Image Comics
(W) Justin Jordan (A) Donal Delay & Omar Estevez (C) Felipe Sobreiro (L) Rachel Deering
Romance is miserable. It’s even worse when you’re in love with your best friend and you can’t seem to move out of the friend zone. Unfortunately, the main character in Death of Love ends up in the friend zone. Unlike most romantic comedies, he doesn’t swoop the girl he likes off his feet. Instead, our hero ends up on a totally different path. This story contains a lot of graphic violence and blood and this is the only warning I will provide before going forward.
Philo Harris is a 25-year-old man who can’t seem to get a date or the girl of his dreams. He has lost hope and decided to take a class on how to be an “alpha male”. During his lesson, a shady person named Eris offers Philo a small capsule of pills. These pills have the ability to let people see small Cupids, the guardians of romantic love. Philo ends up taking a pill and sees the Cupids. Since Philo can see them, they begin to come after him and try to murder him. Now it’s up to Philo to save his own butt from the tiny guardians of love while keeping his romantic life and sanity in the balance.
This comic is one giant, adventurous cliché. Most people dislike clichés and prefer something new and outrageous to hit the press. In this case, Justin Jordan gave a story that could resonate with a wide audience. The plot is unique enough to stand out on its own as it’s very rare to see flying little cupids come after people. It was fun seeing Philo getting chased by a hoard of tiny arrows and experiencing pain no one else could feel. On the outside, it seems like Philo is having a trippy experience. Although he really is getting hunted down by a bunch of Cupids.
While Philo is a desperate guy trying to make love work, I found myself liking his best friend Bob. He’s a rational guy who is always on Philo’s side. He helps Philo by being realistic with him and tries to keep him safe from himself. Philo is a stubborn guy who just wants to get the girl of his dreams. The friendship is nice to watch as they keep each other in balance, but it doesn’t help that it leads to a path similar to a parent and child. Bob ends up with the parental role while Philo is like a child. The Cupids are a relentless group of brothers who fight in the name of romantic love. Their loyalty to one another warms my heart. Plus many of them are sarcastic and vehement against Philo for the ability to see him. With their cute images contrasting their badass personalities, it’s really hilarious to see how they try and hunt Philo down.
Philo’s love interest, Zoey, is a woman with an independent streak and an eccentric personality that seems to be understood by Philo alone. She is a beautiful woman with enough energy to keep Philo on his toes. While she is a woman with her head in the clouds at times, she makes sure to keep her head on the ground when it comes to her friends and that is one of the hardest things to balance out when it comes to being there for someone. I find this trait in her to be really appealing and it’s something I rarely see in a lot of characters.
The action-filled battles against Philo and the Cupids are amazing and packed with bloody scenes to keep all sadists satisfied throughout the story. I love the battle scenes involving Philo especially when he tries to create strategies to outsmart the Cupids. My only concern is that the scenes may be too bloody for some people. While the old-fashioned violence is quite appealing to a specific group of people, it does leave some people feeling a bit queasy.
Overall, this comic is full of adventure that takes the readers down a path of insanity and freedom. The characters are a lot of fun to see and the battles are amazing to look at. The plot is unique enough that it intrigues me, but I wish there was a little more backstory as to how the pills were created and why the Cupids have to kill humans who can see them.