“Blade Runner 2019” wraps its run in “Volume 3: Home Again, Home Again” (Issues 9-12 and a Free Comic Book Day issue, 2020) by presenting a fresh spin on core “Blade Runner” lore. Such is the quality of this series – co-written by “Blade Runner 2049’s” Michael Green – that I was fascinated by the twist rather than rebelling against it.
Ash’s contradictory life
Volume 3 stars with the excellent FCBD issue that takes us through Ash’s life of contradictions. We see her mistreatment by human authority figures, then her own mistreatment of replicants as she embarks on her career as a blade runner.
Although Green and Mike Johnson use narration blocks – fitting with the saga’s noir tradition – it’s a credit to their pure writing that they don’t need to tell us Ash’s specific thoughts. Also helping are Ash’s facial expressions, portrayed by artists Andrews Guinaldo and Marco Lesko (colors).
“Blade Runner 2019” Issues 9-12 and FCBD (2020)
Subtitle: “Volume 3: Home Again, Home Again”
Writers: Michael Green and Mike Johnson
Art: Andres Guinaldo
Colors: Marco Lesko
After a brief expansion of the “Black Out 2022” short film’s events – where it’s open season on replicants in the wake of a semi-Judgment Day – Ash visits the ruins of the Tyrell building.
The rotting husk of Tyrell
It reminds me of “Buffy” Season 4 when we revisit the ruins of the Initiative. Corporate or governmental complexes can be awe-inspiring. But once they collapse, they can stand as monuments to hubris.
In Issue 9, we see how Tyrell Corp. collapsed overnight, as personified by a lab tech who has had a psychotic break and thinks he’s still working there. His underlings are the shells of replicants, now rotting as they sit at a conference table. Crazed replicants pound at his lab’s doors as he waits for security guards who will never come.
That’s the horrifying peak of “Blade Runner 2019’s” thematic journey. In Issues 10-12, the story heads toward the finish line in full-circle fashion that’s personal for Ash. Rather than Ash clearing her name and revealing the scheme of Selwyn, “2019” reveals that the authorities in 2026 Los Angeles can’t be trusted with anything.
So in callbacks to Volume 1, Ash revisits first the replicant underground railroad and then the exclusive Santa Barbara Islands where Selwyn has a mansion. At first blush, Ash’s relationship with a resistance fighter is underdeveloped. But I may have been faked out by reading it the wrong way, as the final page clarifies matters.
Coming full circle
The interplay between Selwyn, his daughter Cleo, and his wife Isobel – along with Selwyn’s henchwomen, identical replicants – wraps up in Issue 12. Selwyn also has a pet lion. Perhaps this is a nod to the final act of “Watchmen,” which taps into similar themes about evolution that’s creepily guided in laboratories.
But generally, things play out as I would’ve guessed. And it’s good that (fitting with Ridley Scott’s film) we don’t need a big action climax. Rather, everyone confirms their places in this strange world of replicants with family bonds, humans with calculated plans, and a main character who is at the mercy of her robotic spine.
“2019” functions as a complete story, but it’s good that it will continue in “Blade Runner 2029.” Green and Johnson haven’t gotten into the meat of their big revelation: Tyrell’s replicants were originally products, yes, but in the long run he saw them as the next phase of human evolution.
I expect this idea will challenge readers more than the theme of sympathetic synthetics, which was fresher in Philip K. Dick’s time. What if replicants truly are better than us? What if they have all the best human traits but none of the negative qualities? In that case, are we even right to fight for our future?