Review: Blade Runner Origins #4
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Publisher: Titan Comics
Writers:Â K Perkins, Mellow Brown, Mike Johnson
Artist: Fernando Dagnino
Colors:Â Marco Lesko
Letters: Â Jim Campbell
Reviewed by: Carl Bryan
Summary
Enter the world of Blade Runner: 2009 and Discover the untold origins of the Blade Runners!
Blade Runner Origins #4 – After the apparent suicide of Dr. Lydia Kine, a Tyrell Corporation bio engineer, was determined to be a murder committed by a Replicant, LAPD Detective Cal Moreaux begins tracking the presumed killer:Â a Nexus 5 prototype.
Positives
K Perkins, Mellow Brown, & Mike Johnson explore the game changer of Transference where the consciousness of a human can be placed in a Replicant. No one in the Blade Runner world possibly saw this coming as the movies simply inferred that these Replicants were humanistic labor “droids”.
Now we get even more meat on the bones with Origins! This story gets better and better with every turn of the page.
While this issue devotes itself to the chase and an intense game of “cat and mouse”, it results in some game changing moments in the life of both Asa as well as Detective Cal Moreaux.
Again, as this and the other Blade Runner books are canon, we can only infer that the movie characters are lurking somewhere in this origin story and quite possibly, However, these stories have the potential to explore numerous Blade Runners, but it is always good to search for the Easter Eggs in terms of what was inspired by the movies.
Positives 2.0
Fernando Dagnino …he captures the grit and the dirtiness and the neon of a Blade Runner LA. Now his facial expressions are what are to be explored now as the lines are being drawn between Cal and Ilora. We see that crescendo in the story coming, but it is through Dagnino’s pencils where we will really get to see the impact of the story.
The rain! In LA! What a backdrop always that lets you know, something is always amiss in this environment. I love that there is seldom sunshine in this environment as it sets a pulp noir mood immediately. You can almost hear the solitude and loneliness of everyone that inhabits this universe.
Negatives
Crickets are chirping as you need to check this out! This comic is what we have been craving as a prequel in expanding our knowledge of the Blade Runner universe. We get to really see the seeds of what the Tyrell Corp puts into play. Replicants….are they more human than we are? With this new revelation, they are a continuation of ….well US. Scary stuff!
Verdict
We get to really see the seeds of what the Tyrell Corp puts into play.  Cal has a cliff hanger of an ending which may be the spark of Blade Runners. Perhaps? If it was, it was perfectly sequenced and drawn. When you think this comic cannot get any better and is on cruise control, it definitely accelerates to the passing lane to give you an adrenaline rush!
