History ComicBook / LadyDeath

* ArchnemesisDad: Hope's father is not Dad of the Year material, being the one responsible for her current condition.

* MarkOfShame: Her pale skin and hair are represent a sign as someone who made made a deal with the demons and ended up in Hell in their own volition, in contrast to other Blackland inhabitants who were either born or sent there upon death.

* BigBad: Lady Death herself served this role in the original Evil Ernie comics, being the driving force behind the titular VillainProtagonist. In her own titles, she faced various threats, including Satan, at least one EldritchAbomination and more recently, the Death Queen [[spoiler: her own mother]].

* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: She generally pulls three reactions from women: seething jealousy, attempts to destroy her, or... (And they're not mutually exclusive!)

* [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas Even Bad Girls Love Their Mamas]]:

* FeudalOverlord: Lady Death's father Matthias[=/=]Marius was a textbook example: a brutal nobleman that forcibly conscripted his peasants to fight in the Baltic Crusades (all while secretly dabbling in dark magic worshiping the devil). His cruelty ended up triggering a uprising that lead to Hope being captured and executed as witch.

* HeroicAlbino ''and'' EvilAlbino: She flip-flops between the two. One moment she is plotting to destroy mankind, in the next she is the one thing standing against demons that are even worse than her.

* SexyScandinavian: In her original backstory, Lady Death hailed from Sweden and is definitely sexy and while her pale complexion and hair doesn't indicate it, she is a tall, blue-eyed blonde in her human form. Other incarnations varied from French, Russian and Austrian in origin, but her recent comics seem to have stuck with her Swedish background.

* SinkOrSwimMentor: Wargoth, Lady Death's mentor in the Avatar Press comics. He pledged himself to teach her how survive in the Blacklands, but he makes it clear that he decides how to do it and it often involves putting Hope against great dangers without warning that would likely kill anybody else. One particular [[JerkAss asshole]] example: in order to acquire an InfinitePlusOneSword held by a local king, he arranged to sell Hope and Satasha as concubines to him, placing them in a very degrading situation with the possibility of them getting raped. When they succeed in fighting them off, its revealed Wargoth and the king were working together the whole time and have set up the whole situation as a test for Hope. She was most definitely ''[[{{Understatement}} not amused]]'' when she found out.

* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: She generally pulls three reactions from women: seething jealousy, attempts to destroy her, or... (And they're not mutually exclusive!)

%%* WomanInBlack

* LipstickLesbian: Satasha is every bit the MsFanservice as Lady Death, and is revealed to be in relationship with a woman called Fenn. [[spoiler: Sadly, her girlfriend is killed by one of Death ueen's monsters, as soon as she is introduced.]]

* WhiteHairBlackHeart: Most definitely in her introduction where she planned mankind's extinction. But as time went on, she became less evil and qualified less for the trope. The Death Queen, on the other hand plays this straight.

* LipstickLesbian: Satasha is every bit the MsFanservice as Lady Death, and is revealed to be in relationship with a woman called Fenn. [[spoiler: Sadly, her girlfriend is killed by one of Death ueen's monsters, as soon as she is introduced.]]

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: In order to go back to Earth.

* MsFanservice: She is ludicrously well-endowed and wore a very {{Stripperiffic}} armor with OperaGloves with ThighHighBoots that only enhanced her outstanding figure.

%%* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt

* HalfHumanHybrid: In her Cross Gen incarnation, she is half-human, half-Eldritch.

* LightIsNotGood: The angels are hardly better than the demons.

* SexyScandinavian: In her original backstory, Lady Death hailed from Sweden and is definitely sexy. While her appearance doesn't indicate it, she is a tall, blue-eyed blonde in her human form.

* BigBad: Various, including Satan and at least one EldritchAbomination.

* SexyScandinavian: In her original backstory, Lady Death hailed from Sweden and is definitely sexy. While her appearance doesn't indicate it, she is a blue-eyed blonde in her human form.

%%* HeroicAlbino ''and'' EvilAlbino.

* SmellsSexy: In one story, Heaven tries to get her on their side, so they send an angel whose scent is intoxicating. A female angel.
** ChainmailBikini: She has sometimes ditched them... for "armor" made of bones and such that cover the same amount.
** CollaredByFashion: Usually she wears a choker fastened with a skull emblem, but sometimes her cape has a high enclosed collar.

* MsFanservice

* LikeABadassOutOfHell: The 'takes over' version.

* MostCommonSuperpower: Oh yes. One sketchbook of Pulido's established Lady Death as officially a 38D, though it of course varies depending on artist and continuity; that figure ([[IncrediblyLamePun ahem]]) dates to the later Chaos days. She was even larger when she first started, rivalling other [[JustForPun titans]] of the industry like PowerGirl and SheHulk.

* DarkAge: Specifically, she all but started the "Bad Girl" craze.

* AnimatedAdaptation - In the form of ''Lady Death: The Motion Picture'', animated by [[Creator/SunminAnimation Koreans]] and distributed by Creator/ADVFilms.

* BigBad - Various, including Satan and at least one EldritchAbomination.
* TheBlacksmith - In the classic series, Cremator. There was also a mute blacksmith in the Avatar series, but he wasn't nearly so important.
* BullyingADragon - Now and again, people really don't take her as seriously as they should.
* {{Crossover}} - Quite often. The "Nexus of All Things" in hell, through which she searched for an Earth she could go to, made most of them possible.
* DarkAge - Specifically, she all but started the "Bad Girl" craze.

* EvenTheGirlsWantHer - She generally pulls three reactions from women: seething jealousy, attempts to destroy her, or... (And they're not mutually exclusive!)
* GoGoEnslavement - An early subplot, though she manages to escape before anything untoward happens, but included in the art:
** SlaveCollar - A big heavy metal one, so large it counts for CollaredByFashion.

* TheGrimReaper - In some stories, he's sort of her boss.
* HeroicBSOD - When Lady Death [[spoiler:finds out pretty much everything after Satan's "death"" was his manipulating her]], she suffers this and gets transformed into another creature, Lady Demon.
* ImpossibleHourglassFigure - Not ''always'', mind...
* IntercontinuityCrossover - With Top Cow, among others.
* LightIsNotGood - The angels are hardly better than the demons.
* LikeABadassOutOfHell - The 'takes over' version.
* LooksLikeSheIsEnjoyingIt - More than a few parts where she was in trouble were drawn like something else entirely, such as one scene where she was very sick, lying naked on a bed with red silk sheets, sweating and groaning as her muscles apparently underwent uncontrollable "painful" spasms...

* LoyalAnimalCompanion - Lady Death has three; two Nameless Wolves and a horse named Vassago.
** KickTheDog - [[spoiler:A secondary villain kills one of them and makes its hide into a suit.]]
** BondCreatures - Vassago would not let anyone else ride him. In fact, he's rather...violently insistent.
* MaleGaze - ...have you been paying attention to this page at all?
* MostCommonSuperpower - Oh yes. One sketchbook of Pulido's established Lady Death as officially a 38D, though it of course varies depending on artist and continuity; that figure ([[IncrediblyLamePun ahem]]) dates to the later Chaos days. She was even larger when she first started, rivalling other [[JustForPun titans]] of the industry like PowerGirl and SheHulk.
* {{Motifs}} - As might be expected, bones and skulls are quite common; most commonly, the metal bits of her clothing (usually fasteners and the like) are almost always golden skulls.
* NippleAndDimed - Even in the few treatments where other female characters showed it, Lady Death herself has never been completely exposed.
* OmnicidalManiac - She just wants to go home. But she has to be this to get there.
** KillAllHumans - Specifically, by doing this.
* PowerCreepPowerSeep - Understandable, as Lady Death usually starts with no control over her powers and she has to learn it. One particular version:
** InfinityPlusOneSword - Every sword she gets is more powerful and more suited to her powers than the last.
** SinisterScythe - On the subject, she only has one in promo art, never in combat.
* PsychoLesbian - Purgatori, one of Lady Death's many enemies during the Chaos! days, contemplates her seduction when she's not plotting her destruction.
* SensibleHeroesSkimpyVillains - What few truly heroic characters there were usually adhered to the trope, while Lady Death herself is pretty typical of how much fabric most villains wore.
* ShoppingMontage - Used when she arrives in the modern world and has to blend in.
* SmellsSexy - In one story, Heaven tries to get her on their side, so they send an angel whose scent is intoxicating. A female angel.
** ChainmailBikini - She has sometimes ditched them... for "armor" made of bones and such that cover the same amount.
** CollaredByFashion - Usually she wears a choker fastened with a skull emblem, but sometimes her cape has a high enclosed collar.
* SociopathicHero - She's really only the protagonist because everyone arrayed against her is worse.

* InfinityPlusOneSword - Every sword she gets is more powerful and more suited to her powers than the last.

* SlaveCollar - A big heavy metal one, so large it counts for CollaredByFashion.

* KickTheDog - [[spoiler:A secondary villain kills one of them and makes its hide into a suit.]]
* BondCreatures - Vassago would not let anyone else ride him. In fact, he's rather...violently insistent.

* KillAllHumans - Specifically, by doing this.

* SinisterScythe - On the subject, she only has one in promo art, never in combat.

* ChainmailBikini - She has sometimes ditched them... for "armor" made of bones and such that cover the same amount.
* CollaredByFashion - Usually she wears a choker fastened with a skull emblem, but sometimes her cape has a high enclosed collar.

* AnimatedAdaptation - In the form of ''Lady Death: The Motion Picture'', animated by [[SunminAnimation Koreans]] and distributed by Creator/ADVFilms.

** AdaptationDistillation: "Kill all humans" was completely removed from this version, playing her as a straight hero. Her father Matthias and Lucifer also were made [[CompositeCharacter the same person instead of two characters fighting each others]].

* ChainmailBikini - On occasion.

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt

* FanService - She has ''several'' swimsuit specials, resulting, when the story would not normally allow it, in:
** BarelyThereSwimwear
** BikerBabe
** BoobsAndButtPose
** BoundAndGagged
** BraidsBeadsAndBuckskins
** CombatTentacles
** FurBikini
** LadyInRed
** NubileSavage
** OfCorsetsSexy
** PoolScene
** SeashellBra
** ATasteOfTheLash

** SlaveCollar - A big heavy metal one, so large it counts for CollaredByFashion.
* HeroicAlbino ''and'' EvilAlbino.

* LesbianVampire - Purgatori

* LonelyAtTheTop

** CanineCompanion
*** {{Hellhound}}
*** SavageWolves
*** KickTheDog - [[spoiler:A secondary villain kills one of them and makes its hide into a suit.]]
** CoolHorse
*** BondCreatures - Vassago would not let anyone else ride him. In fact, he's rather...violently insistent.
*** HellishHorse
*** RearingHorse

** ToplessnessFromTheBack
** WaterfallShower

** KillAllHumans - Specifically, by doing this.

** InfinityPlusOneSword - Every sword she gets is more powerful and more suited to her powers than the last.
*** SinisterScythe - On the subject, she only has one in promo art, never in combat.

* ShesGotLegs

* {{Sideboob}}
** {{Underboobs}}

* {{Stripperiffic}} - Oh hell yes. Specifically (or at least most commonly):
** BadassCape
** BareYourMidriff even when she ''is'' wearing reasonable street clothes
** BlackBraAndPanties - SpandexLatexOrLeather, DependingOnTheArtist
*** ChainmailBikini - She has sometimes ditched them... for "armor" made of bones and such that cover the same amount.
** CollaredByFashion - Usually she wears a choker fastened with a skull emblem, but sometimes her cape has a high enclosed collar.
** CombatStilettos - Usually hip-high boots.
** ExposedToTheElements - And this hell doesn't only have fiery environments.
** HellBentForLeather
** OperaGloves
*** FingerlessGloves - Yes, both at the same time. Sometimes the glove's middle finger is intact.
** SensibleHeroesSkimpyVillains - And pretty much everyone's evil...
** StockingFiller - With a garter belt.
** ThighHighBoots
** ThongOfShielding
** UnderwearOfPower

* WomanInBlack

In 1991, on the pages of ''Evil-Ernie'', a comic written by Brian Pulido for Eternity Comics, the eponymous character encountered, in his delusions, a beautiful, pale woman. He fell in love with her, and she exhorted him to commit Megadeath, the extermination of every human on Earth, so they could be together. She was Lady Death.

** AdaptationDistillation: "Kill all humans" was completely removed from this version, playing her as a straight hero.

*** [[BigBadassWolf Big Badass Wolves]]

In 2001, Chaos! Comics folded. Pulido lost the rights to all of his characters except Lady Death. He licensed Lady Death was picked up by {{CrossGen}} Comics, who took the character in a new direction. In ''Lady Death: A Medieval Tale'', an ongoing series, which takes place entirely on Earth, humanity is at war with [[TheFairFolk the Eldritch]], who raid and pillage human cities bordering their lands. Though quick and powerful with magic, they are kept back by a relative lack of physical strength and their aversion to Christian iconography. During one raid, a noble (as in high-ranking) Eldritch finds himself intrigued by a human woman, who accepts him for a time. Nine months later, the woman gives birth to a girl, whom she names Hope. As she grows up, strange things happen around her, and one day in the market, a man notices her eyes briefly turn white, looking like those of an Eldritch. Asking her mother, Hope is told of her father. Before much more can be revealed to her, though, the townsfolk, riled up by the man who noticed Hope's eyes earlier, storm their house. Defending her mother, Hope is injured, but the wound heals instantly. Seeing this as proof of her evil, the townsfolk take them to the river and drown them. Soon after, Hope's father arrives, and tries to heal them, but is apparently unsuccessful...yet after he leaves, she is revived, and now her appearance matches that of her father's lineage--pale as death, with hair and eyes to match. Desiring revenge, she attacks the town, but they are too many for her. The intervention of a wandering warrior named Wolfram von Bach saves her, and they leave. After burying Hope's mother, Wolfram begins to teach her all he knows of Eldritch and swordplay alike, and warns her that sooner or later she must choose a side...

When Crossgen folded in 2004, Creator/AvatarPress picked up the license, and not only continued CrossGen's take with ''Medieval Lady Death'', but also created a new series that returned the character to her roots. A young woman named Hope was the daughter of Mary and Marius. Marius was a crusader who had a tendency to return from battles without any of his peasant levies, only his most loyal soldiers surviving with him. Hope came to realize the evil that her father was doing, and along with her mother followed him to secret tunnels where they found him summoning dark wraiths, who refer to him as Sagos. Sagos is offering a sacrifice of masses of peasant in exchange for a domain in The Labyrinth, a dark world of the afterlife. When he spots them, Sagos, revealing himself as a being possessing Marius, steals Mary away through a portal, leaving Hope behind. At this point, the peasant rebellion finally catches up, and when they find that Marius has escaped, settle for attempt to execute Hope for his crimes. She utters the incantation Sagos used, and the dark wraiths agree to let her through the portal if she pledges her soul to The Labyrinth. When she passes through, her skin, hair, and eyes become white, the mark of those who willingly go through, and she ends up in a waste called the Blacklands. There she meets a man named Wargoth, who after seeing the natural inclination she now possesses towards magic, agrees to help her in her travels. He also recruits a sorceress named Satasha to teach her, and trains her in battle himself, though every weapon she handles melting due to the uncontrolled magic she possesses slows this process considerably. Over two years, they find that Sagos's army is conquering the Blacklands and turning its denizens to undead, converting them to his cause. They finally track him down, but he is more than a match for all of them, and escapes, leaving them for dead. They survive, and Lady Death not only recovers a sword made for her that can withstand her touch and channel her power through it, but learns great mystic power... and that Sagos not only plans to conquer the Blacklands, not only plans to conquer Earth itself, but has the means to do it.