Spread, Vol. 3: No Safe Place

Spread #12-17

by Justin Jordan, Jen Hickman (Artist), Felipe Sobreiro (Artist)

No and company have found their way to Sanctuary, the last piece of civilization in the Quarantine Zone. But they're going to find that even here, there's no place the Spread hasn't touched as they find new enemies and old allies.
The science fiction horror epic by JUSTIN JORDAN and KYLE STRAHM & FELIPE SOBREIRO continues here.

Genres: Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Comic Book, Dystopia, Graphic Novels Comics

184 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 2016

About the author

Justin Jordan is an American comic book writer. He is known for writing and co-creating The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, Spread, Dead Body Road, Deep State, Dark Gods and Savage Things. He has also written Green Lantern: New Guardians, Superboy, Deathstroke and Team 7 for DC Comics and the relaunch of Shadowman for Valiant Entertainment.

In 2012, he was nominated for the Harvey Award for Most Promising New Talent.

Reviews

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorifying.

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[CS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

The best issues were the tightly plotted backstories of Molly and Jack. Molly has your sappy rape backstory (of course), and Jack's felt very typical too - and yet, I felt they really painted a good picture of these characters in this story.

I can barely remember the previous volumes, but this was enjoyable enough. Gory AF but I think the story is actually going somewhere instead of flailing about until the money dries up.

[Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5? Meh. A real lack of originality. It's sad because the second one picked up so nicely. I'll probably give it one more volume to see....

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

No wakes up from his coma in a town called Sanctuary. He is surprised the town exists, considering the reach of the Spread. The towspeople are already plotting something concerning Molly and Hope, but it doesn't include No who is highly suspicious of them.

No and Molly's former friend Raven are convinced something is wrong in Sanctuary and intend to leave together with Molly and Hope. The Sanctuary leader Cameron eventually reveals that he wants to kill Hope to prevent the baby from being used as a weapon. He can control the Spread and this is how he keeps Sanctuary safe. A fight breaks out between Cameron and the townspeople on one side and No and Raven on the other. No, Raven and Molly get away, in part thanks to Hope's Spread-destroying saliva.

The last scene reveals that Ravello has survived the fight with the Spread and has been mutated by it. He is back in the game and aiming for No's group.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continues to skate along at a good, middle-of-the-road kind of pace. There's nothing really great here and nothing too terrible, either. This time, we get origin stories for Molly and Jack and regular artist Strahm is nowhere to be seen (I guess he did some covers). The gang finds Sanctuary, a fortress city with power and cars that run on biodiesel and they're going to get the sewage plant going any day now. The place looks too good to be true and No and Jack are suspicious. Plus a bunch of short little vignettes in the world of Spread from a variety of different writers and artists. It's not all bad.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume Three has a few treats: backstories for Molly and Fat Jack, and a new location for the heroes to visit. No actually has some decent lines beyond the one word that gave him his name. There's a hint that the Spread is actually intelligent. And a new setting suggests there are other ways to live with the Spread as a fact of life.

Down side: some short stories at the end from different creators about other people living in this world. None of those were long enough to really give me any decent insight into the (mostly) new characters. I kinda hope the last two trades don't have more of those.

[Highland G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t a huge fan of the original art but at least it was consistent. This volume is plagued with too many cooks. We get a few brief origin stories that felt a bunch filler and a little progress in the main story. Oh and a few random extra shorts in the back.
Pretty disappointing vol, I hope the next one is better.

[jcw3-john · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite of the three volumes I've read so far - Cameron & Sanctuary are great new concepts - Cameron's reluctant association with a demon, Sanctuary's too-good-to-be-true nature getting its reveal and inevitable clusterfuck conclusion, plus solid backstories for Molly and Jack that both worked well. 9/10, A-.

[David Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
A lot of the same as before, gory Blob monsters. Got some backstory on Molly and Jack. No & crew get to sanctuary, but it isn't really safe. Some interesting bonus side stories in the back, wonder if we'll meet any of these characters again.

[Jason Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

the change of artists was offputting at first, but after the third issue collected in this TPB the new regular guy is pretty good.

The story arc is pretty cool.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another good volume.

[Nadinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

having the context into molly's character was cool

[Bene Vogt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Profits immensely from the absence of the original artist. Suddenly, the action scenes actually have a sense of place and position and all characters are clearly identifiable.
The story itself moves forward at a good pace and starts going more into the mythology of the universe in a satisfying manner.

[Paul Allard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sanctuary's fate inter-woven with Molly and Hope's

This comic collection continues the tale of a post-apocalyptic world in which the Spread continues to kill. Sanctuary is an area with the promise of safety but all is not what it seems and Molly and Hope's ability to fight the Spread is the centre of the plot.

With much bloodshed and death as well as a lot of characterisation, this volume delivers for those who enjoy this type of thing but I got bored with it. I don't think that I'll bother with Volume 4.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally, we get to see back story for some of the characters -- and Molly's, while heartbreaking, is a little bit predictable. Is there any end-of-days scenario in which some scummy, sexist, rapist fuck-face begins to take care of a group of people in exchange for being allowed to keep a harem of women that he is allowed to do with as he pleases? Because I have yet to see it. The day I read THAT comic is the day I will rejoice.

And that made it sound like I didn't enjoy this series, which I most definitely do. It's violent and horrific and the evolving mythos of how the Spread has come to be is fascinating, creepy, and compulsively readable. The female characters are pretty brutalized, but then, so is everyone who is still living in this bizarre, Spread-infested world. I'd like to see a return to the earlier, more capable Molly in the near future, though.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good character development and full of shocking imagery.