Lady Death: Between Heaven & Hell

Lady Death (Chaos!) #2

by Brian Pulido, Steven Hughes (Illustrator)

Lady Death began her existence as "Hope", daughter of the demonic feudal lord Matthias. Matthias, in league with demons, is murdered by his town's people. Hope, mistakenly believed to be a witch, is sentenced to burn at the stake. Instead, she forsakes her humanity forever and goes to Hell. In Hell, Hope endures insurmountable obstacles and transforms into Lady Death. She learns that Lucifer himself was behind Matthias's actions. In a furious battle, Lady Death defeats Luficer. In his dying breath, he curses her. As long as the living breathe, she can never return to earth. For over four hundred years Lady Death has tried to break the curse. And recently, it appears to be taking it's toll on her....

Collects all 4 issues of the miniseries

Genres: Comics, Fantasy, Horror, Graphic Novels

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Mel (Epic Reading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Lady Death stories go this one is critical to read. In fact this series of four comics, from the mid 90s, is a good starting point for anyone that wants to try and get into Lady Death and begin in the 90s, not later in 2010s.
Lots of repetition in these comics, but that was the style of the 90s. You assumed your reader knew nothing and the first few pages always recapped critical things from last issue, and about the overall story or character. It was something that can be annoying if you read them all in a row, like I just did; but that was of great benefit to me as a child when I got to get one comic every month or two and tried out different series all the time. It meant I could always understand some part of the story no matter if I bought #1, #5, or #20. As with many things, it’s important to understand the cultural context of something existing during its time. Otherwise you might feel like this Lady Death story could have been easily told in maybe 2 full comics with no repeating plot elements.

As it goes, these are classic 90s art, classic good vs evil concepts, and overall a great reminder of how far Lady Death, and creator Brian Pulido have come over the last couple decades. Ugh... decades, that makes me feel really old.
If you want to read the Lady Death of ‘today’ pick her up since Pulido sold and revamped things under his current publishing name Coffin Comics. But if you want to delve into some classic, very popular at its time, Lady Death you won’t go wrong with this mini series.

[Robert Bussie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This trade tells the origin story of Lady Death and explains why she is in hell over and over again in each issue. That is the problem with this book. The story is over wordy. She transform into Lady Demon for a few brief pages. The majority of the pages is Purgatori manipulating Lady Death's mind and memories.

The little bit of action between the two women fighting each other and lucifer fighting them is highly spoiled by the way to many word and thought bubbles. The art never gets a chance to shine and tell the story.

In short, decent but redundant story with nice art work and wonderful coloring ruined by way to many words.

[Jarlos]

although the dialogue is redundant, the plotting is quite solid. having already told her origin story, this book peels back a layer and reveals a whole new level to the origin and moves the story forward. clever.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's easy to forget that so many 90s comics could be broadly described as Bible fanfiction. Or maybe more like Paradise Lost fanfiction. Unlike Sandman, perhaps the most enduring comic in this category, with this comic it's even easier to forget about the Bible aspects due to the lack of any pretensions to artistic merit. Lady Death knows what it is as a book and it delivers on what you might expect from the premise. Here, we find our antihero at war with Lucifer's concubine, at war with Lucifer, and at war with a demonic version of herself (stretching the truth slightly, but I need it for the rule of three).

I think in comparison to the Evil Ernie books that gave rise to the character, these Lady Death solo adventures have polished some of the sharp edges off the characters and settings. We don't go for the gross-out quite so often. I wouldn't say that they're totally playing it safe, but they're starting to feel more like the standard horror fare that was available at the time. Nothing about this book shocked me.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lady Death has been used & abused by both Lucifer & Purgatory. Will she have the strength for the final battle to reign supreme in Hell?

[Ashe Catlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rehash of the story that came before, with the exception of purgatory, nothing really happened.