30 Days Of Night Spreading The Disease #1 (Cover A - Alex Sanchez)
© IDW

Mania Grade: A-
Issue: 1
Authors: Dan Wickline, Alex Sanchez, Jay Fotos
Publisher: IDW
Price: $3.99
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"30 Days Of Night: Spreading The Disease #1"

Spreading the Disease stands as the first sequel to the original 30 Days of Night series written by somone other than Steve Niles.  Co-owner of the property, Ben Templesmith, contributed one of the three covers available, but Dan Wickline – co-writer of last year’s Dead Space miniseries – penned this one on his own with Alex Sanchez drawing and Jay Fotos providing the colors.  Where Dead Space felt like a bid to take the property into newer, out-of-left-field territory – all horror series end up in space – Spreading the Disease treats the idea of vampires in space with surprising gravity.  While the subject matter seems a bit absurd on the surface, Wickline seems to realize that a b-movie horror – a giant monster or vampires aboard a shuttle – would carry grave consequences for the rest of the world.   

FBI agent Michael Henson finds himself transferred from Washington D.C. to Mobile, Alabama after his efforts to expose the terrible events aboard the shuttle Icarus from Dead Space.  After cleaning out his office, he receives a cell phone call that advises him to investigate the vampire attack in Florida.  Henson’s “Deep Throat” suggests that someone infected Commander Cobb intentionally, knowing that he’d turn aboard the shuttle and wreak havoc.  Henson leaves for Florida during the interval between his D.C. job and his new position in Mobile.  He learns that the crew of the Icarus gathered at a nearby bar the night before their departure.  Commander Cobb encountered a young woman who, for reasons unknown, sent him running to the men’s room like no drink could.  Unfortunately for Henson, Dwayne – a Renfield of sorts – overhears his conversation and alerts the greater powers responsible for the events of Dead Space.  Before Henson tracks down the saucy brunette from the bar, he’ll have it out with a vampire brute in a parking garage and prove that penlights have more than one use.  When he finds the brunette at her job in a local hospital, he sees the very special supplement she’s administered to her bedridden patients. 

While Spreading the Disease lacks Niles’s quirky, idiosyncratic dialogue, it makes up for its more interchangeable characters with a compelling mystery reminiscent of the better moments in The X-Files.  Wickline sets up an omnipresent evil in the vampire hierarchy trying to kill Henson, leaving him with no place to run.  At every corner he turns, the vampires wait.  One hopes that by the end, we can see just how high the conspiracy travels.  Alex Sanchez and Jay Fotos’s combined visual efforts leave us with a book worthy of Ben Templesmith’s earlier issues.  They match his darkness and bleak mood, with less of his abstract style.  I enjoy both, but some readers may prefer the more realistic look of this and the last few 30 Days of Night titles by other artists.  Spreading the Disease leaves no doubt that the series remains safe in Wickline’s capable hands. 

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