‘Blade Runner: 2029’ exclusive: Ash returns to the rain-soaked streets of future Los Angeles
Spinning out of the neon-splashed world of “Blade Runner,” a new sci-fi comic book series from London-based Titan Comics is set to strike with its premiere issue having just dropped onto the planet last month.
A sequel to Titan’s “Blade Runner: 2019” title, “Blade Runner: 2029” dropped Dec. 19 and is penned by “Blade Runner 2049’s” Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Michael Green alongside veteran comics writer Mike Johnson (“Star Trek,” “Supergirl”). The hardboiled atmospheric artwork comes courtesy of illustrator Andres Guinaldo (“Doctor Strange”), with colors via Marco Lesko and lettering from Jim Campbell.
One of the distinguishing features about these future-noir offerings is that they’re the first comics to tell original, in-canon stories emanating from the rain-streaked “Blade Runner” universe.
Related: Don’t Expect to See ‘Blade Runner’ Replicants Anytime Soon
The plotline finds Blade Runner Aahna “Ash” Ashina (first seen in “Blade Runner: 2019”) continuing to prowl the dark boulevards of dystopian Los Angeles for renegade Replicants, but instead of “retiring” dangerous androids, now she’s trying to protect as many as she can find.
After the Los Angeles Police Department gets an anonymous tip about Replicants working construction jobs on the Sepulveda Sea Wall, Ash is assigned to investigate.
When Ash reaches the Sea Wall site she spies a Replicant, who immediately bolts. When she finally catches up to him, the Replicant shouts a disturbing message before leaping to his death: “Yotun redeems.” The name Yotun triggers Ash to conduct research, where she discovers records of a Replicant who managed to escape her grasp back in 2017. Now her loyalties and humanity are rattled by a pair of Replicants, one offering salvation, the other delivering deadly damnation.
“It’s been an absolute honor to be a part of the “Blade Runner” universe, I’ve been a fan since I first saw the movie back in 1982,” Senior Editor David Leach tells Space.com. “And becoming the editor of this book has been a dream come true for me. I loved the journey that the creative team of Green, Johnson, Guinaldo, Lesko and Campbell took us on in that year-long first arc. And I have to say, hand on my heart, that this second year is shaping up to be something genuinely exceptional. Watching the script and art come in for this first issue of the second year has been a fantastic privilege, and I’m proud to be a part of something this exceptional.”
Check out our exclusive preview of Titan Comics’ “Blade Runner: 2029 #1” in the full gallery below, and let us know if this intense descent into the “Blade Runner” realm brings back all the noirish magic.
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