Created by the slightly hard to pigeonhole Blake Leibel (“Half-Life” world champ, writer of “United Free Worlds,” and director of “Spaceballs: The Animated Series”) and written by Daniel Quantz and R.J. Ryan, “Syndrome” dares to go beyond the issue of capital punishment and wonders if evil can be “fixed” through biology and deception.

Dr. Wolfe Brunswick is a failed psychologist whose own misdiagnosis of a patient resulted in the birth of a cold-blooded killer. Obsessed after such a huge professional failure, Brunswick seeks out Thomas Kane, a serial killer bound for lethal injection for the death of 40-something people (give or take). Brunswick, with the help of some Hollywood trickery, a curious financier, and dozens of unsuspecting actors, drugs Kane, drops him into a fictional town in the middle of the Nevada desert, and looks for signs of remorse and an avenue for rehabilitation.

The start of “Syndrome” left me doubtful that the writers’ wouldn’t spend the bulk of the story preaching about the horrors of the death penalty (I had to unroll my eyes at the opening line in which a protester says, “You aren’t doing good by doing evil”). Fortunately, the book quickly begins an engaging plot about the nature of evil itself and convincingly clarifies the psycho-babble with sparse analytical exchanges about neuropathology.



Writers Daniel Quantz and R.J. Ryan introduce and explain away an expanding cast of characters. Normally, that is a recipe for potential disaster but Quantz and Ryan have a gift for giving each character a unique voice and an equally distinctive hang-up. Their efforts are matched by the individuality of David Marquez’s crisp, clean art (God…I miss solid lines more than I thought) creating an almost fulfilling read. Almost.

Quantz and Ryan (both making an impressive departure from their work on “Marvel Age: Spider-Man”) are on a tear for the bulk of the story, going for one page turning dysfunction after another…and then it ends. The book seems to be building to an idea that might put all the characters on a collision course of moral decay but instead it pushes you off into the highway. While some of the character arcs do find some sort of satisfying conclusion, the bulk of the characters feel like they skipped a beat and just showed up at the finish line. It blemishes the whole book, making it feel more like a Hollywood pitch looking for a director instead of a bold vision that could’ve taken the reader in a unique direction.



Troy-Jeffrey Allen writes mean things to maintain his sanity. He is a comic book writer as well as an entertainment critic for OfNote Magazine, Forces of Geek, and Comic Book Bin. He has a cardboard box he calls home at www.TypographicEra.com.