Review by Karl Verhoven

Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen published a series titled Descender, yet Ascender can be read without any reference to the previous series, although why wouldn’t you want to take a look at a masterful piece of SF that won Nguyen an Eisner Award?

Descender changed everything about the galaxy, magic and supernatural activity supplanting science. Three characters provide the way into a new world. At ten Mila remembers nothing else and resents her father’s protection and isolation. Andy does remember the past, but with Mila to care for his fighting days are over. Mother is a malignantly powerful presence, a villain for the ages controlling the galaxy. Her reach is beautifully defined in the opening chapter via a posse of small winged demons patrolling a marketplace repeating “Mother is great”, “Mother loves you”, and “Mother is always watching”. As seen later, they have other phrases, equally sinister. Mother’s priority is gathering any technological remnants of the way the galaxy once was, and destroying them. That’s when Andy’s former robot dog returns.

Ascender is painted on an ambitiously grand canvas, constantly jumping between planets and people, and Nguyen delivers that beautifully. What makes his art stand out is the delicacy. There are some extremely effective bursts into action, but threats are frequently implied, and Nguyen’s method of thin pencil lines filled with watercolour flies in the face of action fantasy illustration, yet for that very reason it works.

It’s not long before other characters from Descender return, always in a way that makes sense to new readers. A few brief flashback sequences fill in the ten year gap, but it’s the present forming the main concern, and that ends with a tragedy leading into The Dead Sea. It’s massively attractive and addictive fantasy so good you might want to consider buying the entire story in hardcover as Ascender Deluxe Edition or the paperback Ascender Compendium.