Ancestral Recall

Written by Jordan Clark ; Artist Atagun İlhan; Colorist Pippa Bowland (Ahoy Comics, 2025)

Synopsis

When his wife vanishes, painter Melvin Waring must call up important Black figures from history to help find her. But the futuristic Modern Living Corporation has terrible plans for her. A culturally rich, stunningly drawn graphic novel from two members of DC Entertainment’s Milestone Initiative: writer Jordan Clark (Aquaman, Star Wars Adventures) and artist Atagun Ilhan (Poison Ivy, The Shadow Cabinet).

Ancestral Recall, by up-and-coming writer Jordan Clark (Aquaman, Star Wars Adventures), presents itself as a dystopian sci-fi thriller — complete with near-future conspiracies, time displacement, and an AI menace — but at its core, this series is an intimate Black love story that transcends time itself.

Black Orpheus

The story centers on fine artist Melvin Waring and his wife June. Melvin is an unlikely hero — a reclusive painter, more comfortable with a canvas than a confrontation — yet Clark thrusts him into a journey that echoes the great romantic traditions. June, by contrast, is his analytical opposite: grounded, sharp, and the quiet architecture behind Melvin’s creative world. Their pairing is not incidental — it is the engine of the story. Most notably, the shadow of Orpheus looms large: a devoted man descending into a technological underworld to reclaim the woman he loves. It’s a mythic framework that Clark himself nods to within the story, and it gives Melvin’s reluctant heroism a weight that feels earned rather than imposed.

History as Superpower

What makes this series truly distinctive is how Clark pits history and imagination against technology and capitalism — philosophically and visually. Melvin’s unlikely weapon against the Modern Living Corporation is an unexplained superpower known as ancestral recall: the ability to tap into the knowledge and skills of legendary Black historical figures at will. It’s a concept that evokes the iconic “upload” sequence in The Matrix — except here, the data being downloaded is lived cultural memory rather than cold code. This tension between human history and corporate technology forms the ideological spine of the series. Artist Atagun Ilhan and colorist Pippa Bowland make this battle visceral on the page, rendering Melvin’s historical flashbacks in warm tones that feel alive and personal, while the sterile labs of the Modern Living Corporation are depicted in cold, metallic hues that drain the humanity from every scene. It’s a visual shorthand that works beautifully — you always know not just where you are, but what is at stake.

A Feature, Not a Bug

Ancestral Recall wears its absurdity as a character trait rather than a flaw. The story delights in its own wildness, and that irreverence is part of its charm. However, time travel — so central to the narrative’s early momentum — gradually loosens its grip as the series progresses. What begins as a tightly wound temporal mystery becomes something more fluid and impressionistic near the end, and certain threads, like Myran Kang’s character arc, go unresolved. In this sense, Ancestral Recall isn’t really fighting time in the tradition of most sci-fi stories — time here is ultimately a nostalgic remedy to the dogma presented by the Modern Living Corporation, a cultural counterweight rather than a ticking clock.

Love Against the Machine

Clark and Ilhan have crafted something that is genre-bending by design but deeply human at its core. Ultimately, Ancestral Recall is exactly what it promised to be from the very first page — a uniquely Black love story. Love in the most romantic sense: a man willing to traverse time, history, and a technological underworld to reclaim the woman at the center of his world. And it is worth noting that June is no passive prize to be won — her analytical nature and quiet strength prove crucial to the story’s conclusion, making their reunion feel not just romantic but inevitable. But the love in Ancestral Recall runs deeper still — a celebration of Black history, Black legacy, and the figures whose contributions have too often been left out of the official record. Ancestral Recall is a worthy addition to any comics collection, and an even worthier reminder that the stories we carry forward are themselves a form of resistance.

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