Death of Love is a limited series published in five parts this year by Image Comics. Written by Justin Jordan with art by Donal Delay and Omar Estรฉvez, Death of Love is a bloody beautiful story of love, friendship, and chaos. Check out my full review after the jump.
Philo Harris is an asshole. He’s a nice guy, and that’s not a compliment. He’s the kind of guy who believes in the friend zone, constantly trying to save girls from their perfectly fine boyfriends by getting in their pants. One day, a mysterious man in a bar offers Philo a bottle of pills. They’re supposed to help him find love. They technically do - if by “find love” you mean “grant the supernatural ability to see cupidae.”
The first issue opens on a scene of Philo brutally chopping some cupids up with a chainsaw before flashing back finding out how he got the pills. At first, I didn’t know why he was murdering cupidae, but I was sold from the get-go. It gave me a Scott Pilgrim vibe - supernatural tropes used as a metaphor for love and the dating game. And Phil is the kind of hero you love to hate and want to see him get worse as the story goes.
After taking a few more mystery cupid pills to prove that he isn’t going crazy, Philo sets out to kidnap a cupid. That doesn’t go too well for him. Soon, an army of cute little cupidae are after Philo and he has no idea what to do. He turns to his friends, but they justifiably think that he is crazy. There is a hilarious scene from the point of view of his friends where he fights a cupid and they have no idea what is going on.
Quentin Tarantino may as well have guest-directed the action scenes because Philo has only been fighting cupidae for like two days but he cuts through them like butter. Blood and guts fly everywhere and in a sick and twisted way, I kinda find it beautiful.