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Blade Runner 2039 #7 and #8 bring to a close the penultimate arc in Titan Comics’ long-running series of Blade Runner comics which expand upon the lore, flesh things out, and introduce new concepts. Ash’s journey, in particular, has been fascinating to read over the past few years. The contrast of who and what Ash was once and what she is now is the core of these two issues.
Blade Runner 2039 #7
Picking up from the cliffhanger of the previous issue, Blade Runner 2039 #7 picks up with Ash being held at gunpoint by Mack, a Replicant she knew twenty years ago when she was a Blade Runner. This is a really interesting concept, one only briefly touched on before, of Ash having to confront what she was. She killed Replicants, she enjoyed it, she was good at it. Now older and wiser, she has a Replicant for a life partner, helps run the Replicant Underground, and has used all those skills in her past life to save rather than kill.
But Mack does not have any of that context, all he remembers is the ruthless Blade Runner Ash who backed him up against the edge of a building and shot him in the chest, letting him fall to his death. But through a stroke of luck, Mack survived but that wasn’t the end of his torment. Ash back then had some shady contacts, including a group of scrappers who took apart recently dead replicants. Mack went from a ruthless but quick death to a tortuous long death.
Now, in the present, Mack details how he survived, how he made a life for himself, and how the random kindness of others was not expected but kept him going. Ash has experienced similar when she was on the run, they both are different from who they were, similar in who they were, but neither are who the other expected. This is a wonderful breakdown of assumptions, bias, and traditional revenge narratives by the creative team of Mike Johnson and Andres Guinaldo.
This attempt to smash expectations is taken a step further with Ash and Mack making their way to San Francisco. If you are unfamiliar with Blade Runner’s strange behind-the-scenes history, here is a small detail you might not know.
The book which Blade Runner adapts relatively loosely — the core details kept but they are ultimately different stories — takes place in San Francisco. The first Blade Runner movie takes place in Los Angeles.
So naturally book fans have always wondered what happened to San Francisco in this alternate version of the story. Well, we have the answer, an abandoned graveyard of a city, ruined by the fallout of several massive earthquakes and other environmental factors.
Blade Runner 2039 #8
As much as Blade Runner 2039 #7 was an examination of shattered expectations, Blade Runner 2039 #8 is that but in the opposite manner. Luv and the Replicant Ash track down real Ash and Mack and it leads to a really well-drawn confrontation by Andres Guinaldo.
Ash even gets her own recreation of the famous scene from the film Blade Runner 2049 where Deckard is presented with a new Rachel and he responds with:
“Her eyes were green.”
This whole scene is filled with tension and they go back and forth with words and physicality. Then the explosive finale of the confrontation happens. Mack sacrifices himself to have Ash get out of the situation with Isobel, Luv has a very Terminator-esque moment where she grabs the spinner they are in and laches on with one hand using her Replicant enhanced strength, and it is pretty thrilling stuff. But we cannot help but feel a bit disappointed in a way.
The idea of Replicant Ash was fascinating — as we mentioned before — but outside of one particular moment where she breaks her own finger to feel the pain the real Ash feels, she comes off as rather flat. We have had very little of her so she could improve but we only have four more issues before this whole thing is done. We hope more is done with her.
Additionally, the way Mack goes out is predictable and cliché. After an entire issue was dedicated to his backstory and shattering expectations both in-universe and out-of-universe, this feels like a really weak ending to him. Why spend an entire issue on him to just kill him off immediately?
It is keeping with the theme of shattering expectations by taking him off the board quicker than expected, but the way it is done feels lacking. Maybe the creative team will justify this choice in the final few issues.
Blade Runner #7 & #8 Are Complicated
Blade Runner 2039 #7 and #8 are an interesting pair of issues as they simultaneously shatter expectations in excellent and flawed ways. Seeing a flashback to Ash’s Blade Runner days like it was in the first volume of this was very nostalgic despite this series only being four years old. And yet we cannot feel like there is something missing to make these knock-out issues.
We still look forward to the final four issues and see how this all ends.
