Graphic Novel Review – Descender Vol 1 by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen, Steve Wands (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Graphic Novel/Science Fiction
Length: 160 pages
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: September 24th, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1632154262
Stand Alone or Series: 1st volume in the Descender series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars

Young Robot boy TIM-21 and his companions struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. Written by award-winning creator, Jeff Lemire, Descender is a rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey. Lemire pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling epic.

This is the first book in the Descender graphic novel series. As of now, there are eight volumes in this series. I enjoyed this graphic novel and thought it was an interesting sci-fi story that was strangely engaging.

When the Harvester robots come to wipe out a number of planets in the Galactic Empire, civilization is devastated. Meanwhile, years later a child companion robot named TIM-21 is devastated in his own way when he wakes up to find all the humans on his planet killed by a gas leak.

When the Galactic Empire chases the mystery of the Harvester robot down to the TIM robot series, TIM-21’s existence changes forever. He suddenly finds himself a very desirable little robot, stuck in a variety of dangerous situations. Unfortunately he is programmed to be a good companion and be friendly…not evade evil scavengers.

I enjoyed the watercolor-like illustration style to this graphic novel. I also enjoyed that there was a lot of action in here but the graphic novel was still very personable. You can’t help but like TIM-21 and the robots that help him.

I liked the parts of the graphic novel with TIM-21 way more than the parts with the Galactic Empire. I found the parts with the Galactic Empire to be almost jarring when compared to the portions of the novel told from TIM-21’s perspective.

Overall this was a good start to the Descender graphic novel series. I enjoyed a lot of the concepts and characters in here but didn’t enjoy jumping between the Galactic Empire and TIM-21’s home world. I am reading a lot of different graphic novels right now and am not sure if I will continue on with this series or not. My library does have all the books, so I will probably pick up the rest of the books when I have a bit less to read on my plate.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge