul’s confrontation with Michael. It’s a splash page of the killer looking down on Paul, his hand on Paul’s bloodied and disfigured face. Hixson makes it a particularly disturbing visual.

More compelling than the Michael/Randall discussion is the sequence featuring Derek and Agent Hall at the end of The Deviant #4. It’s not a disturbing conversation, but there’s a very mundane discomfort to the whole thing. Derek blathers nervously. Hall largely dismisses everything Derek says if it’s not a direct answer to his question. The scene builds tension non stop. The reader knows why Hall is there even though Derek has no idea. There’s no real reason to believe Hall will find anything in the apartment. But the way Tynion crafts the scene creates the sense that it’s inevitable that Hall will find something.

The art in The Deviant #4 is likewise most impressive in this scene. Every time Derek says anything, Hixson draws him with a slightly different “what the hell did I just say?” expression on his face.

Hixson’s work with character expression and body language continues to be a major reason why so many scenes in the series work. Tynion maintains an overall mood, and the story is especially effective when it ventures towards its grislier aspects. But most of the basic character interaction succeeds based on Hixson’s art. The opening flashback scene rises above merely another sequence of Michael doubting himself because Hixson counterbalances Michael’s dialogue with a more positive visual aura.