Spread #2

Writer - Justin Jordan
Art - Kyle Strahm
Publisher - Image

I was afraid this would happen.

Spread #1 was interesting, Co-Created by Justin Jordan of The Strange Talent of Luther Strode fame on the writing end and Kyle Strahm who has done art for mildly-popular books like Haunt and Proof on the drawing end. The comic is set in a post-apocalyptic and oppressively snowy world where mad-max like characters live in fear of an ever present and ever terrifying hulking red mass of tentacles and teeth known as The Spread. I liked the allusions to John Carpenter’s The Thing and I thought the titular monster was terrifying and well drawn but I thought naming a Wolverine rip-off of a main character No (seriously that’s his name, No) and naming the baby he protects Hope (No Hope, get it?) was sloppy and borderline corny storytelling at best. I decided to give Spread #2 a try despite my pensiveness and, I was let down.

The problem here isn’t the art. Kyle Strahm’s drawing is this book is spot on, I like that the snow effects are present behind the panels and I think he’s done a good job of creating real and visceral violence whenever No confronts human marauders or The Spread itself. The gore isn’t  extreme and I think it’s used to great effect to portray the brutality of a post-spread world. That being said, there’s an unnecessary amount of female nudity and Strahm has apparently never seen a real human baby because Hope, the driving force of the narration and humanity’s last hope (ugh), looks like a doll which can really ruin the tension of some otherwise tense moments.

Justin Jordan’s writing, on the other hand, needs help. We’re introduced to some new set pieces and characters in this issue two and, frankly, I think we shouldn’t have been because I had no idea what was going on. The storytelling here is shaky, the world building even shakier. The new characters and places we see, briefly, in this issue just scream derivative aside from one female character that may turn out to be interesting. Mad Max type things are cool, Mad Max rip offs aren’t. Let’s not get into how much like a post-apocalypse Wolverine No is turning out to be so far. The story is marginally better when it’s told mostly by Strahm’s art however. Fights with the Spread are fast paced, cool, and tense. This book succeeds when it’s titular Spread is at the forefront but it does little for readers as far as human characters go.

The “Image promise” means that creators have full control over their works at Image, no interference. Write what you want, draw what you want, and then Image publishes it for you. This promise has worked for creators like Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples with their massively successful Saga because creators like that have something original or at least interesting to say or do and Image gives them the means to communicate it. This promise isn’t working for Spread either because Jordan and Strahm haven’t figured out how to tell their story yet or, worse, because they have no idea what story they want to tell. Issue 3 is out in September and it’s either going to keep me pensively hopeful or have me take Spread off my pull list.