Go downhas 32 issues (Image, 2015-2018) andAscendsucceeds it in 18 issues (2019-2021).Written by Jeff Lemire, painted entirely in watercolor by Dustin Nguyen. You have to readGo downfirst:Ascendtakes place ten years later and shifts from science fiction to fantasy, assuming all of the above.
Go downhas 32 numbers andAscendsucceeded him in 18.A single story in two movements, to be read in order.
It is Jeff Lemire's most visually identifiable work, and the one that readers talk about first by showing a page rather than summarizing the plot. This article explains what each series contains, why the second changes genre, and how to navigate the formats.
The starting point ofGo down
Nine mechanical giants appear one day above the nine main planets of the Galactic Union. They don't speak, they don't attack immediately, then they strike — and then they disappear. The catastrophe kills billions and triggers, in the decades that follow, a galaxy-wide hunt for robots.
Ten years later, on an abandoned mining colony, a little robot companion wakes up. TIM-21 has the appearance of a child, the memory of a human family he served, and he is unaware that his code shares something with the giants. It instantly becomes the most sought-after object in the galaxy.
The device is classic – the pursued key child – but it is put at the service of the question which runs through all of Lemire's work: what becomes of a being defined by a function that has been taken away from him? TIM-21 was designed to keep company with a boy who no longer exists. Everything else flows from there.
ThatAscendexchange
The second series picks up the story a decade after the end of the first, and makes a clear shift that many readers did not expect.
From science fiction to fantasy
Technology has disappeared from the galaxy, replaced by magic controlled by a religious entity. Ships have given way to dragons, robots have become hunted relics. This is not an arbitrary break: the end ofGo downexplains it completely.
A new main character
The story centers on Mila, a young girl, accompanied by a robot that the readers ofGo downwill recognize. The child-protector pattern is renewed, but reversed: this time, it is the human who is fragile and the machine which protects.
A conclusion, not an open sequel
Ascendcloses the whole thing. The two series form a single story of fifty issues, with a desired beginning, middle and end – which remains rare in serial comics.
Dustin Nguyen's watercolor, and what it produces
This is the element to talk about first, because it's what sets the series apart from everything else in the science fiction department.
Nguyen paints each board in watercolor, without traditional inking. There are therefore almost no closed black lines: the shapes are delimited by variations in wash, the backgrounds bleed, the contours of the vessels dissolve. On a genre comic, where the readability of the action is usually the top priority, this is a contrarian choice.
The result creates a permanent gap between what is shown and how it is shown.Go downtells of industrial genocide, bounty hunters, dismembered mechanical bodies — and it's all painted in faded blues, pale pinks, with the sweetness of a children's book. This dissonance does everything: it prevents the violence from becoming spectacular, and gives the story its constant melancholy.
It has a practical corollary. The action scenes are sometimes difficult to follow: without clear contours, two ships passing each other are read less quickly than elsewhere. This is the price of atmosphere, and readers who come looking for readability of action are regularly hampered by it.
The characters who carry the story
TIM-21
Robot companion with the appearance of a ten-year-old boy. He doesn't understand that he's being hunted, or why the family he loved has disappeared. His naivety is never treated as a comic twist: it is the point of view that makes the galaxy unbearable.
Doctor Quon
The designer of the series of robots of which TIM is a part, who has become an alcoholic and hated since the disaster. The most ambiguous character in the series, and the one whose moral trajectory is the most elaborate.
Bandit
TIM's robot dog. Without dialogue, without its own arc, it nevertheless carries several of the strongest sequences of the two series. Proof that Lemire knows how to hold an emotion without a word.
Telsa
Union officer charged with escorting TIM, torn between her duty and what that duty entails. It is through her that the series questions the soldier rather than the monster.
The Reapers, and what the series really says
The mystery of the mechanical giants structures the 32 issues ofGo down, and it's best not to let it go to waste. We can say this without spoiling anything: the response is not military, it is moral.
The series spends its time setting up a seemingly clear opposition – the human victims on one side, the menacing machines on the other – then methodically dismantling it. The anti-robot pogroms which follow the disaster are described with unpleasant realism: crowds, militias, camps, resale of spare parts. Lemire does not write science fiction about artificial intelligence, he writes about what a population does with a minority it has designated.
This is where the softness of watercolor comes into its own. Painting a dismembered robot in pastel wash does not aestheticize the violence: it prevents the reader from putting it in the “genre action” box where they would have placed it without thinking about it. We can't get excited by these pages, and that's deliberate.
Should you read both?
Yes, if we go inside.Go downonly leaves the reader with a major revelation and an open situation: stopping there is like reading two thirds of a novel. The 32 issues do not constitute a closed story.
The reservation concerns gender change. A reader who comes for pure science fiction may be disappointed by the fantasy turn ofAscend— dragons, witchcraft, religious order. The switch is narratively justified, but it really changes the nature of reading pleasure. It's better to know this before opening the first volume of the second series rather than discovering it in the second issue.
Formats, and the usual trap
The two series follow the classic Image Comics pattern: publication in softcover issues, then collections bringing together five to six issues, then library editions bringing together several collections.
Soft numbers— 32 forGo down, 18 forAscend. The original form, the one where the watercolor is printed on a paper that serves it least well.
The collections— the most widespread and economical format. It is the one through which most French-speaking readers discover the series.
Note for the French editions: the series circulated in divisions which do not always match those of the American collections, and the passage ofGo downàAscendwas sometimes edited with a calendar shift. Check the range of numbers on the endpapers rather than the volume number displayed on the spine — this is the only data that allows you to know where you are.
Library editions— large format, thick paper. On a fully painted series, this is not a cosmetic luxury: Nguyen's washes benefit enormously from being seen large, and this is one of the rare cases where the deluxe edition really changes the reading experience.
The collection trap specific to these two series:they have different titles even though they form a single story. A reader who has the collections ofGo downand searches for "the sequel" will find nothing under that name, and may conclude that the series ends there.
Conversely, a catalog which arrangesAscendas an independent work will never report that the 32 issues preceding it are missing. Save them as two separate sets, but note the connection — it's exactly the kind of information you think you'll never forget and then forgot two years later.
Where these series fit into Lemire's work
Go downmarks his lasting installation at Image as author of long-term genre series, afterSweet Toothat Vertigo. It is also the title that has circulated the most outside the traditional comics readership, driven by its visual aspect.
Thematically, the series continues exactly whatEssex CountyetSweet Tooth. There we find the child entrusted to an inadequate adult, the failing father – here multiplied as a creator who denies his creation – and the community which rejects the one it has made. Science fiction is not a change of subject: it is a new costume for the same subject.
The difference lies in the designer. Lemire does not drawGo down, and this explains why many readers like it without likingEssex County: they meet the screenwriter without encountering the drawing which is off-putting. It is the broadest entry point to his work, and the least representative of who he is as a complete author.
Catalog a series in two titles
Fifty issues spread over two series with different names, available in issues, collections and library editions: this is the typical case where memory is no longer sufficient after six months.
The practical question that arises in the store is always the same: “do I already have this one?” » A catalog that records the original numbers, and not the volume titles, responds immediately — including when the item on the shelf is a library edition whose cover does not mention any number.
Frequently asked questions
No, unless you accept that you understand nothing about the central issue.Ascendis entirely based on the situation created by the end ofGo down, and several characters return without being introduced. The two series form a single story of fifty issues.
Because the end ofGo downtruly transforms the universe: technology disappears and something else replaces it. This is not an author's whim but the direct consequence of the plot. This remains a change in reading pleasure, which is best anticipated.
Library edition in large format, if budget allows. On a fully painted series without inking, the reproduction size and quality of the paper really change what you see — this is one of the rare cases where the deluxe format is not just an object.
Yes.Ascendconcludes the whole, and the two series form a complete story with a real ending. This is a point to emphasize: many independent series stop due to lack of sales, this is not the case here.
It is the broadest, but not the most representative, and the nuance deserves to be made. Lemire doesn't draw there: you discover an excellent science fiction screenwriter without ever encountering the shaky line which makes him unique and which repels some readers. Many people likeGo downand hateEssex Countyfor this reason alone. If you want to know who Lemire is as a complete author, you have to go through a book that he draws himself. Lemire doesn't draw there: you discover an excellent science fiction screenwriter without encountering the trait that makes him unique. For that,Essex CountyouSweet Toothare more faithful to what he is.
Two titles, one story — one catalog
Save your Descender and Ascender numbers and immediately see where your collection ends.