Review: Deathwish, the groundbreaking transgender saga of Marisa Rahm
Written by Maddie Blaustein with plot assist by Yves Fezzani, illustrated by JH Williams II, inked by Jimmy Palmiotti, coloured by James Brown, lettered by Joseph Daniello
Review by Ro Grover
The 1990s is not a particularly fondly remembered time for comics fans. A sea of cartoonish muscle and impossible waistlines stands between you and readable material. But every now and then, something breaks past surface-level drama to offer complex characters and even a little bit of social revolt. Case in point: Deathwish, a four-part miniseries published by Milestone Comics in 1994-1995. This series is nominally about a hard-edged serial killer who targets child sex offenders, but peel back the covers and you’ll find a treasure featuring some of the earliest, true-to-life representation of trans people in mainstream superhero comics actually written by trans people.
In 1994 America, the AIDS crisis dominated the public consciousness. Paris Is Burning was released four years prior, shedding light on the DIY camp queens who pioneered the form. RuPaul (hilariously quoted multiple times during this comic, alongside William Shakespeare) is becoming a household name, even having met rockstar Kurt Cobain and celebrating the similarities between punk and drag culture. Queer and drag culture were starting to seep into the mainstream.
Amongst all this, Milestone Comics is having a big moment. Created by Dwayne MacDuffie in 1993, the imprint seeks to empower diverse voices to write stories about their lived experience and channel that into new superhero characters. Not content to stop there, MacDuffie taps Maddie Blaustein, a transgender comics writer also known for voicing Pokemon’s Meowth, to write the first standalone Milestone Comics mini-series, Deathwish.
In the early nineties, transgender characters weren’t really featured in superhero comics. Coagula in Rachel Pollack’s 1993-1995 Doom Patrol run or Jessie Drake in Ann Nocenti’s Marvel Comics Presents are early transgender supporting characters that spring to mind. However, Deathwish pushed even harder, being one of the first mainstream superhero comics to feature a trans person in a central protagonist role actively contradicting contemporary trans and drag stereotypes.
To paraphrase, Blaustein pitches Deathwish as her own take on Silence of the Lambs, but the police detective working with the titular vigilante is a pre-operative transgender woman (Blaustein, 2007, Trans-Ponder Podcast). Enlisting her trans partner Yves Fezzani for plot assists, Blaustein sets out to bust open the queer paradigm.
The comic is a scathing revenge story. Blaustein and Fezzani write Marisa Rahm as a disillusioned cop, frustrated with a police force that often refuses to accept her gender identity. Years ago, she met her lover Dini who had been assaulted and scarred by a criminal named Boots. Rahm has simmered on seeking sweet vengeance, and now, she wants to free the morally dubious supercriminal Deathwish to help her get it. By the end of the tale, Rahm takes on a vigilante role, operating outside of the force that scorned her to exact her wrath on Boots.
Blaustein and Fezzini nail Marisa Rahm’s character. They lean into the hard-boiled stereotype, giving her lines like “It took a whole lot of self-control to keep myself from giving these little turds a severe case of lead poisoning”. Although stereotypically grizzled and disillusioned, Rahm’s language never feels trite. Knowing Blaustein was undergoing her transition journey while writing this comic deepens its meaning. Rahm always refers to her dead name and old self as a past life: Marisa is the life she occupies now, and she was born like a phoenix from the ashes of her old self, Martin.
Blaustein and Fezzini create tension by having Dini, Rahm’s lover, insist that she give up the case to find her assailant. Dini asks Rahm to reject aggression and violence, to embrace the love of her life. Yet Rahm is tempted by the existence of Deathwish, the bogeyman who is urging her to crawl further into despair. After Rahm’s descent into vigilantism, Deathwish never plays a direct role, and instead plays voyeur from afar, watching this planned heel turn with great satisfaction. Blaustein and Fezzani play the love triangle framework via the superhero genre to great effect.
While the window dressing of this comic can come off as trite, one thing that truly separates Deathwish from its contemporaries is that Marisa Rahm is a whole character with a whole life. She’s got a bad smoking habit, to the point of lighting up two cigarettes at once after waking from a bad dream. She dresses up in a super femme yellow dress despite usually operating in black and brown detective wear, just to give Dini a pleasant surprise one night. Most importantly, she’s allowed to be imperfect. Rahm will catch herself staring at Dini’s forehead scar when she knows it makes Dini uncomfortable. She loves Dini but keeps making mistakes that drive their relationship into jeopardy. Marisa Rahm isn’t just representation for the sake of it, she’s a character with so many intricacies that we really worry when she strays from the beaten path.
The art on this book is done by industry superstar J.H. Williams III right at the beginning of his career. It's fascinating to see him honing what later became signature techniques. The use of kinetic panel framing works well here to signify when the narrative is becoming chaotic. Williams III sticks to a conventional grid most of the time, but often panels will float away, bumping and overlapping over a white background. It gives the pacing a fast, loose feeling; a more ethereal sense of storytelling.
This is taken to the extreme when some panels are outlined by messy, crimson blood to emphasise violence, or when borders are foregone completely to let figures and scenes bleed into each other like a giant collage. Williams is learning how far he can bend the form in this comic, and it’s a treat to experience when the results work so well.
Paired with Jimmy Palmiotti on inks, Williams III’s characters are rendered in lush shadows that fit well with the comic’s noir themes. This is not a superhero book where costumes cling to well-toned muscle. Clothes are loose and realistically wrinkled, like the heavy leather of Rahm’s beige coat, emphasising the idea that these aren’t superhero models, they’re just regular Joes with ill-fitting clothes like you and I.
Palmiotti’s inks also work well over Williams III’s light feathering. A closeup on a character’s face will be heavy with shadow, tapering into smaller hatching. This gives focus to specific facial detail, like the crinkling of an eyelid before crying, that makes the characters more emotive and compelling.
Milestone’s signature painted colouring style makes their comics look so gorgeous, and James Brown’s work on this comic is no exception. Most of Deathwish is rendered with cold blues and yellows, which blend well with shadow to create a stylish night city aesthetic. To contrast that, Brown uses harsh pinks during Rahm’s flashbacks to create a literal rose-tinted quality that verges on sickly. This hyper-rose colouring returns later in the story to emphasize nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts, like a distorted portrait of Deathwish taunting Rahm in the form of a cackling demon. This colouring motif creates an unsettling mood whenever it returns, which is a clever use of repetition.
Lettering is often best when it fits unobtrusively into a comic, and Joseph Danielo’s work here proves he’s a great workman letterer in this respect. His font style is crisp and clear, and boxes are spaced well so that the flow of the story never feels clunky. The real fun is when he breaks outside of the norm.
The title cards for each issue have a great graffiti-meets-art-deco sensibility, angular and twisting as they move vertically down the page. The sound effects have the same kind of bouncy, kinetic quality, like the jagged KA-CHANK that pops erratically from Deathwish snapping his prison chains. It’s never overused, Danielo simply scatters these effects around the issue to maintain a level of hyperreal absurdity.
Deathwish is one of those comics that executes a simple idea with masterful craftsmanship. The idea of a violent revenge/exploitation story, even conveyed through a transgender lens, is not an uncommon trope for the comics industry of the 1990s. Yet it’s the attention paid to character work, the commitment to testing the boundaries of what can be done with sequential comic-style art, the idea of industry professionals cracking their knuckles and going to town on a simple idea, that makes Deathwish so compelling. It’s groundbreaking not just because it’s a comic with a trans lead. It’s a beautifully drawn comic with a well-written trans lead and engaging supporting cast. As far as under-sung queer artefacts from a bygone age fare, Deathwish sets a high bar for representation that still feels hyper-progressive thirty years later.
Deathwish is available as part of the Milestone Compendium Book Three. Find out where to buy it here or request to borrow it from your local library.
Ro Grover is a non-binary icon who loves loving stuff. They have read so many comics that it hurts their head to think about it. Follow their enthusiastic cringe posting at @rowankgrover.
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