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Blade Runner 2039 #11 is the penultimate issue in the ongoing Blade Runner comics Titan Comics has been doing for several years. Things are coming together, tying into the Origins series as well as 2019 and so forth. But what is most interesting is how it highlights the flaws of Ash and illuminates Wallace’s backstory a little.
Blade Runner 2039 #11: Ash’s Hypocrisy
In previous issues, we have talked about how the Replicant Ash has been shown to start dehumanizing, a dark reflection of real Ash, which has slowly developed. Now in Blade Runner 2039 #11 we reach the apex of this development and force the real Ash into an uncomfortable position, one I think many would understand deep down even if it is also hypocritical.
Throughout several volumes, Ash went from one of the best Blade Runners, seeing Replicants as nothing but spare parts, to someone who helps Replicants escape the injustice of their persecution. She helps the Replicant Underground, takes a Replicant as a lover, and even becomes the foster mother of a Replicant’s child in a strange way. She has taken a very firm stance against militant Replicants, seeing the injustice wrought upon them, but knows extreme violence only perpetuates a cycle that will never end.
Now when confronted with a supposed repentant Replicant Ash, the real Ash doesn’t buy it. To her, Replicant Ash is a faulty copy, yet we the reader know this isn’t true. Not only does she have all of real Ash’s memories, ones that weren’t even public records, but she also acts like Ash used to. The human brain is interesting in the fact we hate to be confronted with our past even if our rejection of it compromises our morals.
So, Ash is a hypocrite and not only is this beautifully woven in over the past few issues by the creative team of Mike Johnson and Andres Guinaldo, but it also points out that no matter how much one can grow they still have faults. It is something we can all relate to, just heightened in that classic science fiction way.
Wallace’s Sentimentality
Niander Wallace has been handled interestingly in this series but in Blade Runner 2039 #11 this shifts gears unexpectedly. The self-proclaimed savior of the human race, a ruthless businessman who has little regard for ethics or morals, is, in fact, sentimental — not in the classical sense of sentimental, but in a more perverse and stranger version of it.
Both Ash’s go to talk to the one point of contact they have for Wallace after capturing Luv and that’s Daisy. As this old Japanese woman seems to be completely harmless, it turns out that in the past she was Wallce’s nursemaid when he was but a baby. Now she sources goods for him to continue his experiments with Replicants to create his “angels” the slave race that will bring humanity to the next step in its evolution.
With Daisy is Hanii, a hulking Replicant that Ash suspects is a combat model. While Hanii can throw down with the best of him, he’s not a combat model. Hanii is a pleasure model. That’s right, Wallace provided his nanny with a robot sex worker of sorts. There is sentimental in the way we mean it and then there is the sentimental felt by those who don’t understand the basis of humanity. The rich and the poor are divided in more ways than just economic — what a wonderfully grotesque way to demonstrate this.
Mirrors Are Key To Blade Runner 2039 #11
Blade Runner 2039 #11 is all leading to the confrontation of Ash and Wallace. So, it takes time to look at these characters in a mirror for a second — the ones we know from the film and the ones we know from these comics. And perhaps what we see isn’t pretty but two complicated and, in many ways, messed up beings. What a wonderful final character piece before we end this all out.