SPREAD Issues # 1 – 12

Publisher: Image

Written by Justin Jordon

Regular Series Artist: Kyle Strahm, plus Guest Artists

Issue 12 Guest Artist: Jen Hickman

Spread is a mixed bag for me right now. I loved the first few issues, added it to my pull list, then ended up way behind. Last weekend, I binged read the first eleven issues, and have just read issue twelve, which came out this week.

The Spread is a very weird, deadly, organism that exists in a Quarantine Zone, where our characters are truly living a Hell on Earth. What the outside world is like, we don’t know.

I will write about issue twelve toward the end of this piece.

The entire series is fresh in my mind as I write this, all the characters are here: No, Molly, Hope, Jack and Ravallo. Except for No, who remains very enigmatic, the other characters are very well defined. Molly is, without any doubt, the best of the characters, the most interesting and my favorite.

No is our hero, who along with Molly, is trying to protect Hope a Spread Immune baby who seems to be able to kill the Spread. During the course of the story Jack is forced to join them, but his motivations stay unclear. Ravallo is the self-styled king of this world, and believes all is his.

The writing on the series is quiet solid. The regular art style is a perfect fit, the grittiness of it giving us a visual representation of this fractured world and broken people.

The reason I say this is a mixed bag is that I don’t feel the story is going anywhere. The journey right now isn’t compelling to me. The pace is going slowly, and I don’t feel the sense of urgency from the characters and the story that I feel I should.

Issue twelve is a flashback/origin story issue focusing on Molly. It gives us the backstory into how Molly became the character she is now. If the series is a mixed bag, this issue isn’t. It is easily the best and most powerful issue in the series to date.

Justin Jordan writes in the back of the issue that it was hard for him to write this story, and justifiable so. This issue deals with some very dark issues and events in the early life of Molly. Things that couldn’t leave someone unscarred, things that are hard to write about even if they are fiction.

Jordan and artist Jen Hickman handle this very delicately and with elegance. When you read the issue you will know what I mean.

It was hard for him to write, it is equally hard to read.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Mixed. It is a good series that I believe is bogged down by taking too long and going a little slow.

Issue Twelve is fantastic and a MUST READ.

RATING:
THE SERIES: 6
ISSUE TWELVE: 9