REVIEW: IDW’s Earthdivers Dives Right In

The mission is simple. Go back in time. Kill Christopher Columbus. Save the world. Stop the harm to generations that Europeans caused. Stop two apocalypses. Easy. But at what cost? That is the question that creators Stephen Graham Jones and Davide Gianfelice explore in the new ongoing series Earthdivers.

Earthdivers #1

Stephen Graham Jones (Writer), Davide Gianfelice (Artist), Joana Lafuente (Colorist), Steve Wands (Letterer)
IDW
5 October 2022

The year is 2112 and while the Maya were off by 100 years, what they predicted happened. The world ended, and it is up to a group of Indigenous folks to save us all. How? Well, they’ve figured out that preventing America, as a concept, place, and center for genocide, will prevent the apocalypse. And they know exactly how to do it.

I like this comic. I was captured by the world Jones and Gianfelice created. Jones’ dialogue between the married couple Sosh (Inupiak) and Tad (Lakota) is a sweet goodbye, which makes Tad’s choice to time travel even sadder. In addition, I like the art style. Gianfelice’s landscapes bring our Inupiat, Blackfeet, Lakota, and Seminole characters into a relatable post-apocalyptic future. Though, it is a bit funny to me that the cave which sends Tad into the past looks as though it’s nestled into the landscape of the American Southwest. Those are the homelands of different Indigenous Nations, like the Pueblos of New Mexico, Dine, Apache, Hualapai, and many others. Perhaps they’ll explore that in the future.

However, as much as I like the book, I couldn’t forget something weird about it. I was drawn to it because of the concept and having read Only Good Indians by Jones (a member of the Blackfeet tribe). While writing this review, I had a hard time finding out who the artist was. He’s not listed in much of the promotional material for the book, and the review copy doesn’t include the credits page.

And while I like the art, the artist, Davide Gianfelice, so far as I could find, is not Indigenous. In fact, he is Italian.* Which feels a tad ironic. Maybe drawing a comic where Columbus gets killed feels like advocating for Indigenous people. Mostly, I was left wondering what might be missing from this book without an Indigenous artist working on the visual storytelling.

For example, at one point, Tad, our time traveler, draws a version of the Sky Woman story onto the hull of one of Columbus’ ships. I wondered if, in this series of panels, Gianfelice drew from any Indigenous representations of Sky Woman’s story. And whether it would be appropriate for him to do so as a non-Indigenous artist for a book. He draws from Jones’ script, and Jones, along with the other members of the creative team, reviewed Gianfelice’s art, so they likely caught anything inappropriate.

But I wondered, considering that there are many Indigenous comics artists (see IndigiPop X and Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices #1), why Gianfelice? I could not find interviews with Gianfelice about his perspective on the book. And Jones, in interviews for the series, doesn’t explore how or why Gianfelice became the artist for the project. Most discussions of Gianfelice’s art come from interviews with Jones, such as on Nerdist. These state that Gianfelice’s character designs early in the process inspired later character choices and that “Davide could make panel after panel of dialogue…so dynamic”. So the two work well together. And, even if the series doesn’t have an entirely Indigenous crew, the book works.

That means I’m excited to see where it goes and the conflicts that Jones hints at. What will our main characters lose to revive the world? What will the world look like should they succeed? Will we see something like the Endless Nation, as envisioned in East of West? Or something like Rebecca Roanhorse’s (Black and Ohkay Owingeh**) Black Sun or Indigenous Futurisms like Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson (Cherokee).

The characters feel real and messy in Jones’ dialogue, and both the past and the future are lush and lived-in, through Gianfelice’s art. And the final words of the issue, “You don’t want to see what he’s become” make me wonder, what happens if they fail? We won’t know until we dive into the rest of the series, and this issue is enough to want me to read more about our team of muskrats.

*Based upon available information through his name’s cultural affiliation and location information online.

**Some Indigenous people question Roanhorse’s tie to Ohkay Owingeh, as there are complexities with her family history due to adoption and her mixed (non-white) heritage. The linked article includes a comment that explores some of this issue.