In the comic book you can just draw a goth chick, and a million women say "That's me" and you move on. But if you actually cast any of the women who'd like to think that's them it's not going to make anybody happy. She ceases to be "Everyman" well, every-goth-chick and becomes a specific individual.

So I think you probably specifically don't want to cast Death for resemblance to that image, much more than his other siblings. Actually I'd be tempted to cast Brad Pitt, and be like yeah what? But Brad is a bit old and a bit expensive, and that involves rewriting some stuff, so, sure, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, why not? Personally I think Brad's accent would have thrown me off more than Kirby not having pasty white skin.

I was pleasantly surprised by that; there's a (somewhat well-regarded) audiobook adaptation of the books, with James McAvoy as Morpheus and Kat Dennings (the older daughter in 40 Year Old Virgin, and, by appearances, a straight-out-of-central-casting choice for Death), and Death does not work at all in it.

I thought the original author's intention was to have a young and indefatigable character play the embodiment of the end of all things as a light irony and existential cotton candy balance to the grim reality of the job.

But I'll hold my real opinion until I see the whole show.

If I don't hear a bubbly "Peachy-keen!" I'll probably just sigh and roll my eyes. It's only TV. If I want the old thing I'll just reread the comics again.

Lucifer... sure, he's canonically without genitals anyway and decidedly uninterested in things like gender norms - and I'm actually excited to see Gwendolyn Christie portray the character.

Casting a black woman as Death goes directly against Gaiman's explicitly stated concept of how he imagined the character, and while she wears many guises, it seems wrong to just break the visual similarity (paleness) between the Endless. I really, really hope the actress can transport the character's essence (IMO first and foremost a kind of universial compassion and humor) sufficiently to make it not matter.

And then Lucien as a black woman... was that really necessary? At some point it just feels forced.

Someone then complained about disrespecting the artist and the model, and the artist responded he loved it too (the model has passed, but the artist, who was a close friend, said she would have loved it as well).

I did watch that clip from The Sound of Her Wings, and I thought she nailed the kindness aspect of Death. I do hope we'll also get some of fun, hopeful aspects too, but I haven't got t othose episodes yet.

The rest have done really well, even Death (who I didn’t get good vibes from in the lead up).

EDIT: Despair didn’t do much for me either. More emo teen than avatar of suffering.