Written by Mike Johnson.

Creative Consultants – Michael Green, K. Perkins and Mellow Brown.

Art by Andres Guinaldo

Titan Comics, out now

It’s 2029 and Yotun, a Replicant that Blade Runner Ash failed to capture 12 years ago, has outlived his expiration date and plots to ignite a violent Replicant revolution.

Opening with the Replicant army hijacking an airship, the first few pages of Issue #4 read like a cross between Die Hard and John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday. The rich and famous of Los Angeles’ elite are dining in the mid-air banqueting hall of the airship when Yotun and his synthetic terrorists reveal their plans and warn of the upcoming revolution. Artist Andres Guinaldo is clearly enjoying the scale that these action scenes offer him, often devoting an entire page to a single panel.

Ash doesn’t join the story until we’re a good way in, and even then she’s tied to a chair. She receives some assistance from a blast from her past, but blast is the operative word here as the Blade Runner runs into more adversaries. It’s a breathless issue, with some big ideas playing out that will influence the future of this story arc. Essentially, it still feels 100% authentic to the property.

Verdict: Ash takes a back seat as the Replicants begin to flex their muscles, creating big problems for Los Angeles. It’s dystopian sci-fi on a grand scale that could easily have been filmed by Ridley Scott or Denis Villeneuve. 9/10

Nick Joy