Comics Archeology

Eternals #7 (1977)
by Jack Kirby

The Celestials central stage this time. Since they don’t talk, I might have less complains about Kirby’s dialogues.

We begin with Ajak and Doctor Damian observing two Celestials analyze a strange sample.
One of the things I’ve always loved about the Celestials is the fact that, in addition to their name, they’re all assigned a function. Gammenon is “the gatherer” and Jemiah is “the analyzer”, which as you can see can be quite literal.

Ajak somehow knows that the sample is where the Celestial store living organisms, and Gammenon wants him to take a look.

The sample contains entire human beings (!!!), which the Dr. Damian considers humiliating.
Ajak is more used to the Celestials.

To put into perspective his remark that the Celestials were around before the Galaxy was formed… it’s even crazier than that: according to the 2023 “Defenders: Beyond” by Al Ewig, they’re SIGNIFICANTLY older.
How significantly? Well they originate from the “First Cosmos”, the first multiverse… while the Marvel Universe is the seventh.
Meaning the Celestials are currently six times older than the universe.

The “sample” contained the atoms of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents captured last issue, and now they’re restored to their original form.

Aaaaand the first thing they do is threaten to shoot the archeologist.

I’m not entirely sure why Dr. Damian is so adamant about the Celestials being invincible.
He’s not exactly wrong, but up to this point he hasn’t seen them do pretty much anything.

We’re now given a more detailed infodump about the backstory of the Eternals mythos.
Specifically, we’re learning about the previous “Celestial hosts” that visited the planet.
The first time (about a million years ago according to future stories) it was to create to create Eternals, Deviants and humans.
The second time was during the “Great Cataclysm” that destroyed the ancient Deviant empire, and according to future stories it’s also what caused the sinking of Atlantis about 20,000 years ago.

The third time was at the heigh of the Inca civilization, and the fourth time is during this series.

Being given information that recontextualizes the entire human history… the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents proceed to ignore all of that.

Then one of the agents manages to knock down an Eternal with his bare fists, something the rest of the series repeatedly assures us should be impossible.

If that’s not insane enough for you, one of the agents decides to use his POCKET NUCLEAR BOMB.

Okay between knocking down an Eternal and making this throw, I’m sure this is one of S.H.I.E.L.D’s superhuman agents.

Tefral, our fourth named Celestial, receives the full blast…

…to absolutely no effect.

Sometimes it’s a shame we don’t get what the Celestials think about what humans are doing.

You might have wondered why I’ve been keeping tabs of which Celestials receive names.
That’s because we never get a true indication of how many Celestials are part of the Fourth Host, so I’m trying to see how many we see that are never named.
Here we have a pretty good group shot that includes three named Celestials (Gammenon, Tefral and Jemiah), plus the one with six eyes is clearly Eson who will officially be named in a couple of issues.
But there’s another 3 in this shot that don’t resemble future named Celestials (possibly more, but those on the right might be their equipment; I’m also not including the weird being buzzing around Arishem a couple issues ago, they might have been something else).

The reason why all the Celestials are looking up is that their leader, the weirdly named One Above All (not to be confused with Marvel’s version of God), just arrived.
We won’t see him directly before a few more issues.

His message reaches Earth as “a laser beam 10 billion years evolved” (what the heck does THAT mean!?), which is apparently the origin for the “ladder of fire”.
I’m assuming Kirby is referring to Jacob’s Ladder; I could not find any myth in Incan mythology that would fit, or on other pre-Colombian civilizations.

Kirby is going Biblical with this, because the “wheel within a wheel” reference is straight out of Ezekiel 1:16.
Turns out it’s just the effect of the Celestials teleporting.

The Celestials have teleported to various places on Earth, where we’ll see them throughout the series. Which makes having the Inca build this enormous landing platform kind of redundant.

On the other hand, I love the idea that the Inca built this gorgeous, larger-than-life temple city to honor the Celestials… and its only use is for a place for Arishem to rest his feet.

Arishem is going to spend the next 50 years judging humanity, and when the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents try to escape he reduces them once again to samples.

And so we end the story with Arishem beginning his judgment: he’s going to spend the next 50 years deciding whether to give Earth a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

I don’t like our chances.

Historical significance: 2/10
A bit more backstory for the previous Celestial Hosts, so this only matters to the Eternals.

Silver Age-ness: 4/10
On the Marvel scale, but a POCKET NUKE!!!

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
I’ll admit my bias: the Celestials are immensely cool and everything surrounding them is guaranteed to get my attention. In particular, after reviewing New Gods I particularly respect Kirby’s self-restrain in keeping the Celestials mute and not exactly explaining their actions.
My only complains are that the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are unreasonable to a ridiculous degree, plus this kind of introduction to the lore would have been better suited for the BEGINNING of the series, not seven issues later.
It’s also hurt by the lack of any truly interesting character, but on the other hand it doesn’t have Ikaris to bring down the mood.

Does this fit the Marvel Universe? 0/10
I don’t believe for a second that a threat of this level involving S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t escalate to superheroes.
Also, the existence of the Eternals is treated as the greatest secret ever. Unlike… checking my notes for what already showed up in the Marvel Universe at this point… the existence of Atlanteans, Asgardians, Inhumans, Moloids, Lemurians, mutants and about a couple dozens alien species.