Exclusive: Death starts a new life in Ram V and Filipe Andrade's new BOOM! comic 'The Many Deaths of Laila Starr'

It's been a busy few weeks for comics writer Ram V. He's in the midst of writing three different titles in DC's Future State initiative (Justice League Dark, Swamp Thing, and Catwoman), he's preparing to launch a new volume of Swamp Thing in the spring, and he's just announced a new series at Vault Comics titled Radio Apocalypse with longtime collaborator Anand RK. But even with all of that in mind, Ram V has more to offer, because he's now teaming up with one of the most vibrant and exciting artists working in comics right now, Filipe Andrade (Captain Marvel), for an all-new series about what happens when Death loses her job. 

Today, SYFY WIRE can exclusively reveal that this April, Ram and Andrade will launch The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, an original BOOM! Studios series that "explores the fine line between living and dying in Mumbai through the lens of magical realism." 

"The Many Deaths of Laila Starr is a strange, funny, odd and occasionally morbid comic about death, love, innocence and the human condition. Where I come from, gods are flawed, perhaps more so than people. Life is an endless cycle of trying to get things right, and death? Death is only the beginning,” Ram V said. “Judgments are few and far between and all things are rife with contradictions as they should be. So Filipe Andrade and I would like to welcome readers to this near-future Mumbai, this immensely beautiful mess of human lives where a god must first contend with death...many deaths, before she may begin to understand a thing or two about life.”

Check out Andrade's issue #1 cover, along with his character designs and variant covers by David Mack and Ananda RK, in the gallery below.

Set in a near-future where humanity is closing in on cracking the secret of immortality, the series explores what happens when the "avatar of Death" loses her job when the prospect of human death begins to look less likely. So, Death is sent down to our world to live out a mortal life in the body of a twentysomething woman from Mumbai named Laila Starr. Hoping to undo her newfound humanity, Laila hatches a plan to stop human immortality by arriving at the exact time and place where its creator will be born...but can she change the course of the future, or will she find there's more to her new mortality than she realized?

“The Many Deaths of Laila Starr is a story about love and connection, but also about the beauty and cruelty of it,” Andrade said. “Ram writes beautiful words touched by a mystic and exotic perfume. I want to transport and involve the reader in this trippy and vibrant world.”

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1 is in stores this April.