Posted in: Comics, Image, Review | Tagged: ascender, image
Ascender #3 – The Fight Comes to Planet Sampson
Ascender #3 jumps from past to present as Mila, her father Andy, and robotic canine unit Bandit race to find a way off the planet Sampson. Andy's life has been spent running for more than a decade, this current expedition being merely an echo to ten years earlier when he and Mila's mother Effie attempted to hide out from Mother's forces in exile and solitude.
Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Animal Man) moves the story along effortlessly, laying the events of past and present simultaneously and slowly brings the tension to a head at the end of the comic for an expected cliffhanger. Although the odds were against Andy and Effie in their first encounter with Mother's vampire foot-soldiers, he is packing enough firepower with Bandit to hopefully have enough chance to stand his ground against them and more in issue #4.
Now that the protagonists are coming to an inevitable conflict, the next issue promises Mother hearing about this force of hope in the galaxy and will stop at nothing to put it out. Although Lemire laid enough backstory to explain Andy's aversion to going toe-to-toe with Mother once again, the inevitable fight coming on Sampson will hopefully bring some much-needed vampire killing action.
The series continues to follow in the fantasy/science-fiction mashup similar to Star Wars, so I am hoping the next two issues elevate Ascender to something different and bring in more hard hitting interactions between the characters. This is still a fun comic to follow, especially as Dustin Nguyen's art style suits the vibe of the story perfectly. The panels are laid out in a smart way, once again utilizing entire page spreads to visually represent the smallness of the protagonists versus the power they're up against. Ascender #4 comics out July 24th, and I expect to see enough knock-down-drag-outs as Andy has his back against the wall to protect Mila in the ways he couldn't for her mother.