Tomorrow, acclaimed Syracuse-based comic book publisher AHOY Comics will publish ANCESTRAL RECALL, 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 İlhan (Poison Ivy, The Shadow Cabinet).
When painter Melvin Waring’s wife mysteriously disappears, he must call on the most important Black figures of all time to save her from the futuristic Modern Living Corporation. Black History: for Melvin, it’s an actual super power!
If this sounds familiar, it should. We had the exclusive first look and we reviewed ANCESTRAL RECALL #1 so we are very excited to share the introduction from Joseph P. Illidge ahead of the trade’s full release.
“A once-beloved comedian who fell from grace like the mythical Icarus from flying too close to the sun made a joke about time travel, Black people, and the future. He spoke with confidence and certainty of how Black people, out of revenge for over four hundred years of enslavement, subjugation, and massacres will punish their oppressors en masse in the future as payback.
He viewed Black people through the limited prism of a colonialist’s mind, as does most of the fiction in our world which is why his schtick lacked true understanding of a people other than his own.
The story of Ancestral Recall is wrapped in the descriptive cloths of different genres. Science fiction, Afrofuturism, thriller, mystery, adventure, horror, and one which outshines all of them. Romance.
It is the courtship saga of Melvin, an artist, and June, the first person who truly recognized the brightness of his spirit. How their love is so special that it makes them targeted for its power, its purity, its potency. A story that stretches from the Seventies in the aftermath of The Civil Rights Movement, to the Twenties of a new century threatening to undo everything the Civil Rights Movement accomplished.
Their allies are a found family of trailblazing Black geniuses across history, in a unique tapestry that is both surprising and revealing about the touchpoints where Black people broke ground across studies of science, martial arts, and metaphysics.
Real-life heroes, not fictional superheroes.
It is that subversion of past conventions, in particular, which makes Ancestral Recall a defiant work in comics, reflecting a change in heroic iconography from brightly colored, skin-tight garb with capes and cowls to the clothing of cowboys, race car drivers, swordsmen, and cyclists.
As opposed to portraying the past as nothing more than a minefield of terrors, tragedy, and trauma for Black people, Ancestral Recall shines light on the pathways on which they paved roads and laid down bricks so that people from various cultures and communities could follow them into the future.
Through its courageous goals and subject matter, Ancestral Recall stands on the shoulders of the prose works from some of the greatest minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, which begs the question:
Why is Ancestral Recall a comic book?
Just as much as the tale is a love story about two old souls and the timelessness of their bond, Ancestral Recall is a story displaying the love of the comics medium. A story about Blackness told by a group of creators from different backgrounds, cultures, and walks of life. A fusion of narrative, imagery, fonts, and color which creates a vision that is evocative, daring, and kinetic.
An urgent message about the impact and importance of history, forged amidst a systematic, multilayered and intentional assault on history through censorship of literature, defunding of educational institutions, and a surgical destruction and reformation of centers of cultural enlightenment.
Ancestral Recall uses art to weave a tale about the plights of the artists who live at the epicenter of a paradigm shift from the celebration of human intellect, artistic authenticity, and emotional intelligence to the overwhelming onslaught of artificial intelligence, digital inauthenticity, and algorithmic curation in a robust infiltration of every sector of life on Earth.
With its very last page, Ancestral Recall ends with its confirmed intent of revealing our common humanity and illuminating the truth of Blackness, not as myopic or self-centered…
…but as humane and magnanimous.
Love, art, and ambition as universal ideas, expressions, and mentality. Maybe this, above all else, is what the story of Ancestral Recall will compel you to consider, and just in case you have any doubt about what the future will entail…
…I remind you that the comedian was wrong.”
Joseph P. Illidge, December 2025
ANCESTRAL RECALL TP
(W) Jordan Clark
(A) Atagun İlhan
Cover: Khary Randolph
Black History: for painter Melvin Waring, it’s an actual super power! When Melvin’s wife mysteriously disappears, he must call on the most important Black figures of all time to save her from the futuristic Modern Living Corporation. 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).
“Right out of the gate, I loved ANCESTRAL RECALL! …It’s SINNERS meets QUANTUM LEAP.” -Steve Orlando
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