Pretty Deadly, the stunning work of creators Kelly Sue DeConnick (Avengers Assemble, Captain Marvel) and Emma Rios (Dr. Strange, Osborn), follows the illegitimate daughter of Death and a beautiful woman imprisoned by her husband. Ginny, death’s daughter, is as beautiful as she is fierce, even with a skeletal look and haunting eyes. She rides after those who have wronged another and a man named Fox is chief on her list. The story sounds simple, but rest assured it is anything but.
Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios tell a convoluted story that takes a few tries to wrap your head around if you’re not paying strict attention. Once all the major players are introduced, the story begins to click into place, but before that there can be a great deal of head scratching. Emma Rios art work is as equally convoluted as the story. Thousands of individual monarch butterflies decorate some pages and the intricate work of her skeletal forms are chillingly beautiful. Jordie Bellaire, as always, manages to get the coloration just right. This combination, much like a good spell, works together to create something that feels both reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series and entirely new. All the main creators working on Pretty Deadly are female, and their attention to detail is noteworthy as well as obvious with each turn of the elaborate pages. Ginny’s fight sequences are complex and feature some weaponry one would not expect in the Western-style the book adopts, yet it works beautifully.
Pretty Deadly; I was wrong about you. Several months ago when your inaugural issue showed up I found myself shaking my head at the seemingly over complex Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios story line. I was wrong. So, so wrong. The complete picture is so much stronger than this reviewer could have imagined. We can only hope that Pretty Deadly is the first in a long line of works from the DeConnick and Rios partnership.
Pretty Deadly Volume One is now available from Image Comics.
