Earthdivers

New York Times best-selling horror author Jones makes his comics debut with an irresistible revisionist history premise: in the postapocalyptic future, four Indigenous people discover a time-traveling portal in a desert cave and decide to alter the world's fate by assassinating Christopher Columbus before he "discovers" America. Scholarly Tad is chosen as the group's one-way traveler to 1492, where his awkward efforts to blend in with the fifteenth-century Spanish sailors on one of Columbus' vessels lead to trouble, necessitating Tad to make increasingly questionable choices to survive. Meanwhile, the others in 2112 travel to an abandoned school looking for history books to see what's changed, but run afoul of other time travelers bringing buried secrets to light. The juxtaposition of these two time lines creates a strong sense of dread, as the fallout from Tad's actions is slowly revealed in the present time line. Tad's sections are tense and gripping, a historical revenge slasher filled with moral ambiguity and anguish, while the storyline in 2112 is compelling but convoluted with multiple time lines and ghostly intrusions. Gianfelice's kinetic, expressive artwork enhances Jones' story, seeding clues from the different time lines, like a buried hand, in the foreground or background of other scenes, while portraying the bloody violence of 1492 and the desert desolation of 2112 with detailed specificity. Highly recommended.

Acclaimed horror author Jones (Don't Fear the Reaper) and illustrator Gianfelice (Firefly: New Sheriff in the 'Verse, Part One) present an audacious science-fiction saga. In the year 2112, with the Earth verging on being uninhabitable due to an array of economic and environmental disasters, a Lakota linguist named Tad decides that "the only way for the world to live is if America dies…if America never even happens." Traveling through time turns out to be the most easily accomplished step in Tad's plan, though; before long, the difficulty of infiltrating Columbus's crew and adapting to life in 1492, and the constant pressure of successfully carrying out his unimaginably high-stakes mission, push the protagonist to make choices that cause him to question whether he's driven by noble intentions or an instinct for vengeance. Meanwhile, in 2112, Tad's comrades question how they'll know whether or not he's succeeded and begin to suspect that the very fabric of time might be taking action against them. VERDICT A compellingly immersive character-driven science-fiction spectacle.