Titan Comics Review: Blade Runner 2019 #3

Review: Blade Runner 2019 #3

[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]

Writers:   Mike Johnson and Michael Green

Artists:  Andres Guinaldo

Colors:  Marco Lesko

Letters:   Jim Campbell

Reviewed by: Carl Bryan

Summary

The case goes hot for veteran Blade Runner Ash! As the Detective closes in on her Replicant quarry, the hunter becomes the hunted.  An all-new ongoing comic series from the pen of Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Michael Green (Blade Runner 2049, Logan, American Gods).  Longtime co-writer Mike Johnson (Supergirl, Star Trek), and artist Andres Guinaldo (Justice League Dark, Captain America) get in on the ground floor of this amazing work.  The first comic to tell original and in-canon stories set in the Blade Runner universe!

Blade Runner Aahna ” Ash” Ashina of the Los Angeles Police Department has been assigned to investigate the disappearance of Isobel and Cleo Selwyn, the wife and daughter of business tycoon, Alexander Selwyn.

Using data retrieved from Isobel’s abandoned Spinner, Ash followed Isobel’s trail and found herself confronting a Replicant who had genetically “aged himself up” as an old man to avoid detection.  Ash has shot and wounded him after he attacked her, but he was still able to escape.  He tells Ash, as he flees, to “ask Alexander Selwyn why he wants his daughter dead.”

Meanwhile, Isobel and Cleo have made contact with an underworld community that lives beneath the streets of Los Angele.  Its leader, Malik,  also runs an underground railway that helps Replicants to escape.  After Ash reports back to Selwyn on the progress of her investigation, her own Spinner is attacked in mid-air by another craft, sending her crashing to the streets below.

And this is how we start!

Positives

First, the story telling is awesome and writers Mike Johnson and Michael Green  have found the right way to approach the Blade Runner franchise!  Harrison Ford’s Dekker burns into our brain and this is not your father’s Blade Runner!  Ash is everything you want in a Blade Runner…battered and bruised from being shot down in her spinner, with a broken arm.  She embodies her movie predecessor!

The rain is omnipresent in Blade Runner! The rain has to be a character in anything Blade Runner related.  The comic would not be the same without frame upon frame of rain.  Ash’s overcoat simply screams to be wet with rain!

The artwork is phenomenal.  Disheveled Ash going into the offices of Tyrell Corporation…”I’ve got an appointment I didn’t make with someone I don’t know”…that line is written gold!  And the detective nuances that you as the reader get to enjoy when the Jim Campbell bolds “Ms Ash” so she knows that even the front desk knows she doesn’t have her detective status.  That’s good story telling all around!  You can hear the high heels hollow stepping in the “beast belly” as Ash puts it!

We didn’t think of a whole force of Blade Runners, but Johnson and Green have started a whole new rainy playground for us to explore!

The environments change from a rainy city to a hot urban desert street…the colors are vivid and the storyline is strong!  Ash now works for the Tyrell Corporation, but still has a Blade Runner mentality!  Let the games begin!

Negatives

Crickets are chirping as you need to check this out!  if you are a fan of Science Fiction, and Pulp Noir, this is your comic!

Verdict

This is a must have for my book shelf as I love an old idea with a new concept!