Preview - Blade Runner 2039 concludes Ash's story

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Ash faces off with Luv, a character from the Blade Runner 2049 film

Blade Runner 2039 #1
(Image credit: Titan Comics)

Blade Runner Aahna "Ash" Ashina returns in Blade Runner 2039, a new 12-issue series by Titan Comics and Alcon Publishing. The comic will be the final chapter in Ash's story, which began in 2019's Blade Runner 2019 and continued in Blade Runner 2029.

Blade Runner 2039 cover (Image credit: Titan Comics)

Launching in December, what Titan calls the title's concluding third year will see Ash facing off with Luv, a character introduced in Ridley Scott's 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 and played by actor Sylvia Hoeks.

Blade Runner 2039 is written by Mike Johnson, drawn by Andres Guinaldo, and colored by Marco Lesko.

According to Titan, the series is set three years after Niander Wallace Jr. (played by Jared Leto in Blade Runner 2049) introduced a brand of "perfectly obedient" Replicants that helped lift the ban on synthetic humans, but older Tyrell Corp’s Nexus 8 units are still hunted by Blade Runners.

Cleo Selwyn, introduced as a small child in Blade Runner 2019, returns to L.A. 20 years later searching for Isobel, a Replicant copy of her real mother who died when Cleo was three. Believing Niander Wallace is holding Isobel captive, the only person she can look for help from is Ash, a now aging and disgraced former Blade Runner.

"This new series marks both the continuation as well as the conclusion of Ash's story, which started in Blade Runner 2019. It's going to be the most dramatic of the series, and that's saying a lot after what went down in Blade Runner 2029!" says Titan Comics senior creative editor David Leach in the announcement.

"It's refreshing to have a comic character to grow and evolve the way Ash has," adds Alcon's director of publishing  Jeff Conner. "Mike and Andres are really doing something special. Fans of the series should be very pleased."

December's Blade Runner 2039 #1 features four variant covers by artists Junggeun Yoon, Veronica Fish, Butch Guice, and Syd Mead, a "futurist" designer credited with "visualizing much of the Blade Runner world." See these alongside a new preview of the first issue below.

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Bladerunner 2039 #1
(Image credit: Titan Comics)

Blade Runner 2039 #1 will be available December 7.

Blade Runner is one of the 30 best sci-fi movies of all time.

Michael Doran

I'm not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I'm also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I've been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it's crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.

With contributions from