Witness the apocalypse through the eyes of Death
The Next Reaper' is a webcomic created by Deus Jet and Jmp Soma, available for reading on Webtoons, Deviantart, Smackjeeves and Tapas.
There came a day when humanity lost all faith, and their thirst for power turned society into a living nightmare. God, ashamed, turned their back on them, and closed Heaven. The Devil, enraged that God would leave countless souls at his gates, refused to let them in. Life attempted to return the souls to their bodies, but turned mad from desperation, and Death, left with more to reap than he could handle, started to break down under the pressure. With nowhere else to go, the souls became marked by their sins in life, and coalesced into hideous abominations formed from each of the seven deadly sins. The Shapeless, creator of God, Devil, Life and Death, has now come to Earth to appoint Death's successor.
Grim, the Son of Death, wanders the earth, sent to slay the seven deadly sins and dethrone the corrupt gods.
The comic can be read on Webtoons
, Deviantart, Smackjeeves, or Tapas.
The Next Reaper provides examples of the following tropes:
- Affably Evil: "Evil" is a matter of debate, but Shapeless is very affable when explains how he's planning to destroy countless souls.
- All-Powerful Bystander: Shapeless can't interfere in mortal affairs - the elders would punish him for that. He views it more like guidelines.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Of Life and Death, as well as the Seven Deadly Sins.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Gluttony is ≈7 meters tall.
- Been There, Shaped History: Shapeless got in serious trouble with the Elders when he unleashed a certain asteroid on the earth.
- Berserk Button: Death has mentioning his brothers or Life.
- BFS: Big Fucking Scythe.
- Blood Knight: Ripa is very fond of killing monsters. Much to Grim's chagrin.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Shapeless' view on the earth and its peoples is that of an artist. The earth, in his eyes, is a flawed artwork he made early in his carrier, and he's perfectly okay with tearing it down to start anew.
- Body Horror: Gluttony. It's mostly muscles, a sack under the chin, giant teeth tied to its fingers as nails, and all food literally passes through it.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Death, see Greater-Scope Paragon below. Shapeless, although it adheres more to Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- Dead Guy Junior: Death wanted to name Grim "Death Jr.". Shapeless was not amused.
- Dead Pan Snarker: Shapeless.Death: Then why aren't you helping me?Shapeless: Isn't it obvious? "All of my creations" except for you "have wrecked this world and everything I touch is a failure" if I remember your words correctly. So we obviously want this creature to inherit your flawless features.
- Death too, though not as often. Particularly after explaining what the Shapeless are.
Death: Unfortunately, the one we've got has been long defective, and they refuse to send another. - Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Death is not remotely afraid of Shapeless, and has no trouble calling the old man out.
- Eldritch Abomination: Several.
- The seven deadly sins are amalgamations of souls, marked by their sins in life. They're controlled by corrupt vermin, a form of parasite.
- The Shapeless are formless entities that create and supervise entire galaxies, and appoints deities for each world therein.
- The Ghost: Death's "brothers" (implied to be the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse) have only been vaguely mentioned by Shapeless.
- Giver of Lame Names: Death is hardly all that creative on the naming front, having originally intended to call Grim "Death Jr."
- God Is Displeased: The story kicks of because of this.
- God Is Flawed: Death. He has some anger issues, and takes it out on his son, but he's ultimately trying to protect what little is left of the souls that remain.
- God Is Inept: Death certainly has this view of Shapeless.
- Greater-Scope Paragon: Death, ironically. He's a horrendous father, but he's the one most interested in preserving souls, he's the only one brave enough to call Shapeless out on his bullshit, and he's outright enraged when Shapeless reveals that Grim is unwittingly destroying souls.
- The Grim Reaper: Death is the original. Grim is his successor.
- Holy Is Not Safe: Gluttony lives in a church. Just to further cement the poetic despair.
- Horsemen Of Theapocalypse: Death, obviously, but Shapeless also alluded to his brothers.
- The Maker: Shapeless is one of many beings like him, each of which create and superwise a galaxy. He has done a less than excellent job at it.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Death is an anthropomorphic dragon skeleton.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Ripa has en unfortunate habit of preferring frontal assault even when she could easily use stealth. Lampshaded by some comments.
- Mad God: Life has gone completely of the deep end. Dangerously. Her introducgion has her rambling about the beauty of life while tormenting a poor and hideously pregnant soul.
- Meaningful Name: Grim is a grim reaper. Ripa is far more aggressive than him, so she's more of a reaper.
- Mooks: The "children" of the sins. They're more like Elite Mooks, but Death and Ripa are badass enough to treat them like mooks.
- Never My Fault: Shapeless, kinda. He recognizes his mistakes in creating the current world, and works to better himself, but when Death calls him out on his methods of doing so, destroying the "corrupted" souls of his previous creation, he simply hand waves it as Grim destroying the souls, not him.
- No-Sell: Gluttony is neither affected by Grim's touch or scythe. It's because its body is only a puppet.
- Odd Couple: Life and Death were together before the present age.
- Pungeon Master: Ripa enjoys throwing out wordplay. She doesn't actually know why she always does puns, but it's implied to be something she got from her "father".
- Seven Deadly Sins: What happens when lost souls have nowhere to go. Hideous amalgamations of souls.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Grim dislikes killing. Ironically, since he's death.
- Touch of Death: Grim. Death had it before Grim was created.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Shapeless plans to create a perfect world. If it has to destroy countless souls to do so, so be it. Death disagrees.
- Was Once a Man: Saint Peter shows up in chapter four, resembling a sort of gilded rat-thing. According to
Word of God, he is the same Peter of Galilee in the Bible, but his years in Heaven and service to God has transformed him.
