Earthdivers, Vol. 3: 1776

Earthdivers #3

by Stephen Graham Jones, Davide Gianfelice (illustrator), Joana LaFuente (Colorist)

ABOUT EARTHDIVERS, VOL. 3: 1776
Join or die! New York Times best-selling author Stephen Graham Jones and artist Davide Gianfelice are back in action for the next chapter of their heart-pounding historical sci-fi slasher Earthdivers!

A team of time-traveling Indigenous survivors had one goal: save the world from an American apocalypse by sending one of their own on a suicide trip to kill Christopher Columbus and course-correct world history.

Mission accomplished? Maybe not. Blood is still soaking into the sands of San Salvador as Tad’s friends suffer the consequences of his actions—and their own slippery moral rationalizations—620 years in the future. Faced with a choice to watch the world crumble or double down on their cause, the path is clear for Seminole two-spirit Emily: it’s personal now, and there’s no better time and place to take another stab at America than Philadelphia, 1776.

But where violence just failed them, she has a new plan: pass as a man, infiltrate the Founding Fathers, and use only wit and words to carve out a better future in the Declaration of Independence. No need to cut throats this time…right?

The next chapter of the critically acclaimed sci-fi epic is here in Earthdivers Vol. 3. Collects Earthdivers #11–16.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Horror, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Indigenous, Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2024

About the author

Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author thirty-five or so books. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favorite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in.

Reviews

[Christine Lucia Asha · Rating 5 out of 5]

MUST READ BOOKS in every genre:
Thriller Say Goodbye
Memoir The Yellow House
SciFi Murder by Memory
Romance Time Loops & Meet Cutes

I delayed reading the last chapter because it signified the end (!) of a very imaginative and mind-bending series. I loved all the permutations, even if I didn't quite understand some of the causality or consequences.

[a.g.e. montagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stephen Graham Jones brings his time-travelling saga to a close, and third time's the charm.

While the first two volumes suffered from weaknesses in storytelling (my reviews here and here), this third arc shows a more assured handling of the plot. It probably helps that the author, like any child in the USA, is intimately familiar with the history of the Founding Fathers and can weave circles around it. But many subtle details also help, such as the use of captions. The subplot with Emily in drag, who in volume 1 was seen... peeing standing up, was rather enjoyable, fully exploiting the anachronisms of time travel.
Having guest artist Riccardo Burchielli sit in for volume 2 also gave some respite to regular artist Davide Gianfelice, whose panels here show improvements in both design and execution.

The volume collects episodes 11-16 of the original series plus a double-length final issue, which Graham Jones uses to tie up the many loose ends, not just in the plot but also in the historical legacy of colonialism and genocide against the indigenous population of North America. The conclusion proves that the writer had carefully planned the whole series, even as the exposé could have been clearer along the way.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raucous conclusion to the trilogy. Requires concentration and attention to detail. So much to unpack.

As a result of reading this series, I have developed a completely different definition of the phrase "wasting time." It's not about productivity or capitalist industry. Rather, it seems that any time we spend making the world a worse place is wasting time. It's using time as a weapon instead of a tool.

You can't kill time. But you can stretch it into a better shape. Every reduction in harm is an investment in the present, as well as in the future, for everyone.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

An intriguing series seems to go off the rails as it rushes, reels, and stumbles into a (premature?) conclusion.

The little problems with previous volumes about some action scenes being hard to follow, characters hard to tell apart, and dialogue seeming unreal or random all seem magnified here.

With this third volume we follow a third character on a trip into the past to a third major time period. A Seminole trans woman attempts to gain the attention of Benjamin Franklin to persuade him to make some editorial changes to the Declaration of Independence in the hours before it is signed by the members of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776. A cool idea is lost in the increasingly ludicrous actions of the time traveller and some sort of -- I think -- zombie invasion?!?!

All the other characters have stuff going on also in other time periods, but at this point I am having a bit of a tough time following who's doing what to whom and why.

The comic book series ended at issue #16 with an outrageous cliffhanger, but the publisher has included one last, new chapter -- a previously unpublished #17, if you will -- in this trade paperback to sort of wrap everything up. It's not very successful, and it is exceedingly heartbreaking, so I guess it is an appropriate ending for this unsuccessful and heartbreaking series.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Chapter One. Founding Fathers -- Chapter Two. A Virtuous Heretick -- Chapter Three. Merciless Indian Savages -- Chapter Four. So Long Ago in the Future -- Chapter Five. We the People -- Chapter Six. A Bright Point -- Time and Its Opposite: An Earthdivers Ending -- Cover Gallery

[Alex Sarll]

Having initially tried to change history by killing Columbus, then been sidetracked by the Ice Age, the native American time travellers attempt to amend the wording by which America was founded, in the hope that might set the nation on a more inclusive course. Having the Founding Fathers lettered in old-fashioned script when first encountered was particularly ingenious; equally, it was quite slow to read, so possibly for the best that they don't try keeping it up for the whole volume. The new wrinkles in the temporal mechanics are intriguing, the concepts remain fascinating, and at times (not least the one-damn-thing-after-another sequence in which the intrepid protagonist overcomes one obstacle after another to be in the room where it happens) it manages to be a lot funnier than you might expect from a series about genocide and ecological apocalypse. There's also a masterful portrayal of Benjamin Franklin in all his complexity. But Earthdivers has never been the clearest comic around, and if anything that's got even worse here. In particular, I have no idea what was going on with the goat. Were those lettuces? Was that a comparison of Washington et al to Liz Truss? For all their undoubted failings, that seems a bit much. Pending an explanation, I'd have to call it a frustrating read overall, a really promising series whose creators never quite succeeded in consistently getting it displayed to best advantage on the page. Plus, this final collection includes an extra-length concluding chapter which was never available to people reading the singles, obliging them to buy the rest of it twice, something that always strikes me as shoddy treatment of a comic's keenest fans.

(Edelweiss ARC)

[Estibaliz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the art, love the representation in the story, the idea, the concept...

Do I love the execution? Well, not at all... Too many time jumps, and character jumps, way too often. The only part that was clearly narrated was the 1776 portion of the story, but all the other back and forth made the reading a bit too tiresome.

Not a bad ending, I guess, but the beginning of this series held much more promise than it actually ended up delivering.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. It's totally wild and quite trippy. Definitely feels like some of the other stories I've read from Stephen Graham Jones...a lot of wait...what...and who...and why...and what (again)? I love it here. It's got crazy time jumps and gets super confusing...and I imagine it will take several re-reads for me to fully wrap my head around everything that happens here. So I can see where this isn't something I'd recommend widely. But if you aren't scared off stories that get confusing and that get really weird and feel like they make absolutely no sense...then give this a try. The art is fantastic and I definitely want to re-read this whole thing now that I've finished it...see how all the pieces fit together and what I missed in my first read through...because I guarantee I missed some stuff because this is all making the kind of sense that's not...and I love it.

[Sassy Sarah Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was a much better volume compared to the sophomore volume in the Earthdivers series. I think it is incredibly important to mention that the art style matches volume 1 more than volume 2, and we are back to following Emily, an indigenous trans woman, who finds herself transported back to 1776, where Benjamin Franklin and the Founding Fathers are gathering to write and sign the Declaration of Independence. I love the concept of this one, but it does seem a little odd to me how much Emily idolizes Ben Franklin. I don't know, it seemed a little odd considering the plot of Earthdivers, and she is basically obsessed with his writings and recites them back to Benny Franklin almost perfectly. I also felt like the ball was dropped with the demonic goat from volume 1. It seemed like he was back in this one, but it wasn't fleshed out enough and was abruptly cut off. I had some issues with the narrative and pacing, but I did enjoy this one more than volume 2. At least, it retains the vibes of volume 1. I don't feel like this series wrapped up well, which is why I can't give a 4-star rating. While it was fun, I am once again left feeling unfulfilled and wanting more.

[ElphaReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an ending. I hadn't realized it was going to be the end until I started reading, but I felt like Jones wraps up the story pretty well, and finds new ways to dabble with and expand the time travel system. Good end to a good series.

[Kristina · Rating 2 out of 5]

2. I still prefer the first volume.

[Mohan Vemulapalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Earthdivers: 1776" is a solid, although somewhat disappointing, conclusion to this otherwise promising series. As a series "Earthdivers" has always been prone to incoherence and scattershot narration. This is particularly true in this volume and the lack of clarity significantly affects the impact and message of the series. Additionally, the final section of the book, which was only included in the trade version, feels choppy and tacked on giving the impressions that a longer run was shelved in favor of producing one final desperate volume. All this being noted, it is still important to acknowledge this book for its strong story telling, creative character development and robust indigenous characters.


I am rating this four stars on the overall strength of the series. This volume itself is closer to three and a half on its own merits.

[Keisha Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confusing. My fault for grabbing library book and assuming it was stand alone and not the third in a series.

Group of indigenous survivors of post apocalyptic American year 2112 decide to travel back in time to correct world history. First one killed Christopher Columbus but the death changed nothing. Next one, Seminole trans woman Emily goes back to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to add some phrasing to help civil rights.

Is a total blood bath. People turn into sheep. Rules of time travel contradict itself. Not established why Franklin who owns slaves is suddenly cool with actual equal rights. Jumps around between characters narratives and times a lot. Nothing changes.

[Daniel Stitt · Rating 1 out of 5]

I actually did not finish this book, because it was too distracting to finish. The shifting of perspectives literally from one page to the next was super hard and distracting to read. The art and the concept is obviously amazing, and I loved the previous two volumes, but this one just took it too far with the shifting of the perspective in the past to present to future. Please choose one narrative storyline and take it to completion before shifting to the next! I just can’t stomach the confusion with the series any longer.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was confused throughout this entire volume.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is the end of the series and I have to say...I don't know what happened. it just devolved into something so confusing.

the main part of the story is in 1776, emily goes back to ben franklin signing the declaration of independence, she wants to suggest some edits that make it a fairer, more inclusive document, hoping that then leads to the constitution starting off as a fairer, more inclusive document. kind of a long shot, if you ask me, but she spent her childhood in post-apocalyptic philadelphia and ben franklin is a hero of hers. I saw another review that says it discusses franklin in his full complexity but what it actually does is change franklin into a transfriendly murderfriendly guy.

it wasn't clear to me if she actually succeeded in the changes. she changed something but exactly what, I'm not sure. then the rest of the comic is the end of the series, where sosh gets the wrong end of the stick and thinks yellow kidney killed tad (actually he just got spit back out of his wrong spot in the timeline when he died, like everyone does) and then she ends up going back to the battle of wounded knee but due to...reasons, maybe because she didn't go through naked or whatever, she keeps getting killed and resurrected on the battlefield. and all the while she's like tad, where are you?? which makes no sense bc she knows where he is, he went back to 1492 and killed columbus and then he died. she seems to think she's going to run into him.

and then there are some pages that seem like they're going to explain how the time traveling cave came to be, except they really don't, the goddess yellow woman shows up and doesn't do anything, a white woman falls out of a rocket escaping the planet just to be annoying and exploitative, and it kind of wraps up insisting on this deep romance between sosh and tad, which.....ok sure, sosh and tad love story but the fact is, when we met them, they had already decided tad was going to sacrifice himself to kill columbus and both of them were kind of annoying characters anyway, sosh more so.

jones is a horror novelist, first and foremost, and honestly it shows. he's trying to tell this time traveling story about can we go back in time and save the world by stopping or delaying or changing the basis of the US - and he seems to come down on, no we can't - but the whole while it's like what he really wants to do is slash throats. so there's a lot of throat slashing, and a fair amount of impaling.

honestly though, my biggest problem with this is how confusing it was.

[mad mags · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Content warning for racism, misogyny, and violence.)

-- 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 where necessary --

It's 2112, and to absolutely no one's surprise, the world has become uninhabitable. The 1% boarded their (presumably SpaceX) rockets to space, while the poor have been left to fend for themselves on this barren hellscape.

Tad, Sosh, Emily, and Yellow Kidney are a group of indigenous Americans who discover a time-traveling cave in Arizona. The rules: walk through the cave, one at a time and naked except for one item contemporary to the time you wish to travel to, and voila! There you are.

In Volume 1, polyglot Tad travels back to 1492 in order to kill Columbus before he can "discover" America. Though he is eventually successful, the (very much justified) murder seemingly only messes up the timeline further. Thus, a frustrated Emily - who collected various historical artifacts during her childhood in Philly - decides to travel back to the nation's founding in 1776, in the hopes of convincing the Founding Fathers to craft the Declaration of Independence using more overtly inclusive language. With the help of his eyeglasses, Emily launches herself back to 1776 - and right to the side of Benjamin Franklin.

I really love the idea behind the EARTHDIVERS series, but as with volumes 1 and 2, I found a lot of the action confusing. I guess this is pretty standard for time travel tales - so many rules and paradoxes - but the mysterious, humanoid goat doesn't exactly help. We first saw him taunting Tad on the Santa Maria (if memory serves), but he also visits Emily, seemingly in a bid to throw her plans awry. Is he an artifact of the universe, dispatched to protect the original timeline? A specter of racism? The devil himself? Probably option a, though who knows.

The denouement is as enjoyable as it is gruesome, though by story's end it's still a bit unclear if Emily fixed the future (present?). While a trip back in time is indeed a suicide mission, it doesn't quite work the way Yellow Kid expected. The result: time traveling corpses being spit out in all different eras, only adding to my confusion. (Do Tad and Sosh get their happily ever after? I genuinely don't know!!!) Seeing as this is the last volume in the series, I was hoping for some closure, but I still have no idea what happened. That said, it was still one hell of a ride.

[Abigail Pankau · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Tad does not succeed, Emily goes to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, in hopes to get Benjamin Franklin to make some choice amendments so that all peoples are included, not just white men. But she finds that there is someone or something else also making changes to history. Meanwhile, those in the future are discovering that it’s not just a one-way trip to the past, and trying to figure out what that means for them.

An interesting conclusion of this horror graphic series, where indigenous people try to change America’s founding. I like seeing how changes to the past affect things, while there is stuff going on with the people in the future. However, it’s a bit convoluted (and confusing) in its telling, with too many jumps back and forth and too many things left unexplained. It’s good, but unfortunately too confusing to get higher than three stars from me.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: I received access to read this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Earthdivers is at its best when it has sent one of its characters back in time to fix a historical event. The other storylines so far haven't been nearly as interesting. The multiple story threads are difficult to follow.

[Jeff Wait · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This one rules. The premise — saving the world by destroying America — leads to 1776, just before July 4th. The result is an awesome run full of history, philosophy, sci-fi and, most importantly, horror. Plus the art continues to be phenomenal. If you liked Vol. 1, you have to check this one out. Such a perfect continuation and finale. Is there anything SGJ can’t do?

[Petraq · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

This conclusion left mostly satisfied, though I am not sure how to feel about everything coming together. The time travel concept has been very chaotic in my eyes, but I liked where the story ended.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Changing the meaning of America's founding is the obvious next step if you can't prevent it at all, so this makes sense story-wise. Unfortunately the story itself is a bit more confusing than the previous volumes, which I think is probably from this being the author's first comics work.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it was very interesting. I liked this edition’s artwork better than the last one. I will look forward to more graphic novels from Jones in the future.

3.5 stars

[Zack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really emotional moments in this arc. I’ll also admit there are lots of parts I don’t understand; I’ll probably go back and read it again, this time in the trade paperbacks instead of single issues.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved It!

What an absolute amazing story!! Stephen Graham Jones has created a magnificent historical sci-fi fiction work. Earthdivers trying to save their world by changing American history. Do they succeed? Read the series to find out.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Read in single-issue format and without the epilogue bonus content from the collected edition.)

[Nerdelika · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is just twisting itself and the ending is not published as a single issue.

[Michael Howley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully done, if confusing as hell. Kinda get the feeling it was cut short, which is a real bummer.

[Panda Blaine Jensen Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely phenomenal. Read the series.

[The_J · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cluttered art, a revenge fantasy with "notes" on the founding documents. Didn't do anything for me and with death of a founding father was more off putting.

[Rafael Suleiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good graphic novel.