Lady Killer #1 Review: Deadly Hot

Female assassins aren’t anything new. In fact, they’ve been around for centuries in many countries. The only thing about them is that they were usually rare and unexpected by stereotypical society. Joelle Jones and Jamie S. Rich take this idea and run with it in an interesting new comic called “Lady Killer.”

Josie Schuller is a “normal” 1950s/1960s housewife who is also a hired assassin. In this issue we get a little introduction to how she operates, in this one job as an “Avon” lady. She does later get a completely different assignment that also requires a “woman’s touch.”

The thing this comic does right is that the setting gives so much room for how this story can play out. Since this is the 1950s/1960s it’s pretty hard for anyone to suspect a woman to be an assassin. The comic does this by the ‘Avon” lady disguise and how she’s supposed to go about her next mission. She is also pretty good at her job by being quite possibly the most natural acting assassin ever.

On the other hand, we do see that her family has no idea that she is an assassin. This is the typical problem we see in every one of these story. Character A is a spy/assassin/double agent but person A’s family has no clue. Jones and Rich can be smart and not have the family figure out Josie’s identity by having them get kidnapped and Josie saving them. If that does happen then that will ruin an otherwise interesting story.

Jones’s art looks like comics drawn in the 50s and 60s. This is a smart idea as this makes the comic look authentic. Of course, this does mean that the comic does have some of the same problems that comics of this era had. In particular some of the facial expressions either look cartoony or they do not match the emotion the character is supposed to be conveying.

“Lady Killer” manages to take an interesting premise and bring it into full fruition. Josie is a great character, the writing is solid and the art is top notch. There are some minor issues here and there, especially with where the story might go, but in all this is a worthwhile read.