Bloodthirsty: One Nation Under Water

Bloodthirsty: One Nation Under Water
Bloodthirsty: One Nation Under Water, cover artist Nick Runge
Publication information
Publisher	Titan Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Genre	Thriller
Publication date	September, 2015 - February, 2016
Number of issues	5
Main character(s)	Virgil LaFleur Simon Wolfinger Mother Taneesha Dante Dr. Andrea Yoshimi
Creative team as of January 2015
Writer(s)	Mark Landry
Penciller(s)	Ashley Witter, Richard Pace, Georges Jeanty
Inker(s)	Ashley Witter, Richard Pace, Dexter Vines
Colorist(s)	Ashley Witter, Sian Mandrake & Justin Prokowich
Creator(s)	Mark Landry
Editor(s)	Tom Williams, John Hazners, Chris Fortier
Collected editions
Bloodthirsty: One Nation Under Water

Bloodthirsty: One Nation Under Water is a five-issue creator-owned comic book limited series written by American writer Mark Landry (of Teen Beach Movie) and published by British comics publisher Titan. The interior art was penciled by Ashley Witter and Richard Pace, and includes a three-page epilogue drawn by Georges Jeanty. Interior colorists were Ashley Witter, and the team of Sian Mandrake and Justin Prokowich. The publisher offered variant covers for each issue, including one cover each by Ashley Witter, one by Nick Runge, one by Georges Jeanty, and two by Joel Carpenter. Series editors included Tom Williams (Titan), John Hazners and Chris Fortier.

The story begins with Coast Guard rescue swimmer Virgil LaFleur as he rescues victims of Hurricane Katrina from their rooftops in New Orleans in the aftermath of the infamous flood of 2005. When Virgil's younger brother, Trey, informs him that their parents have not checked in at the evacuee station at Louis Armstrong airport, Virgil gets his Coast Guard pilot to take him to his parents' flooded neighborhood. There, Virgil swims through his parents' submerged home to find his parents stuck in their attic - his father already deceased and his mother near death. Virgil attempts to swim his mother out through the flooded house, but nearly drowns and is pulled from the water by Trey and another Coast Guard crew member.

Ten years later, the comic recaps that Virgil couldn't go near the water after the incident, and is now working as a ditch digger after having put his younger brother Trey through college (fulfilling a promise he made to his dying mother). A new storm - Rose - is on the horizon, and Virgil is planning to evacuate New Orleans forever. He begs Trey to go with him, but Trey - now a scientist - is in the middle of an exciting - and secretive - longevity project at Wolfinger Biomed, one of many companies owned by local carpetbagger Simon Wolfinger. Wolfinger is portrayed as a disaster capitalist who - along with partner-in-crime Howard Lawrence - preyed upon the city's weakened post-disaster status to enrich themselves through greed and corruption.

When Trey dies in a fire at Wolfinger Biomed, Virgil has reason to suspect that his brother was murdered. Having nothing left to live for, Virgil decides to investigate his brother's death, even if that means staying in New Orleans long enough to die in the coming hurricane. What he uncovers is an underground cabal of hemovores - "an organism that ingests blood as the main part of its diet." Unlike vampires, the hemovores in "Bloodthirsty" are not supernatural beings; they are humans with a mutated gene that controls longevity. Their bodies are in a constant state of repair, which deprives their cells of oxygen. In order to compensate for this loss, they must consume fresh (oxygenated) human blood daily or they will die.