Subspecies #1 is published by Action Lab Entertainment under their Danger Zone imprint, copyright Full Moon Features. It is written by Cullen Bunn and Jimmy Z with art by Daniel J. Logan.
If you’re wondering why a film company has a copyright on a new comic series, it’s because back in 1991, there began a direct-to-video horror film series with the very first film being titled, you guessed it, Subspecies.
The movie follows a group of college students, Mara, Lillian, and Michelle, with Michelle being the actual main character of the film series…minus that one spin-off. But anyway, long story short: these three girls go to a small town in Romania to study folklore and culture (definitely not a generic horror movie set-up).
They inadvertently get involved in a power struggle between vampire brothers Stefan and Radu. Radu is the evil vampire, they eventually kill him (spoiler alert: Lillian and Mara die as they are not the main female lead), but not before he can bite Michelle, forcing Stefan to turn her into a full vampire so she doesn’t become like Radu.
Still following me? Great.
So there are four other movies in this franchise, but one is a spin-off and a couple characters are only kind of mentioned in this first issue…so I don’t know how relevant the other characters from the spin-off will be. But we essentially pick up from the end of Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm, where Michelle has killed Radu for the 3rd and “final” time.
Obviously he’s not dead because then we wouldn’t have a comic. So we have Michelle, who has become a nurse and done her best to adjust to life as a vampire. She satisfies her thirst for blood using the bloodstone, a mystical artifact from the movies the produces blood, and her job as a nurse allows her to work nights without it seeming suspicious that she’s not out during the daytime.
I don’t know the time gap between the comic and movie, but I’d say two-to-three years given that she’s a full-on nurse now. In this time, Michelle has ceased to worry about Radu coming back, little does she know, he’s been back and he’s been looking for her. He’s also been collecting a small posse of minions in the process. Then one night, he shows up at the hospital she works at and instantly, the life she had finally managed to make for herself is over.
I haven’t seen all of the Subspecies movies and to be honest, I watched the first one, one time, years ago. So I can pretty confidently say that Cullen Bunn and Jimmy Z don’t make you feel like you have to have seen all the movies in order to follow what’s happening.
As we watch Michelle throughout her day, she is recounting her past, important details that led her to this point, but not so many details that its overwhelming. We don’t need all of the information, we just need the basics. The rest is meant to unfold as this new tale does. I like Michelle’s character too. She’s intelligent and while she has learned some vampire tricks here and there, she isn’t like…Blade level of badass. She seems human. She is human. She just also happens to have to drink blood to survive and can’t be in the sunlight. But she is otherwise ordinary and relatable.
The art might need to grow on me. I can see what Daniel J. Logan is going for and on certain pages it works and it looks eerie and dark and menacing, but on other pages it falls flat and doesn’t feel quite right. Radu looks solid, but Michelle feels awkward. She doesn’t feel natural in some of her drawn poses. I do like her vampire face though. I want to see more of that.
OVERALL SCORE: 7.5 / 10
I think we have a lot of potential here and I have complete faith in Cullen Bunn’s ability to write excellent horror. So make sure you pick up a copy of Subspecies from your local comic shop! Happy reading!
