Eternals #5

Eternals #5 (1976)
by Jack Kirby

Now that the series has introduced Sersi, it’s about time it introduces the other interesting Eternals. As long as it keeps Ikaris away, that’s great!

And we don’t lose any time introducing the second most interesting Eternal after Sersi, thanks to her supposedly not magic mirror.

Makkari will become associated entirely with his speed, to the point of losing his other Eternal powers at several points in his history.
Interesting to see that Kirby introduces his connection to Mercury through his love for machinery.
It’s also no wonder that Makkari is introduced through Sersi, because throughout their history these two are by far the ones who live best among humans.

Kirby is also introducing a new element about the Deviants, something that at the same time kind of dilutes their theme but makes them VERY useful to explain away several minutiae of the Marvel Universe: their use of “mutates”.
Over time, basically every single monster that wasn’t explicitly of alien origin eventually gets retconned into a mutate created by the Deviants.

They’re also skilled enough to kidnap Sersi.
The logistics of her mirror are kind of weird: it’s a square from her side, but Makkari’s screen has a very complex shape.

One of the reasons why I like Makkari is that in case of an emergency, unlike the VAST majority of Eternals (and most of Kirby’s Fourth World characters, honestly) he doesn’t waste time pontificating and runs into action.
With your regular Standard Kirby Run Pose, of course.

We also meet one of the less important Eternals, who is a minor character in the original series and in the 80s miniseries but later basically disappears: Domo.

I’ve already mentioned Makkari in my reviews twice, as he was later retconned to having been both Mercury and Hurricane.
So he’s been retroactively chasing Deviants at least since WWII, but this series makes it sound like it’s been millennia.

Sersi and the Human Placeholder have been kidnapped by the Deviant leader Kro, who FINALLY shows some personality.

The fact that these guys last more than five seconds against Sersi is not very believable…

…but that’s what happens when you bring Human Placeholder with you.

Our last two major Eternals are introduced playing Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.

The one who just lost the match is Zuras, the leader (king?) of the Eternals.
Who gets his own splash page to showcase his amazing hair.

He’s introduced with his daughter Thena. And with their arrival, the series has basically introduced all the major players.

Zuras will be left out of the Eternal mythos for quite a while, after the original series.
He’s killed of quite early in the 80s miniseries, and won’t be resurrected until the 2006 relaunch that made MASSIVE retcons to the Eternals.
As such he took his sweet time getting more character development, but I do like him a lot in the Kirby series. Especially if you compare him to Highfather, because while it can be a bit generic at least Zuras HAS A PERSONALITY.
Basically, he’s Zeus if he knew how to keep his thunderbolts in his pants.

I’ll even go as far as saying that Zuras is way more interesting character than how Zeus was portrayed during the Lee&Kirby run on Thor, where he was basically a copy of Odin but without anything that makes Odin interesting.
If we take modern Zeus into the discussion he blows all of them out of the water, but despite my harsh criticism of Kirby’s writing I have no problem admitting he does a better job with Zuras than Stan Lee ever did with Zeus.

Thena will take a lot of focus in the rest of the series, so I’ll talk more about her later.
Considering she will become THE Eternal preaching co-existence with the Deviants, notice how much character development that will require.

The 80s miniseries will CONSTANTLY have Thena teleport people around, so it’s kind of funny seeing her hitching a ride with Makkari.

During all this, the fight with the “space demons” has been going on in the background (!!!).

I should point out that, in addition to being incredibly boring, Ikaris also sucked as a fighter.
Because while he was taken out at the very beginning of the invasion, before being able to do anything useful… Thena starts kicking all kinds of ass the moment she arrives.

Yeah there’s a reason why she’s confused with the GODDESS OF WAR.

But the final blow is delivered by Makkari… ‘s car freezing ray.

Remember that the whole reason the Deviants are faking this “alien invasion” is to get the humans to notice the Celestials have built a huge city in South America.
Which was COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY since the humans figure it our on their own!!!

Which means the entire ongoing invasion plot, which I remind you started in the second issue, has been COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

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Historical significance: 10/10
Thena, Zuras and Makkari (roughly in this order) are incredibly important to the original series.

Silver Age-ness: 2/10
All things considered, not a whole lot.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
As usual with Kirby, not a whole lot happens. But holy crap does having multiple characters with a personality improve things!!!

Does this fit the Marvel Universe? 0/10
The “demon invasion” is still going on in the background, but there’s no mention of any superheroes.

Splash pages: 2 out of 17 (12%)
No splash pages

Most Kirby panel

Most WTF panel
The first panel is for context. Kro is way too excited about this fact in the second panel.

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I plan to discuss the integration of the Eternals with the rest of the Marvel Universe after the end of the main retrospective. But I should mention that, despite my jokes, in future appearances it’s abundantly clear that Thena (the Eternal) and Athena (the goddess) can’t stand each other.

And since this is the introduction of Makkari, it’s worth mentioning something about him as well.

While Sersi will be the Eternal that gets the most exposure outside of their series, BY FAR, she’s not the only one to show up elsewhere.
In fact, my favorite version of Makkari is when he was Quasar’s buddy in his series. Even though his characterization was mostly “Wally West if he was immortal”.

Other than Sersi, Makkari is also the Eternal who is most likely to be the “point of view character” of an Eternals series. This was the case of the 2006 reboot by Neil Gaiman who retconned A LOT of the Eternals lore.
I really liked that series and having Makkari being the one to ease readers into the mythos was a no-brainer, even though I don’t like several changes to the Eternals lore done there.

No wonder that Volume 4 (which was otherwise kind of meh) made Makkari and Sersi a couple.

Eternals volume 5 by Kieron Gillen is the most recent Eternals regular series, at the time of writing.
This one made significantly more retcons, building upon those from volume 3 and aligning some stuff with the movie. One of the main points of that series is the idea that the Eternals are completely reborn every once in a while.

While I don’t like most of the Volume 5 retcons, having the Eternals completely “reboot” and changing bodies and personalities has potential (they seem to work like regenerations on Doctor Who).
Although they weren’t committed enough to the bit because only Makkari, Ajak and Sprite changed appearance and gender. Sersi, Ikaris, Zuras, Thena and others remain the same.

Unfortunately Makkari has only a very minor part in Volume 5, and even in the movie.
While I will strenuously defend a lot of aspects in the movie, Makkari was completely wasted there… with the exception of a couple of scenes that I maintain are the best representation of a speedster in live action so far.

I have my issues with Volume 5, but I have to respect the fact that it achieved the unthinkable.
It made Ikaris interesting.