La Muerta: Devious #1 (Chapter 9) is a comic written by Mike MacLean, illustrated by Joel Gomez, and colored by Ceci de la Cruz. La Muerta travels to Mexico to take down a murderous imposter. This is a supernatural superheroine comic with strong revenge themes, gratuitous violence, and intriguing drama. The leading lady here is Maria Diaz/La Muerta, she is a former Army medic who became a vigilante after her family was murdered. Now she serves, sometimes reluctantly, as the hand of justice for Santa Muerte. Derek King is a police detective and the on-and-off fling of Maria who really wants her to leave this dangerous life. This story begins La Muerta fighting a group of hitmen sent by “El Carnicero”. She meets up with Derek to get more information and he tells her that a woman in Mexico has been dressing up like La Muerta and taking down gang members. After a quick “session” with Derek Maria is visited by Santa Muerte who tells her that this imposter mocks their sacred duty and must be stopped. The violence here is bloody and gruesome with heavy gore. The pacing is steady with some fast moments and there is an action-thriller tone with themes of revenge. There are a few dramatically intense moments and a high amount of violent ones. The dialogue is mostly conversational with good back-and-forth with the rest of it being narration from Maria/La Muerta. The talking style is overall aggressive with frequent use of Spanish. There aren’t any word-heavy pages but at least a few get close. This is a riveting and violent issue that gives us a bit more backstory on Maria and that gives her a familiar but different problem to take care of.
The art here is drawn in a somewhat smoothly detailed modern style with well-done lighting and shading. The color palette has mainly dark and faded tones and is predominantly black, red, and blue. For scenery we have a nice-looking park with small bridges over a river with bushes and trees; there is also greenery found around Mexico. There isn’t a central location as the story takes these characters all over from mansions to alleys and from building undergrounds to historical places. The backgrounds do a good job of showing the different surroundings and this makes the areas feel more alive. The expression level here is a bit above-average as these characters can give us good reactions despite their hard and tough demeanors. Some of the emotions we’ll see are: sinister happiness, anger, shock, sadness, and rage. The faces have an average to good amount of detail with most looks coming across clearly most, if not all of the time. The weapons used here are mainly firearms but bombs and blades do come into play. The violence here is very bloody with some gruesome attacks and heavy gore. The action scenes come in burst with a smooth flow and a generally high amount of panels.
“Is this worth reading?”
Yes, if this is up your alley.
“Would I like this?”
If you like supernatural superheroine stories about revenge that star a Mexican woman and that take place in Mexico with large amounts of bloody violence and riveting drama then this is for you.
“What would this comic’s film rating be?”
R. Violence, blood, gruesomeness, gore.
“Could I get a quote from the comic?”
“Shut up. You’ve survived worse than this.”
Physical Link: https://coffincomicsshop.com/collections/la-muerta-comics/products/la-muerta-devious-premiere-edition
Digital Link: https://coffincomicsshop.com/collections/coffinverse-digital-editions/products/la-muerta-devious-digital-copy
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coffincomics/coffin-comics-all-new-la-muerta-1-devious/description
***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***
Probably Contains Spoilers
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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 48
Violent Pages: 24, for 50% of the comic
Sexy Pages: 5, for 10% of the comic
**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**
Violence Level – 4
“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”
“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”
“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”
“This was a tournament arc.”
“All my life I had to fight.”
Gore Level – 5
“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”
“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”
“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”
“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”
“This is a slaughterhouse.”
Death Level – 4
“And everybody lived happily ever after.”
“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”
“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”
“Yeah this was a tragedy.”
“Think Gettysburg.”
Porn Level – 4
“Everybody kept their clothes on.”
“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”
“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”
“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”
“Oh. This is porn.”
