Ascender #17
Tim-21 battles Mother as Mila and company make a stand against S’Lok’s scrappers in Ascender #17, by writer Jeff Lemire, artist Dustin Nguyen, and letterer Steve Wands. The penultimate issue of the series brings it all together in time for the big finale.
The first line of this kind of says it all about the issue, really. It leaves out Andy, Effie, and Kanto going to Dirishu, the awakening of power in Mila, and the surprise ending, though. It’s a remarkably simple comic, but that’s completely okay because everything works so well.
Lemire keeps the pace of the book fast, cutting from cataclysmic scene to cataclysmic scene. From Mother and Tim fighting it out to the Scrapper’s hunt to Andy and Effie’s daring escape from Sampson, this book is action-packed from the word go. Lemire has built the book’s lore so much already that there is no need for an info dump in this one. It’s all action, all the time, and it delivers wonderfully. The whole point of this issue is to make the final moves with all of the pieces and put them all into position. It does this and then some because this could have been a dry comic, one that focused more on lore and talking than action. Lemire goes the exact opposite route, and it pays off.
The comic is a quick read, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be a ponderous chronicle of the end time. It’s crowd-pleasing action, and in a book that can be as heavy as Ascender has been at times, that sort of thing is welcome. It still packs an emotional punch, of course, but it’s not meant to be the end-all, be-all. That’s the next issue. This one just sets things up for the last dance, and the ending is pretty spectacular- it plays into Descender/Ascender lore and really begs the question of how everything is going to work out. The balance of the universe is out of whack and has been for a long time. How is it all going to come back together? It’s a great hook to get the reader to come back for one last ride.
Nguyen’s art delivers, as always, from the pencils to the colors. The background of the battle between Mother and Tim is a glacial white with all of the power, Mother’s red hair and eyes glowing with malice. The inky darkness of Dirishu’s mine is rendered in bluish greys, a shadowy abyss where anything can happen. Nguyen’s colors do a fantastic job of setting the scene, and his pencils deliver every time.
Ascender #17 is a great penultimate issue. Lemire keeps the pace high and fills the thing with action, and the book’s ending will leave readers hyped for the last issue. Nguyen’s art is breathtaking as usual. Everything about this comic works admirably.
