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Blader Runner 2039 #2 and #3 follow on after the previous issue was almost exclusively Luv from the film Blade Runner 2049 by merging that and the comic characters. Ash, Freysa, and even Cleo from the first volume are back. Now everyone is much older which Mike Johnson, Mellow Brown, and Andres Guinaldo have taken full advantage of.
Blader Runner 2039 #2
Ash has taken old age in a not-very-graceful manner as seen in Blade Runner 2039 #2. Andres has drawn her as tired and haggard, as though the weight of many years push down on her shoulders. In the past, she refused a cure for her disabilities as she felt like it made her whole. But after what happened in the last volume, a cure was kind of forced upon her.
That was just her spine, she still has sight issues and maybe because her hand was forced last time, she has sought a “cure” of sorts. She has replaced one of her eyes with a Replicant eye but because it wasn’t designed for a human she has to replace it from time to time.
Freysa calls her out on this, understandably so. Ash was once this indomitable force whose worldview changed over time and whose bonds were created with those she cared about. But now she is sacrificing everything that defined her in the name of an extra edge. The passage of time can do lots of things to us, and for Ash, she seems to have lost herself.
Hythe makes her return having settled in the old Selwyn house from the first volume. She seems to have aged far more gracefully than Ash. She is drawn as old, clearing a woman of age, but with a sense of dignity. And she can still throw down as she used to as seen when she takes out Luv. She used to be a signifier of all the corruption in the idea of Blade Runner’s for corporate hire, now Luv is a corporate Replicant that has been loaned to the police.
Hythe has in effect met her previous self and beat her to a pulp but is still attached to her old employer. Hythe feels like a commentary on how one can escape a way of life, a job, but it stays with you in Blade Runner 2039 #2. Meanwhile, Ash is someone so run down by their way of life they can’t imagine anything else.
Blade Runner 2039 #3
After the cliffhanger at the end of Blade Runner 2039 #2 revealing Cleo was alive, Blade Runner 2039 #3 brings her and us full circle. Cleo has grown to be an accomplished woman, fully divorced from her father, and has become a mother in her own right.
But the Replicant clone of her mother that she sees is her real mother who has disappeared, so she has to track down the woman that became a surrogate mother to her all those years ago, Ash. Child and second mother come together, both older, both wiser, but both still reeling from those emotions they used to have for each other.
Blade Runner 2039 #3 sells this homecoming, for lack of a better term, when Ash and Cleo meet back up. Ash struggled due to her own family issues to be a mother to Cleo, and Cleo was a child with too much thrust upon her to live a proper life. Now they clash like they always did but in a way that feels more mature. Ash is angry and Cleo is apologetic, but now with the underlining feeling that both of them have grown so much that reverting to their old relationship is unnatural. A lot of layers to their scenes as the writing team of Mike Johnson and Mellow Brown convey through the dialogue and Andres Guinaldo conveys from the harsh close-up panels.
When Ash visits an elderly care home to visit her old boss when she was a Blade Runner, a piece of dialogue stands out.
“And we old do so like to be needed again.”
This final volume for the Blade Runner series at Titan Comics is bringing back everything from the previous volumes from Cleo and Hythe, to, according to Mellow Brown on Twitter, Cal from the Blade Runner: Origins series.
With the focus on Blade Runner 2039 #2 being about how Ash and Hythe have aged and the introduction of Luv in the first issue, this volume is setting itself up as a “one last ride for the old gang” type story. While sometimes these stories can be cliché, I have faith in this creative team, and the way they have handled it already has been good.
Blade Runner 2039 #2 & #3 Brings Focus Back On Ash
Blade Runner 2039 #2 and #3 marries the first issue with all previous volumes. While I did enjoy Luv in that first issue, I had reservations about not seeing Ash and others to tie in more to the films.
I am glad to be wrong and wonder how this will all tie together.
