Blade Runner 2019

This slick prequel comic to the 1982 film introduces Detective “Ash” Ashina, one of the first Blade Runners. Hired by mogul Alexander Selwyn to hunt down his missing wife and daughter, Ash is drawn into a mystery involving rogue android Replicants, medical experimentation, and the always-sinister Tyrell Corporation. The high-tech noir style, filled with carefully rendered cityscapes and machinery, fits the material like a glove; the Blade Runner universe has always looked like something out of a Heavy Metal comic, after all. Though the plot is new, the overall aesthetic will be familiar to anyone who’s seen the original film or Blade Runner 2049. The L.A. of the future is still dark and rain-spattered, Ash visits many of the iconic film locations, and the characters speak the expected hardboiled patois. The script even manages to work in a Replicant delivering a poetic monologue about memory à la Rutger Hauer’s “tears in the rain.” At the same time, the graphic novel introduces new cyberpunk concepts and expands the vision of a retro-futuristic urban society where the line between human and machine is rapidly blurring. If this spin-off sometimes hews too closely to the mood of the films to feel totally original, at least it’s a well-made tribute. [em](Nov.) [/em]