ASCENDER #3 REVIEW
Summary: Lemire is obviously giving us another epic. I cannot wait for next month. 4… long… weeks… eek!
5
Epic!
SPOILERS INHERENT IN REVIEW
Descender is one of my top 5 books of all time. Jeff Lemire is part of my comic book square (the others being Rick Remender, Matt Kindt and Jonathan Hickman). Descender ended with the end of the universe… except for a small portion that survived and has survived without technology for years. Where Descender had rampant technology, Ascender is based primarily in magic.
In a brief flashback, everything’s going to shit and Effie is pleading with Andy to break him out of his funk. They jump to another planet at the last second and wind up back home, where our adventure all started. It turns out Effie is pregnant with Andy’s child. While I personally think it was a stupid idea to conceive at a critical moment in existence like this, I also get the fact that they didn’t know that reality was just going to… you know, end.)
Back in the present, Mila and Andy take the recently returned bandit and leave there home. Mila wonders if they are ever going back and you really feel for this young kid. She’s leaving the only home she’s ever known. After a few arguments about how to get off planet, a giant… I’ll call it a forest ogre appears, which sends us into another flashback.
At this point, Mila has been born and Effie and Andy are quite concerned out dwindling supplies. Andy refuses to leave the planet considering all the other planets left are going dark. We fast forward a year as the family is playing ball on the planets surface. A sensor blip is mistaken for a ship, which actually turns out to be a trio of dragons. I love the line of “ there is no such thing as dragons” and then suddenly, there are dragons. It’s a magical wakeup to this technological society.
After a quick return to the present, where Andy instructs Mila to locate TELSA (woo!), we see the family trying to escape back to the comfort of the mines. But instead of dragons, now they are being chased by vampires. Andy and Mila make it, but only because Effie sacrifices herself to allow them to get to safety. That my friends is how Effie dies… although personally, I don’t think she’s dead. We are only on issue 3 and I have a feeling we will see her gain before this series is finished.
Mila attempts to distract the forest ogre from killing Andy and all seems lost until Bandit hulks out into guard dog mode and absolutely obliterates the ogre.
I am SO happy Dustin Nguyen returned to the series. It A. gives the series a strong sense of continuity and B. his artwork is so damn impressive. I love the technological scenes coldness and magical panels explosive colors, it really helps differentiate the energy flowing in both times.
Lemire is obviously giving us another epic. I cannot wait for next month. 4… long… weeks… eek!
5 out of 5.
Gallery
For more information, check out https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/ascender-3
About the Author
Matt Fischer Lover of all things nerdy. Reader of Comics for over 25 years. DC encyclopedia. X-Men historian. Spider-Man and Marvel lover. Indie side guy.
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