REVIEW: 'Descender' #6 by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen

★★★★☆ (4/5)

Now that Dr. Quon has admitted being a fraud, 'Descender' #6 examines his history with robotics through a surprising flashback. Still under the capture of scrappers and King S'nok, TIM-21 gets some surprising help as Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen close out the first arc with more of a pop than a bang but the book remains one of the best of the year.

When we last left Dr. Quon he was spilling his guts, figuratively, to save himself by admitting he didn't know anything more about TIM's creation because he's been pretending to be the brilliant inventor of modern robotics. It turns out through the compelling flashback that the young up-and-coming scientist basically betrayed his mentor and benefitted from someone else's work. He was basically the Milli Vanilli of robotic engineers. 

This revelation of shady scientific ethics casts the good Doc in a terrible light and doesn't help his chances surviving this ordeal alive. He now proves himself pretty useless to the King. Although, the mystery deepens as the ties of TIM-21 to the genocidal Harvesters that wiped out so much of the colony years ago remains unresolved. 

While there isn't a lot of action in this issue but more plot heavy, Nguyen continues to shine with his brilliant art. The pencils and watercolors create such dynamic panels alternating from very detailed to sparse scenes as needed that are simply mesmerizing. 

'Descender' #6 sets up the next arc with great plot development and even though it's not as climatic a finish as you'd expect, the cliffhanger exposes another storyline that's intriguing no matter how haphazard it feels.