How To Make A Monster
One of the things that impressed me most about Sleeper (an earlier collaboration of Brubaker and Phillips) was that they got me to empathize with a character named Genocide. In this issue of Criminal, they've set an even higher goal for themselves with a story focused on Teeg Lawless, already established as a callous, brutal man before his face even appears on panel. A Wolf Among Wolves is the story of how two tours in Vietnam and a web of underworld entanglements lead an already bad man to become a full-fledged monster.
While Genocide's most heinous acts were generally implied, Teeg's violent impulses are on full display, offset only by the desperation of his circumstances and the splintered recall brought on by his blackout drinking. There is no pleasure or glory in Teeg's thuggery, only a seething resentment at his own impotence, "a tiger in a cage" as Danica puts it. Brubaker wisely makes no excuses, instead hoping the reader can, at least, understand the path this brutal, broken man stumbles down.
