Planet continues in its search for new series that catch our attention and is the result of its agreement with IDW publishes in our country the first volume of Earthdivers: Kill Columbusa science fiction series, specifically about time travel, but with certain doses of terror and a lot of social criticism by the screenwriter Stephen Graham Jones and artist Davide Gianfelice.
The publisher’s summary is as follows: The year is 2112 and the apocalypse is exactly as expected: rivers fade, oceans rise, and society falls apart. Humanity has lost hope, except for a group of Native American survivors who have discovered a portal to travel in time and have found out the moment when history took a sharp turn for the worse: America. Convinced that the only way to save the world is to rewrite its past, they send one of their own to the year 1492 on a bloody mission of no return to kill Christopher Columbus before he reaches the so-called New World… but tearing down an icon is not easy task, and the future will pay an overwhelming price if it backfires.
We are facing the umpteenth dystopia in which humanity faces extinction. Faced with the threat of the total destruction of our planet, the rich and powerful leave in spaceships, leaving the poorest and most disadvantaged on earth. You don’t have to be a lynx to see the social criticism in this approach that we have already seen a thousand times, even in a legendary episode of The Simpsons.
The fun of the story is in what a small group of survivors made up of several Native Americans does to try to find a solution. One of them discovers a cave that allows time travel that was hidden under a river. And together they decide that everything went wrong for humanity when Christopher Columbus discovered America.thus giving rise to a chain of events that led to the creation of the United States and a supercapitalist system that led to the destruction of our planet.
Yes, you have to take a big leap of faith to accept this approach, but everything is given because The author, Stephen Graham Jones, is a Native American who wants to show the dire consequences of the discovery of America and that more or less we all already know. From the subjugation of the indigenous peoples to the death of many of those indigenous people due to the diseases that the Europeans brought to America.
Once we are clear about the context of the work, it remains to be seen if we are facing a good story, with arguments to be interesting beyond social criticism. And the answer is affirmative, but with nuances.
For a start, Once the protagonist travels to the past and embarks on one of the caravels that take Columbus to America, we have an exciting story in which there is a descent into hell for the character.having to transform into what he hates most to carry out his mission. The good of humanity is worth more than the lives of individual people who must be killed to carry out their mission. A mission that will be painted in blood red with moments very close to terror. Special mention deserves the strange relationship that is established between the time traveler and Christopher Columbus himself, which in my opinion does not quite work well.
On the other hand, There is a story that runs parallel in the present, in which the members of the group who have been left behind have to discover if their partner’s actions in the past have borne the desired fruit. Everything about how time travel works is pretty convoluted.something that the scriptwriter uses as a wild card to present characters who have their own interests and who may hide information from others.
The main problem with Killing Columbus is that, although it starts from a very interesting idea, it gets lost a little along the way, since the story ends up being quite confusing.especially the part that takes place in the present, where we are never really sure what the writer is telling us. And it’s a shame, because the scenes in the past, although they start out a little average, end up having enormous power, especially at the end. An ending, by the way, that leaves nothing clear about what happened, delving a little deeper into the problem we discussed.
As for the graphic section, I can only say that it is outstanding. Davide Gianfelice offers pages full of detailwith a great character design and without having the slightest problem when going from the most expository moments to the action ones, where it undoubtedly shines in the crudest moments, with some shocking vignettes. Joana Lafuente’s color work helps a lotwith sublime management of brightness and setting that make the scenes from the different time periods always have their own personality.
The Planeta edition compiles in one volume the first six issues of the Earthdivers series, corresponding to the Killing Columbus saga. This is a 184-page hardcover book that contains multiple extras such as an introduction by the screenwriter, several pages of exclusive sketches and conceptual illustrations, a gallery of covers and a brief sample of the process of going from the script to the drawn page. . The retail price is 18.95.
In summary, Killing Columbus (Earthdivers) is a comic that starts from an attractive initial premisewhich has just the right doses of social criticism to avoid being pamphleteer and very interesting character development (especially in the part of the past). But it ends up weighing on him how confusing and convoluted everything is related to time travel and what happens in the present, which we never fully understand.. It is true that in theory the story does not end and there should be another volume, in which all this could be explained completely and be well tied up, but for now, the impression that remains is that of having a good story that is not completely understood. .
