By Cat Wyatt
Death of Love is a new series, and it certainly appears to have a lot of potential. The fact that its first issue drops on Valentine’s Day is just a bonus, if you ask me. The story follows a man named Philo Harris, and let’s be honest here, he’s a bit of a jerk. And not the type that can own up to it, but the type that thinks he deserves the girl because he pretended to be nice to her. The man was willing to try anything in the book to get girls to want him, and apparently that willingness is about to lead him into a heap of trouble.
The issue starts out with Philo covered in blood (though he doesn’t appear to be injured), lamenting the drugs he started taking to find love. Sure, they helped him find love all right, but it wasn’t the type of love he was looking for. Do you remember that saying ‘be careful what you wish for?’ Well, I’m betting Philo is sorry for what he wished for right about now. The next few pages are both bloody and hilarious, so consider yourself warned.
Have you ever wondered how a fight between one human and an army of Cupids would go? Well, you can stop wondering! Sort of, the fight cuts off rather suddenly to give us the backstory to this whole mess, but I can safely tell you that the fight would be messy. That much was made clear.
Philo’s story started a few days ago (though really it started earlier than that – it seems like he’s always been looking for the easy answer when it comes to love), with a debate between himself and his roommate. Philo is convinced he’s the good guy, while the roommate doesn’t exactly agree with this. And based on how the conversation goes, I kind of agree with the roommate. It’s clear that Philo is hanging out with one particular girl because he likes her, and he seems to think being nice to her is enough to make her want him (even though when grilled about her, he couldn’t answer most questions about what she liked or who she really was). Not the worst offense in the world, of course, but it’s probably enough to remove him from the ‘nice guy’ list.
The girl by the way? She’s actually pretty hilarious and awesome, so I can see why he likes her. It’s not every day you see a person dress up in foe battle gear to deal with a malfunctioning espresso machine (though it totally should become more common). Granted, shortly following those events she said the dreaded “I wish I could find a guy like you” to the single guy, talk about daggers to the heart.
Any sympathy I had for Philo was pretty much washed away when he went to a seminar for becoming the alpha male in order to get more poon (I wish I was making it up, but those legit are all words the speaker used…ugh). What the speaker said was really gross, as was the fact that Philo was hanging on to his every word. Yuck. Do people really think this sort of seminars work? I hope this is an exaggeration for the sake of the series, and not something that actually happens in real life (though I’m not actually naive enough to believe that’s true).
If you were hanging out at a bar with your friends, and a strange man showed up and offered you a bunch of drugs, you’d tell him to shove off, wouldn’t you? I certainly hope you would! Now if that man happened to be named Eris, and was offering you drugs to find love? I don’t know about you, but I’d freaken run.
I find it interesting that the man in the bar is named Eris – perhaps named after the Greek goddess of discord? That would certainly explain their mischievous behavior. I feel like as a rule you shouldn’t trust someone in a bar (that’s offering you anything for free) with that name. Better safe than sorry, right?
This series has a lot of potential to become really hilarious. The first issue had a lot of setup to get done, so it had to be on the more serious side, but I foresee a lot of riotous moments in its future. The creators did a good job of establishing Philo’s character – he’s a jerk and he’s a bit dumb (he did take drugs from a stranger), but he’s also not irredeemably so. This is a perfect balance, as it set the readers up to be okay with him getting beat on a bit, while still rooting for him to resolve things in the end. That isn’t an easy balance, so I hope they can maintain it throughout the series.
The artwork was perfect for this story. Lots of bright colors and more focus on solid shapes than details, which makes the cherubs seem more humorous than threatening (I wonder if that’ll change later?). The cupid/cherub guys are pretty cute – they’re not overly baby-ish (which can just be creepy), while still being clear of what they are. The more realistic wings were a nice touch as well.
Score: 4/5
Death of Love #1
Image Comics