La Muerta: Descent #1 (Chapter 1) is a comic with the story by Brian Pulido, written by Mike MacLean, illustrated by Joel Gomez, and colored by Ceci de la Cruz. After tragedy strikes her family Maria swears vengeance against the Zavala Cartel. This is a supernatural superheroine comic with strong revenge elements, a brutal criminal empire, and gritty violence. The leading lady here is Maria Diaz, she is a former Army medic who is planning on becoming a social worker in her post-military life. Her mother and father seem to be kind people and she has a brother named Xavier who has a drug problem. Mama Z is the leader of the Zavala Cartel who claims that one of her ancestors was Coatl, an Aztec priest who led a blood cult. This story begins with members of the Z Crew taunting and killing a man in a church who supposedly stole money from Mama Z. The perspective then shifts to Maria as she returns home to a welcome party. After greeting her parents and seeing old friends she heads back inside the house and sees her brother. The violence here is very bloody with some gruesomeness and gore. The pacing is steady overall with a dark and gritty tone. The are many dramatically and violently intense moments. The dialogue is mostly conversational with good back-and-forth and a talking style where Spanish is interjected regularly. There is some semi-frequent narration from Maria. No word-heavy pages here. This is an exciting debut issue that introduces us to a large cast of interesting characters and gives us a thrilling story with heavy violence.

            The art here is drawn in a somewhat smoothly detailed gritty modern style with heavy shading. Most of the colors here are dark with black, red, and yellow being the most prominent. Natural scenery is almost non-existent as this takes place deep inside of a city that appears to be predominantly Latin. Some of the prominent locations here are: The home of Maria’s parents, an abandoned warehouse, a graveyard, a church, and some nightlife-specific places. The backgrounds usually show the actual surroundings which means a lot in a story that moves from spot to spot this frequently. The expression level here is above-average as most of these characters have varied reactions to the different situations. Emotions we’ll see here are mostly aggressive from anger and rage to confusion and terror; there are some sad and somber looks as well. The faces have a decent to good amount of details with strong features, especially in the eyes and mouth, with just about every expression coming across clearly. The mystical effects have a ghost-like feel to it. The violence here is delivered with blades, firearms, and fire. There are a number of gruesome attacks(some unseen or lightly censored) that lead to a significant amount of blood and unsettling gore. The action scenes come in bursts with an overall high panel count and a smooth flow.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like supernatural superheroine stories that star a Mexican woman and has a dramatic theme of revenge against a criminal empire and that features gritty violence then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Violence, blood, gore, gruesomeness.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Good thing too. You were dead to the world.”

 

Physical Link: https://coffincomicsshop.com/collections/la-muerta-comics/products/la-muerta-descent-premiere-edition

Digital Link: https://coffincomicsshop.com/collections/coffinverse-digital-editions/products/la-muerta-descent-digital-copy

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brianpulido/brian-pulidos-new-graphic-novel-la-muerta-1-descen/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

*
*
*
*
*

Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 48

Violent Pages: 19, for 40% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 1, for 2% 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 – 4

“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 – 3

“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 – 1

“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.”