Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus: To Lose is to Win #1 Preview

 

COVER A: JUNGGEUN YOON

 

After Mead and Stix fought side by side on Kalanthia, the ex-Marine and combat Replicant set up as private investigators in Japan. But while the soldiers remade their lives, Replicants fled Blade Runners to establish an underground community in Tokyo. An investigation into rumors of a super Replicant assassin, and a missing woman, led Mead and Stix to the Yakuza. Will more drama rock Mead and Stix's partnership? And can Replicants rise from the underground to live peacefully among their Human neighbors? 

Here's all the info from Titan Comics: 

BLADE RUNNER: TOKYO NEXUS: TO LOSE IS TO WIN #1 (OF 4)

Format: Comic book

(W) Nancy A. Collins

(A) Mariano Taibo

Publisher: Titan Comics

FC • 32pp • $4.99

On Sale May 6, 2026

 

BLADE RUNNER IS BACK!

 

Discovering that Mead and Stix are still alive, their old commanding officer, Uldren sets out to kill them before they can reveal his treachery. The data he stole from Tyrell has enabled the Cheshire Corporation to create bootleg Replicants with the same kill signature as Stix. Meanwhile, still dealing with the fallout from the Yakuza civil war Stix and Mead find themselves fighting for survival against Rumika, A Blade Runner sent by Tyrell to destroy Cheshire and all those connected with it.

 

 

 

Now, let's take a look inside:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are more cover options:

 

 

 

COVER B: DANI & BRAD SIMPSON

 

 

 

COVER C: PIOTR KOWALSKI

 

COVER D: MARIANO TAIBO

Also Available:

 

COVER E: JUNGGEUN YOON FOIL VARIANT

COVER F: DANI & BRAD SIMPSON VIRGIN VARIANT

 

 

Fans can order their copy of BLADE RUNNER: TOKYO NEXUS - TO LOSE IS TO WIN #1 from their local comic book store, and Forbidden Planet for UK & Europe.

 

BLADE RUNNER: TOKYO NEXUS VOL. 1 DIE IN PEACE is available to order at local comic shops, and bookshops now. 

 

 

Thanks to Titan Comics for sharing this preview with us.

 

 

For how this series began, see my review of Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus #1. 

Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #3 Review

 

Writer: Kianna Shore

Artist: Mariano Taibo

Colorist: Marco Lesko

Letterer: Jim Campbell

Editor: David Leach

Creative Consultant: Mellow Brown

Cover Artists: Gabriel Iumazark, Sam Lofti & Mariano Taibo

Publisher: Titan Comics

Price: $3.99

Release Date: September 25, 2024

 

Mead and Stix fought together on Kalanthia. Now, the ex-Marine and combat Replicant work as private investigators in Japan. But Stix has been letting Mead down lately. She tried to learn why, but Sayo interrupted with a plea to help her find her sister. Then Stix refused to search for Miyuki, leaving Mead to check out Sayo’s story. A Blade Runner from Los Angeles told Mead that Sayo’s sister was in the morgue. Sayo identified her sister and let Mead and the Blade Runner search Miyuki's apartment. Then, an arrow impaled Sayo. Sayo told Mead it was her Skinjob partner before she died. But why would Stix shoot Sayo? Let’s leap into Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #3 and see if we can unravel this perplexing mystery!

 

Story

Mead and Stix realized Sayo’s family had links with the Yakuza. Miyuki's fiancée Alura told Mead that Miyuki disappeared while working on a job for Tyrell. Yet when they searched Miyuki's apartment, Mead and the Blade Runner Rumika discovered she worked for Cheshire. The startup hires Tyrell researchers who experiment on replicants that immigrated to Japan illegally. The Tyrell Corporation sent Rumika to investigate rumors that Cheshire was improving their Replicant models. Rumika’s search led her to Mead, which is why the ex-Marine is working with the Blade Runner.

 

A rumor that a new, unsanctioned combat model is killing people brings Tokyo to the boiling point. Mead discovered that someone killed everyone in the Higashi-gumi (East gang?) organization. In response to the ruthless and efficient slaughter, Yakuza groups are attacking any replicants they find. The societal breakdown may not be as overwhelming as Kalanthia's, the colony world where Stix and Mead served together. But as Tokyo devolves into gang warfare, Tyrell gives Rumika new orders in Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #3. Instead of retiring replicants, Rumika must arrest or kill any Tyrell scientists and terminate Cheshire's workforce.

 

All of this makes Mead wonder how well she knows her partner. She insists Stix is her associate. Yet, as Rumika points out, Stix lives with her. (At least he does when he’s not chasing after the Yakuza abducting his fellow replicants). Rumika also reminds Mead that Replicants have limited lifespans and grow erratic before they wind down. Stix’s enhanced abilities further shorten a combat replicant’s life. Still, Mead saw too much death in the military. Stix’s enthusiasm for life keeps Mead going. Plagued by the horrors of war, Stix’s presence calms and restrains Mead. She cannot believe that Stix is a murderer. Yet Mead saw him running away as Sayo collapsed. And then, there was Sayo’s dying indictment.

 

 

 

Art

Mead clutches Miyuki’s taxi tickets with Sayo’s blood on her hands. White figures behind a black window regard a replicant in an inclined examination chamber. Computer banks, piping, and overhead lights surround the unconscious replicant bound by a foot-wide band across his chest and arms.

 

A silhouette enters an arcade in Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #3. Rumika’s left hand toggles a lever sideways while she presses a button with her right. Skull-like ships descend toward one of four bunkers while a tank fires up at the invasion fleet before Game Over prompts Rumika to abandon the classic arcade game. The Blade Runner approaches a wall-mounted payphone, and the cord stretches toward her as she places the receiver to her ear. Then, Rumika returns the receiver to the cradle and walks down a hall created by the backs of arcade games.

 

Neon signs and pink lights color the wall and floor near the red telephone in the arcade. Like Rick Deckard's apartment, yellow and orange light streams through the shutters covering the window of Mead's mauve and tan office. Mead sits in one of many semicircular upholstered couches while other nightclub guests enjoy the singing pink and blue holograms. Silhouettes leap from a roof to a fragile skeletal building. Then their green and blue clothing returns as Mead pursues Stix against a blue and purple sky speckled with white.

 

Jim Campbell fills white balloons and colored narrative boxes with black uppercase dialogue in Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #3. The letters grow bold for emphasis, italicize for off-camera conversations, and occasionally shrink. Giant red letters enhance Rumika’s gunfire. But the most heartfelt effects are Mead's plaintive cry to her fleeing partner and the sound of her plowing through her Human attackers. Thanks to Titan Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Tyrell made replicants to serve off-world. Yet many illegally immigrated to Earth. As Stix helps people whom others regard as property, his Human partner begins to distrust him. His secret life and rumors of a murderous Replicant could cost Stix his life in Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #3.

 

Rating 9.2/10

 

To preview interior art see my preview at The Dragon's Cache.

Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus #3 Preview

COVER A: Gabriel Iumazark

BLADE RUNNER: TOKYO NEXUS #3 (OF 4)

(W) Kianna Shore

(A) Mariano Taibo

Publisher: Titan Comics

FC, 32pp, $3.99, On Sale September 25, 2024

 

TOKYO 2015: TWO KALANTHIA SURVIVORS FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES IN A WORLD WHERE BLADE RUNNERS ARE THE LEAST OF THEIR PROBLEMS

Following a failed mission Off-World, the only two survivors of a combat squad, ex-marine Mead and Replicant combat model Stix, have returned to Tokyo to search for the traitor who left them to die.

 

Now working as unlicensed detectives while hunting their betrayer, Stix and Mead find themselves in the middle of a deadly conflict between rival Yakuza clans, Tyrell Corp special operatives, and Cheshire, an enigmatic rival to Tyrell with its own version of Replicant technology. 

 

 

COVER B: Sam Lofti

COVER C: Mariano Taibo

Thanks to Titan Comics for sharing this preview with us!

 

Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #1 Review

 

Writer: Kianna Shore

Artist: Mariano Taibo

Colorist: Marco Lesko

Letterer: Jim Campbell

Editor: David Leach

Creative Consultant: Mellow Brown

Cover Artists: Christian Ward; Andy Belanger; Mariano Taibo & Marco Lesko; Fernando Dagnino; Paul Pope & Lovern Kindzierski; Blank;

Publisher: Titan Comics

Price: $3.99

Release Date: July 31, 2024

 

Stix was supposed to meet Mead in a poor Tokyo district. But he is late, forcing her to confront a protection racket alone. When a gang member flashes a gun, Mead gets a meat cleaver in her leg. Can Mead still trust her replicant partner with her life? Or is her partnership with Stix on the rocks? Let’s leap into Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #1 and find out!

 

Story

Thankfully, Stix arrives in the nick of time. But Mead is unhappy. After she gets patched up, she lets him know that his commitment to their partnership is fading. His response? When a job offer materializes, Stix walks, forcing Mead to investigate alone.

 

Sayo may be naïve about her family’s business in Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #1. Or is she pretending she doesn't know her family is involved with the Yakuza? Either way, it's a dangerous situation to enter alone. But the girl's concern seems genuine, so Mead agrees to investigate the disappearance. While she seeks out the missing woman, Stix helps his friends. Like many private detectives, their activities often take them into poorer communities. But in Stix’s case, he spends more time among the illegal replicants: the synthetic people who fought for Humans yet were banned from Earth.

 

While Mead and Stix's partnership slowly fractures, a new organization threatens Tyrell's dominance in manufacturing Replicants. In Kianna Shore's story, a group of former Tyrell employees have founded Cheshire. It's not a company that operates in the open. Nor are its business practices ethical. The scientists view Replicants as their creations, to be altered or destroyed in the name of efficiency and productivity. Worse, the Replicants the scientists build are improvements based on Tyrell’s designs. And Tyrell made Replicants to go to war.

 

Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #1 fills a gap in franchise history between Blade Runner Origins and Blade Runner 2019. Like all the Blade Runner stories, it’s a tale of race and class warfare that questions the definition of what it means to be Human. The story asks if partnerships like that of Ash and Freysa or Deckard and Rachael are inevitably doomed. In a world of inclusivity, it tests our willingness to look past external differences, discard labels, and accept all people as equals. The debut issue tackles PTSD among veterans and asks if we are capable of evolving. In an age when people employ gaslighting and guilt to achieve desired results, Kianna Shore ponders what makes Humans so superior.

 

Art

Mariano Taibo’s tall, graceful buildings display an elegance not found on the streets. Those well-off wander grass and tree-lined sidewalks.

Crime and inadequate medical care ravage the malnourished poor. Business-like Mead and Styx stand out among the street thugs and civilians in casual attire. But their trench coats hide more than business suits.

 

Marco Lesko heightens a street fight by contrasting green with orange and red in Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #1. As a chef prepares sushi for anxious patrons like Stix, yellow surrounds Mead’s glass as she downs her green drink and returns it to the counter. The glass reflects a partial silhouette of her partner’s demolished jubilance. As the partners sit beneath a yellow display and brown banners, perhaps the orange tinge coloring Sayo reminds Stix of the blood he recently spilled.

 

As Mead and Sayo converse and visit Miyuki’s apartment, Jim Campbell fills dialogue white balloons with black uppercase letters and shares Mead and Stix's lowercase musings in colored narrative boxes. The words rarely embolden for emphasis and never enlarge. Giant letters emphasize the enhanced abilities Stix hides in public and announce a police spinner descending to apprehend a troublemaker in riot-ravaged Tokyo. Thanks to Titan Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

Final Thoughts

As two Private Detectives, one Human and the other a Replicant, get drawn into a brewing war involving the Yakuza, Tyrell, and a new supplier of bootleg Replicants in the poor neighborhoods of Japan in Blade Runner Tokyo Nexus #1, a still figure on a green slab asks, "What are little girls made of?"

 

Rating 9/10

 

For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.