We Only Find Them When They're Dead, Vol. 3: The Soul

We Only Find Them When They're Dead

by Al Ewing, Simone Di Meo (Illustrator)

The Conclusion of the Multiple Eisner Award-Nominated Epic Sci-fi Series, Flashing Forward 50 Years into a Fateful Future!

It began with questioning the Gods. It ends here… once again… at the edge of the universe. Thierry-9, an A.I. cultured from the corpse of God Malik, awakens face-to-face with Jason Hauer, now a shell of a man at the end of his life. Their conversations lead Thierry-9 on a journey through space, time, and Malik’s memories, retracing the fateful flight of the Vihaan II on a quest to discover—once and for all—the origins of the Gods. The lines between humanity and the divine blur even further as we hurtle towards the conclusion of this Eisner-nominated interstellar series from acclaimed writer Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk) and artist Simone Di Meo (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers). Collects We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #11-15.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 12, 2023

Reviews

[Imogene · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a few too many time lines and not enough coherence for me to love it, but it was an interesting journey.

[Alex Sarll]

And so we conclude, with more time jumps and double-crosses, plus a general sense of the grubbiness of being human. The revelation that the late 24th century computing revolution came about because humanity found the minds of the gods and treated them like free hard drives, recording over them with our own crap like a kid recording over the wedding tape, does sound a lot like something humanity would do; when one issue has the refrain "Everything beats dying, that's the rule", it comes as little surprise to have that axiom disproved before we're done. Still, I suspect my overall sense of dissatisfaction comes less from being part of a fundamentally greedy and nasty species than from the art here, which has never quite overcome my initial impression of somehow being consistently luminous without always being clear. Oh for Ewing's old Ultimates collaborator, Christian Ward! One is left with the nagging sensation that, for Al's big creator-owned launch, it wasn't quite the book it could or should have been. This is doubly unfortunate when you consider that early readers already have ample proof that he's not just a master reworker of others' ideas, an impression one could derive from his Marvel stuff, excellent as it generally is. In his 2000AD days, on the other hand, while he did some of the best non-Wagner Dredd in years, his original creations also included some absolute gems, and if Zombo has deservedly been accepted as something of a modern mascot, to the best of my knowledge Damnation Station – like this, a story of a future humanity which had escaped the Earth only to find itself in a new set of nasty compromises – doesn't even have a proper collection, a situation more disgraceful by far than Britain's cheese imports. But the good news is that, at the last, We Only Find Them's final issue does tie things together a lot better than I'd been hoping, elevating what's come before and finding transcendence of a sort even in what's often seemed like a consistently downbeat story.

[David Lenton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art in this 15-issue/3 volume comic is beautiful, if occasionally hard to follow due to the limited colour palette.

The concept - a sci-fi story set in a universe where the mysterious appearance of the bodies of Gods forms the foundation of several cultures and an intergalactic economy based on the consumption of these bodies - is really interesting.

The end result? Bland. Disappointing. Frustrating.

The use of flashbacks and time jumps ultimately create a narrative that's hard to follow, despite the events of the story itself being pretty simple. It just feels like a way to try and make a somewhat repetitive story seem more interesting, without actually...y'know...being interesting.

We don't spend enough time with any characters to get a chance to care about them, which puts a lot of pressure on the overarching story about the origin of the gods' bodies to make reading this worthwhile; and the conclusion that we get, insofar as it can be said to be a conclusion at all, ultimately fails to make the effort of getting there seem worth it.

I feel like this is the kind of comic that people might say they enjoy, because they're scared that saying otherwise might make them look dumb, given it presents itself as deeply philosophical. But, no. It's the comic that's the problem.

Rating: 2/5 (1.9 of which is for the art).

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Al Ewing's sci-fi epic jumps forward a hundred years from the last arc to bring the story of the Gods to a close.

With this jump forward comes the same problems we had in the last arc, namely that we have to learn to love a whole new cast of characters again in a short space of time, knowing that we're going to lose them again in 5 issues time. Ewing brings everything full circle with some political intrigue, religious musings, and an AI and some blaster battles for funsies too.

Simone Di Meo's artwork remains superb, with some insane angles and utterly beautiful colouring; even if it's hard to remember who everyone's meant to be, they always look grand.

There's a decent conclusion wrapped up in here, but I definitely think the series needs a re-read from #1 to really appreciate the scope of what Ewing was trying to accomplish with this book.

[Pafciaszek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weekend majowy mogę określić jako czas czytania o martwych bogach xD

Trzecia księga kończy historie George’a Malika i jego „ostatnim locie”. Podoba mi się pomysł na zakończenie chociaż mogłoby być więcej wyjaśnień (szczególnie w kwestii „martwych bogów”).

Dalej jest problem z przeskokami w czasie (które ostatnie dzieje się az 200 lat od aktualnych wydarzeń)

Biorąc pod uwagę wszystkie 3 tomy to wg mnie drugi mało co wnosi do historii. Był w porządku ale trochę jakby był zbędny.

Bardzo podobała mi się cała seria - fajnie napisana historia z dużą ilością filozoficznych aspektów.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's still some of the same issues as with the first two parts - lots of time-jumping, sometimes difficult to identlfy characters within the artwork with all the colours going on - but also the good points. There's fantastic scope to the story, and there is a sense of resolution in this conclusion. As before, for me it's more about looking at the big picture of the story as a whole rather than sticking on individual details, and the overall tone of the storytelling is compelling; the series as whole is definitely worth a read.

[Tracey Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not entirely sure I understood all the nuances of the finale but I enjoyed this bold and ambitious series.

[Kristina · Rating 1 out of 5]

1. Beautiful but extremely disappointing.

[Dan P · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great space gowns, beautiful space gowns.

An unfortunately incoherent ending for an intriguing premise. After reading the first volume you may think hmm I wonder where this series will go with these giant floating space gods? What do they mean and where do they come from? After reading the last volume you won't be asking those questions anymore. Not because they're answered in a remotely satisfying way, but because it's clear the creators didn't really know either and weren't that interested in exploring it. A total narrative failure, which is rare coming from the normally exquisite Al Ewing

[Jason Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

what a confusing execution of an interesting storyline. It looks great except muddled, the story is interesting but it is just so confusing for the reader with the multiple points in time and how the point of view characters constantly shift.

[Julio Valentin · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a mess. I didn't care for volumen 2 but decided to finish the series. Don't know why I did it. Glutton for punishment

[Yoshiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

POPKulturowy Kociołek:

https://popkulturowykociolek.pl/znajd...

Znajdujemy ich, gdy są już martwi tom 3 to ostatnia już część kosmicznej opery Ala Ewinga i Simone Di Meo. Przyszła więc pora na domknięcie napoczętych wątków i danie czytelnikom odpowiedzi na nurtujące ich pytania kotłujące się w ich głowach od pierwszego tomu.

Biorąc do ręki album Znajdujemy ich, gdy są już martwi tom 3, otrzymujemy złożoną i dającą do myślenia narrację, dzięki której treść komiksu na długo pozostanie w umysłach niektórych czytelników. Autor kolejny raz decyduje się eksplorować tematykę duszy, duchowości i celu życia człowieka. Stawia on liczne pytania o istnienie Boskiej iskierki, zmuszając tym samym odbiorcę do pewnych refleksji nad przeczytaną treścią. Obok tego eksploruje on ludzką psychikę, dodając opowieści głębi i złożoności, czyniąc ją czymś więcej niż tylko standardową przygodą science-fiction.

Brzmi to wszystko bardzo intrygująco i potrafi przyciągnąć uwagę fanów bardziej złożonego sci-fi. Jakość ciekawej treści zależy jednak również od formy jej podania, a z tym jest już tu pewien problem. Akcja ponownie przeskakuje tu mocno do przodu. Wraz z tym skokiem pojawiają się te same problemy, które mieliśmy w poprzedniej historii. Mianowicie poznajemy opowieść z perspektywy nowych bohaterów, wiedząc, że i tak po kilku stronach znikną oni z historii. Oznacza to nic innego jak kolejny raz dość przeciętne kreacje bohaterów.

Powodów do narzekania nie ma za to, jeśli chodzi o domknięcie napoczętych wątków. Twórcy udaje się sprawnie odpowiedzieć na prawie wszystkie stawiane w historii pytania (czy są to odpowiedzi satysfakcjonujące to już sprawa mocno indywidualna). Niestety album nie uniknął przy tym pewnych potknięć z poprzednich tomów. Zdarzają się tu za bardzo przegadane momenty z niepotrzebnym techno bełkotem. Na całe szczęście nie ma ich zbyt wiele, a twórca stara się je kontrastować mocniejszą akcją. Najlepiej jest czytać całą serię jednym ciągiem (bez przerw), nabiera ona wtedy większej spójności....

[Jacob A. Mirallegro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read issue 1 of this series when it came out and I thought it was intriguing but seemed like something that would be better reading the whole trade together. I was right but still felt similarly in that it would benefit with having the rest of the series hot off the ending of that. Again, I think I was right. This probably would've functioned better as three original graphic novels than three five issue story arcs, but I'm sure there's like production or editorial factors too.

I see a lot of criticism that matches my initial complaints about that first arc, mainly the characters being unengaging and the difficult to follow time jumps. Reading the whole series I can forgive both of these because of what this unique book is going for. It's not character driven, it's more about the world and concepts it deals with. It would be odd to have a sturdy cast of characters to be invested in when the story itself spans centuries.The characters that are here still have plenty of depth and development but instead of plainly showing it to the audience it's often given as a twist.
This is a space age science fiction series that deals with the interactions of religion, technology, and military. There's a lot of fascinating tidbits about this universe and it's put together with art that looks stunningly unique. I've seen very few comics that have art and colors like what Simone Di Meo and Mariasara Miotti do throughout this. There's fun looking spaceships and designs but also beautifully abstract panels that create such a "spacey" atmosphere.

I think this series is really worth giving a chance but I'd recommend reading it all together and I get if that was a turn off for some readers.

[Mir S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something I was worried about as I approached the end of this series is the tendency for sci-fi writers to give us an "open-ended" finale. (This really just means that we get no answers because the writers couldn't come up with them.) Thankfully, we do get answers, but we're also not spoonfed them.
Ewing doesn't treat readers like they're dumb, but instead invites us to think about the themes in the story while giving us the answers to the main question about the gods. If we're not shown the death of a character, we can draw conclusions about their endings from dialogue, or even just time skips.
Speaking of the time skips, while they definitely gave me whiplash at times, they ended up adding to the payoff of the Big Reveal at the finale. Jumping around through time really challenged me to remember: this story takes place in a world where everything- time, space, emotions, ambition- is bigger and more jarring and more beautiful.
The ending actually was perfect, to me, which can be a difficult thing to achieve with a story this big. Yet another Boom! comic I'm glad to have taken a chance on.

[Michael Bertrand · Rating 2 out of 5]

We Only Find Them When They're Dead, volumes 1-3, tells the story of a group of human scavengers as they search for the meaning of some Lovecraftian-scale weirdness. In this future, humans have used up the universe. The rich have hoarded all that remains and left the poor to starve.

Giant humanoid bodies appear at the very edge of the known universe. The giants, which the scavenger deem to be gods, seem to be dead. But what's dead and what's alive? And what's the difference to people who are starving? Thus, the scavengers mine the bodies for resources, and a whole new struggle for power and resources begins.

I read volumes 1 and 2 back to back in November of 2022. I remember just enough of the plot to follow volume three. Each volume introduces new casts of characters, and each one skips around in time and place. It would be hard to keep up with if I had all three in hand- which I don't. The end result is that I get the general idea of what's happening and miss the specific, character driven points the author's trying to make.

I don't think it really makes a difference. Why?

The whole thing, volumes one through three, reminds me of the final two episodes of the original run of Neon Genesis Evangelion. If you're not familiar, those two episodes were a two-part highly experimental and surreal conclusion to a complicated and convoluted science fiction series. Behind the scenes, the creators of Neon Genesis had run of of money and time. They had to put something out to conclude the series, but they'd pulled a JJ Abrams: they wrote a compelling start without having a clear picture of how to end. Unlike JJ Abrams, they actually had an outline. But then, there was the no-money and time problem. The original conclusion didn't really resolve anything. There was a lot of surreal hippie-speak and technobabble, with some French existentialist theatre mixed in that satisfied absolutely no one. The creators of NGE spent the next 25 or so years struggling to bring the series to a satisfactory close.

This is a long way of saying that We Only Find Them When They're Dead feels like a muddled, incoherent mess. I think the authors are trying to sound profound, but they don't actually get there. And unlike NGE, there's not enough in the source material to build with. There's no "there," there.

The art doesn't help. Yes, it's pretty, but there are big chunks of action where it's hard to tell what's happening. Later panels usually clarified the situation, but for something this ambitious, it seems like they could have produced something clearer.

I don't recommend.

[Buzz Park · Rating 1 out of 5]

I let my feelings be known in my review of the first book and didn’t bother with a review of the second. It’s the same here…

Hands-down the worst graphic novel I’ve ever read.

OK, that’s not fair, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Let me put it this way: this was, for me personally, the least-enjoyable graphic novel I’ve ever read.

The art, while colorful, is extremely difficult to decipher. Most of the time you can hardly tell what’s happening or who’s talking.

The story - oh my gosh - the story is almost incomprehensible with all the convoluted time jumps, incomplete thoughts, partial story lines and unrecognizable characters.

And the ending literally makes no sense. Not only does the art completely confuse the issue, but there isn’t any understandable dialogue to explain what happens. Terrible. A non-ending if I ever saw one.

While the motto of the finale is ”Let me live”, it’s clear that we need to let this misguided and poorly executed project stay very dead.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthy conclusion to the story, though it did not grab me quite as much as We Only Find Them When They're Dead, Vol. 2: The Stealer. There is a lot of spy/mole/double cross action, but the heart of this one is dealing with an AI android (Thierry-9)made from pieces of the god-heart of Georges Malik. It was a fun name choice, based on etymology.

There is an good amount of rumination of what living is, what is living, and ideas of the soul. Using snippets of dialogue from earlier in the series was an inventive way of developing the AI character as it tries to process the memories of Georges Malik. A fun, brief series!

[Pturingan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure I understood the conclusion (nor the whole story for that matter) and I'm not even sure if I was fully satisfied by the ending and resolution (if one can call it that) but still, I know I was fully engaged and entertained by the entire series with the big, bold, ideas and the big, bold, colorful, and very pretty art. Recommended- but probably better read when you have all three volumes with you so you can better remember what came before because there's some huge time jumps in this series.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 3 out of 5]

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead, Ewing
Book 3 – THE SOUL
#11 – What Is Alive? – “Whatever outlay you need. There is NOTHING more important than this project, do you understand me?”
#12 – That’s The Rule – “We’re not looking for HEROES. You should know that going in.” “I remember .. the feel in my chest of an OLD DREAM, shattering like glass.”
#13 – We Don’t Do It For Nothing – “This is a matter of FAITH. .. Not all of us will see the END if it!”
#14 – The Present and the Past – “Is that CAPTAIN MALIK?” “GOD Malik.”
#15 – In Your Image – “So this is how it ends.”

[Villain E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, I figured they weren't going to stick the landing. This wasn't high concept, this was no concept. There was clearly not a plan for the ending from the beginning. It's tough to pants a story like this and have it come to a satisfying resolution.

Another time jump. More new characters. When we were at the second-to-last issue and the ending hadn't started yet, I knew it was going to be a non-ending. This big a story, the ending should last multiple issues. At least it wasn't a cliffhanger.

[Vladimír · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prvé dva booky mali niečo do seba a každý reflektoval na nejaký neduh spoločnosti. Či už to bol konzum a kapitalizmus, prípadne náboženský fanatizmus. Tretia kniha však takýto ústredný motív nemala. A ak aj mala, tak som si ho vo všetkých tých motaniciach nevšimol. Skákalo sa tu v rámci času a lokácií tak zbesilo a neprehľadne, že sa mi z toho trochu točila hlava. Často sa mi stávalo, že som nejakú vsuvku vôbec nepochopil. Séria to bola ako celok dobrá, ale záver bol vyslovene nezvládnutý.

[Luke John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read by any means, this series has always required the active engagement of the audience to tangle with the ideas on display. With the story now concluded, the work stands as one that will likely have lost a few readers along the way, but for those who stayed with it it would be hard to find a more satisfying ending than this (whatever it was that happened...).

[Chad Cunningham · Rating 3 out of 5]

The conclusion of the series stumbles from plot to plot until reaching a point where there is some pontification. Then it's over.

I think this series has a lot of interesting ideas...and the art is fantastic...but it's weighed down by the machinations of the characters.

Still, a good enough read.

[brand · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great three-part sci-fi saga.

Though it could've been a bit more coherent at parts, Ewing does a great job at writing a world, and developing it over time. He touches upon theology and blind passion, and it all culminates into an answer to the question of 'what is alive?' and 'what is a god?'.

A great read, that may or may not lose you on the way.

80/100

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book just never got past its muddy, murky hard-to-read art and its muddy, murky hard-to-follow story. To the point where I don't even know what the point of Ewing's ending was.

But the time jumps, the constantly changing characters, the expectations that years would be meaningful to you, that all just detracted from the storytelling, sadly.

So, neat ideas, bad execution.

[Josh Deena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art in this series never ceases to amaze me. Every single page is bursting with an ethereal beauty, which adds to the grand and dreamlike quality of the story. I think my one issue, however, was that this volume in particular felt too much like a dream. It felt less coherent and structured than previous volumes. However, it is still fantastically written!

[Sydney Edlund · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting series! I'm not sure I fully get it. If you read the Guardians of the Galaxy books and enjoyed the stuff with Adam Warlock, I think you'd like this as well. I read all three volumes one after the other this evening, and they read kind like a poem, or a song with a refrain. Which really fits the overall themes of time, what it is to be alive, to have a soul.

[Shawn Ingle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good series overall, but there were definitely some problems. My biggest gripe is the coloring. Too many panels were dark, monotone, and flat, either making what is going on difficult to distinguish and/or the characters difficult to differentiate. Combine this with the continuous adding on of layers to the story and time jumps, it wasn't always the easiest to follow at times.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this story too obtuse with way too many timelines to track and keep in my head. Maybe it'll read better if read straight through to better keep everything straight. Ewing's first creator owned book in a long time was a letdown for me. His Marvel work has been far superior.

[M Sholihin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is as bad as the second volume. Too many time jumps, too many nostril. It is like the illustrator favorite angle. The conclusion is both good and bad but mostly bad. Looks like someone will become a 'living god'.. still meh. Volume 1 is the best volume.