The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1 // Review
Death has been laid off. It might sound like a good day for everyone, but it’s not a terribly good day for Death. She’s being sent into the body of a mortal. She’s going to pull a few strings, though. She’s going to see if she can’t get her job back in the first issue of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr. Writer Ram V finds a cleverly new perspective on Death with the aid of artist Filipe Andrade. The first issue establishes a smartly comic new adventure series featuring an anti-hero looking to commit murder to keep her job. It’s an enjoyable execution of a fun premise.
Death had been called into the office. She’s been with the corporation for a very, very long time. She’d been there since the beginning. Even Death doesn’t have totally irrevocable job security. She’s lost her job, and now she’s become a mortal named Laila Starr. She’s been around long enough to have the right connections. She’s brought to earth at just the right time. She plans on killing the baby who is going to grow up to invent immortality. It’s not going to be easy. She’s going to have to deal with the fact that she’s something she’s never been before: Death is going to have to deal with being human.
V has brought a really bright, little patch of comic darkness to the page with the first issue of a new series. Death isn’t an easy person to hang out with, but V makes her relatable. Anyone can connect up with someone who is trying to keep their job. The problem is: Death losing her job would actually be a pretty good situation for just about anyone reading the series...and she IS talking about killing some unsuspecting baby, which makes Death seem like a monster. Readers will spend a few pages with Death. Whether or not they like her is their own problem.
Andrade has found a beautifully unique visual reality for the world of Laila Starr. The fantastic is a large corporate mess that looks sleekly expressive. The everyday world of earth life plays out in one of the largest cities on earth, but since that city happens to be Mumbai, the series has a very sharply idiosyncratic look about it. The drama on the page has a surrealistically amplified passion about it with stylish page and panel composition and interesting framing that finds refreshingly skewed ways of keeping the action moving.
Ram V and Filipe Andrade are a really good team. It’s difficult to imagine the story being drawn by a different artist, and it’s equally difficult to imagine a different writer working with this same premise in quite the same way. The overall idea is weird, but not in a way that compromises an overall sense of tension that could easily serve as the basis for a long-running series if V and Andrade were interested in taking a long journey with Laila.
