This was an interesting journey. I started off as a fan of the Eternals, and I still am, but I didn’t realize just how much of what I like about them either comes from the first half of the book or from the work of later books!
Historical significance: 6/10
While the specific events of the book don’t have much of an impact on the larger Marvel Universe, it does introduce a lot of lore that will become integrated with how the universe works.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
For a mid-seventies book, it’s definitely a throwback.
Does this fit the Marvel Universe? 4/10
Later stories make it abundantly clear that the events of this series happened, but a lot of them can’t possibly have happened the same way… definitely not anything set in New York City.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
This is a tough call. I remain a staunch defender of the Eternals, and the first half of the series has several things that hold up. The real turning point are the Hulk stories: THREE issues that are completely pointless and have nothing to do with the main plot, which was ALREADY progressing at a snail’s pace to begin with. And it’s even downhill from there.
The series is also hurt by the layouts: every issue is 17 pages, but there are A LOT of splash pages… out of 19 total issues, for 8 of them around a quarter of the issue is splash pages!!!
(this will get a detailed analysis, together with the Fourth World, at the end of the retrospective)
And even the pages with panels don’t have a lot of them, with the majority of pages having only 4 panels. That would still be fine if Kirby was still writing scripts with a Golden Age pacing, but the story can be painfully slow.
Other things that hurt the series are having Ikaris be the protagonist for several issues (he’s a TERRIBLE protagonist), and in general Kirby’s shocking tendency to walk away from any good idea as soon as he can.
He sets up Margo as a regular character and forgets her along the way. He sets up her father’s studies and then forgets about him. He introduces several Eternals outside of the main cast, some of which will have an expanded role in other series (Domo, Gilgamesh, Kingo Sunen) and some won’t (the Polar Eternals) and gives them little more than a couple of scenes.
He spends a whole issue hyping the creation of the Uni-Mind and then only makes it power up the Hulk robot with no payoff.
He turns Kro from a generic bad guy to a very complex individual and immediately stops using him. He creates the amazing duo of Karkas and Reject and benches them after the Annual.
He sets up an epic romance that spans eons between Thena and Kro, not to mention provide all the possible clues of the Eternals having feet of clay, and proceeds to absolutely nothing with the concept.
You have no idea how many times I found something I misremembered originating in later Eternal appearances, thinking “wait, that was in the Kirby series? He set it up THAT early!?”, only for absolutely nothing whatsoever happening.
Jack Kirby created an amazing world with strong worldbuilding and only managed to explore like 20% of that.
Eternals has kind of the opposite problem of the Fourth World: it has a interesting setting where only one or two characters are interesting by themselves, whereas the Fourth World has an uninteresting setting where only one or two characters are interesting by themselves.
And this is one of the two series in the Kirby retrospective that I actually LIKED.
So expect me to be even harsher once I do the Fourth World awards.
Before I proceed with the actual awards, I should rectify something that was missing from the reviews: the letters page.
I base my reviews on the Marvel Unlimited digital version, which never has the letters, and I couldn’t find scans of the letters from most issues.
With the sole exception of issue 13 of which I do have scans of the letters.
Larry makes a critique that I fully agree with: Kirby had no focus on this series.
It’s not as bad as in other series… New Gods was the absolute worst at this… but it’s still there.
In the same issue, replying to a letter published in issue 8 (which I couldn’t find), Mark makes an incredibly valid criticism of Kirby’s writing.
I also agree with his criticism of the villains, although Mark chooses the only villain for which what he’s saying is not true.
But now it’s time: the Eternal Awards are here!
BEST ETERNAL
In any other series this would be “best hero”, but the Eternals themselves don’t consider themselves heroes.
Winner: Sersi
She’s far from being a complex character yet, but what a difference from Ikaris: she has a very strong personality and stage presence. There’s a reason why she tends to be the focus point of most other Eternals series, and why she’s the breakout star of this book.
Runner-up: Thena
The warrior princess of the Eternals. I’m surprised Kirby didn’t lean too heavily on the potential similarities with Big Barda, considering how much she enjoys action.
Her relationships with Kro, Karkas and Reject are admittedly far more complex than anything Sersi does in this book, but she’s not as fun.
Third place: Zuras
It’s not easy being the king of an entire civilization that lacks any sort of attention span.
Honorable mention: the Forgotten One
He doesn’t get to do much, but IN CONCEPT it’s a great idea.
WORST ETERNAL
Winner: Ikaris
In addition to everything else about him, you must also take into consideration that he’s had 20,000 years to change that hairstyle.
There’s a reason while this is the ONLY iteration of the Eternals where he’s the main focus point… he’s just not that interesting!!!
Runner-up: Sprite
I don’t know if the series needed comic relief, but it definitely didn’t need this unfunny waste of ink. No wonder he’ll be completely useless until Volume 3 basically reboots him into a completely different character, and good riddance to the original.
Third place: Ajak
You would think that the only Eternal capable of understanding the Celestials would be important. Or interesting.
Dishonorable mention: Makkari
What a letdown. He later develops into the only Eternal who can rival Sersi in fun and complexity, occasionally even surpassing her. But here he barely does anything and he’s annoyingly subservient.
BEST VILLAIN
This category is what truly hurts the Eternals in comparison with the Fourth World.
Because Kirby produced exactly ONE great villain here, only to stop using him halfway through.
Winner: Kro
I simply cannot understand why Kirby let him go. His journey was AMAZING: he started out as a generic bad guy, to the point of IMPERSONATING SATAN… only to start a romantic subplot with the warrior princess, basically becoming a member of the team (he was with the Eternals when they revealed their existence!!!)… and then make an impassionate speech for eugenics and genocide.
Kro spans the entire spectrum from villain to hero, from lackey to overlord, from enemy to ally, and might just be the most complex and multifaceted character Kirby has ever created.
Runner-up: Druig
Considering how much Kirby is resistant to creating morally ambiguous societies, it’s amazing that he created an evil Eternal. He’s nothing spectacular but he does his job.
Third place: Dromedan
Honorable mention: Tutinax
In concept, two Deviant supersoldiers more powerful than the Eternals are awesome and worth exploring. Kirby doesn’t, but still.
Slight edge to Dromedan for having a more unique power for the setting.
WORST VILLAIN
Winner: Hulk Robot
What are you doing here???
Runner-up: Zakka
Only this guy could come up with a time machine that can bring anyone into the present and completely squander it.
Do you even remember he was the main villain of the Annual?
Third place: Brother Tode
He’s technically Kro’s boss at the beginning of the series, but he’s so ridiculous overshadowed I’d be shocked if you remember him.
Dishonorable mention: Sygmar
Druig’s assistant is more of a hindrance to him, but he DID create a creature capable of knocking out Ikaris.
BEST SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Winner: Karkas
Runner-up: Reject
Since I couldn’t give them an award as heroes… not that Reject would have qualified… I had to find a way to celebrate them.
Third place: Margo Damian
She provides a useful human perspective. Too bad Kirby has no idea what to do with her and forgets to give her any personality besides “girl”.
Honorable mention: Daniel Damian
He kicks off the entire series. The lack of personality is apparently genetic.
WORST SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Winner: the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents
In addition to making the continuity placement of this series awkward, they are so stupid to throw nuclear grenades at the Celestials.
Runner-up: Sam Holden
Provides absolutely nothing besides the chance for Sersi to declare herself horny.
Third place: the Hulk robot creators
Dishonorable mention: the NASA astronauts
Give me a break, do you have any idea how hard it was to find 8 supporting characters for this series?
BEST CELESTIAL DESIGN
Winner: Nezarr
When a minimalist style works to perfection.
Runner-up: Eson
It’s the six eyes. Somehow they make him less human than the Celestials who don’t have eyes.
Third place: Arishem
Ah, the good old teapot-head. There’s a reason why he’s the poster boy for the Celestials.
Honorable mention: the One Above All
Technically speaking we don’t SEE him in this series, and when we finally do he won’t look anything like this… but the suggestion that these are his eyes is amazing.
BEST STORY
Winner: Eternals #10
Runner-up: Eternals #11
The Celestials are a BIG reason for my love of the Eternals, and these two issues have the best Celestials scenes. Possibly ever.
Third place: Eternals #8
A fascinating look at the Deviant society: they’re not just the bad guys because they’re born evil, their entire society is just brutally twisted.
Honorable mention: Eternals Annual #1
A refreshing change of pace, with a side-story focusing a lot of characters that SHOULD have received the spotlight in the main series. You can never have too much Karkas and Reject.
WORST STORY
Winner: Eternals #14
Shoving a Hulk fakeout into the series completely breaks what little momentum it used to have.
Runner-up: Eternals #15-16
And following it up with TWO MORE ISSUES of the same just killed the series.
Third place: Eternals #17
Dromedan is a cool concept. Nothing is done with it.
Dishonorable mention: Eternals #2
Most of the issue is a recap of the infodump of the first issue, which was already heavy with it.
MOST SILVER AGE PANEL
MOST KIRBY PANEL
MOST MEME-WORTHY PANEL
BEST MONSTER DESIGN
BEST REACTION SHOT
The Russian military realizing the Celestials have thrown their nukes back at them.
WORST REACTION SHOT
Ikaris, either reacting to the return of his gods after thousands of years of preparation, or wondering if he left the stove on.
MOST FANSERVICE PANEL
Eson shows up at a beach for entirely plot-related reasons.
BEST PANEL
Karkas’s moment of glory, plus Thena comes THIS CLOSE to figuring out what’s wrong with Eternal society as much as Deviant society.
WORST PANEL
You’ve created your own completely separate world but are editorially mandated to use a popular Marvel character in order to boost sales.
Good move: use a robot duplicate of the character, giving an in-universe reason why this is still not the Marvel Universe.
Bad move: do a panel when nobody is taking seriously the fact that the robot is tearing apart New York City, removing any sort of serious tension from the occasion.
BEST SPLASH PAGE
Probably one of the best sells of the scale of a Celestial.
BEST DOUBLE SPLASH PAGE
Likewise, the only time their spaceship looks big enough.
WORST SPLASH PAGE
There’s no reason to give Zuras a whole page for a couple of lines of exposition, no matter how luxurious his hair is.
BEST COVER
This is a tough category: Eternals doesn’t have a bad cover.
So I’m giving the prize to the one that features my favorite Celestial design.
WORST COVER
While not a BAD cover, I don’t think it properly depicts the vibe of the story: this makes it look like it’s a horror comic.
The Eternals was before my time, but Captain Victory (Pacific Comics) was an introduction to Kirby left alone—wild visions, plots that made little sense and had no payoff, a clear lack of an overall plot for a series that needed one. And Cappy V had Ikaris’s hair.
Oops! You refer to Karkas as Ransak throughout this.
Let us hope that Ransak didn’t notice before I fixed it. He has a slight bit of a temper.
I was going to say, but thought I might have been overly gripey.
Both the New Gods and the Eternals were amazing in conception and design; but too often, and regrettably, disappointing in execution. There are many reasons for this (the scope of Kirby’s ahead-of-its-time ambition; the lack of adequate support from the publishers, etc.). But mostly, I think that Kirby’s intention was not to retro-fit his big ideas into the existing “universes” of DC or Marvel; in both cases he was creating the foundation for an entire new line of comics, with its own internal logic and continuity.
DC did provide him with a platform to take a multi-book approach to his new mythology. But for the Eternals, which seems in part built out of the remnants of Kirby’s ideas for the New Gods, he had to do everything in one book. Perhaps that’s why the storylines go forward in fits and starts, without proper development or fulfillment.
Still, from what he gave us in the Eternals, I can envision a lineup of books that would have given Kirby room to explore his cool ideas about human origins and destiny. You can see the broad outlines in the Eternals series:
(1) The main Eternals book starring Ikaris, as he explores (with Margo and her dad) the present whereabouts of the secret earthly species, in a world under the judgment of the Celestials. The hero’s comparative “dullness” would highlight the wild, exotic nature of the supporting characters and settings.
(2) A “family” or group drama built around Thena, Kro, Karkas and Reject, trying to find a place of acceptance for Eternals, Deviants, and Humans alike. The “blended family” idea would be very 1970s.
(3) A lighthearted book focused on Sersi and Makkari, living in New York as jet-setting celebrities who have crazy adventures as a kind of “Odd Couple.” These two are the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver of the Eternals Universe: Kirby once had plans for Wanda and Pietro, and maybe they would finally be realized here.
(4) A book about the early history of the Eternals, starring the Forgotten One (and maybe Sprite), charting his role as a benefactor of mankind at its various stages: a kind of Prometheus-Samson-Hercules whose actions have rescued or advanced humanity at critical moments. (The backstory reaching into ancient earth history is the one of the key features that distinguishes the Eternals from the New Gods.)
Of course, this is just my speculative invention. But these are the characters and concepts that charm you as a reader of Eternals: you want to see more, but Kirby just didn’t have the time (or perhaps energy) to follow through.
Ideally, the Eternals line would have been undertaken with other creative collaborators. That was apparently the original “promise” DC made to Jack about the New Gods. Kirby at this point in his career deserved to be more of a Disney-like creator, conceiving the big ideas and having other hands do the production work. But what he did give us, however flawed, is still infinitely more fertile and inspirational than nearly anything that came before or since. That’s why we’re still talking about it.
This has been a great retrospective, CA. Thanks.
Random suggestion: could you do Krypton Chronicles? Only three issues.
I’ll probably do it when the Superman retrospective reaches it.
Great!
The good: this series shows how Kirby matured through his previous experiences with the Fourth World. This is a big story with a big world.
The BAD: once again, Kirby is incapable of giving characterization and story depth. Everything is rushed through the long road to nowhere. “Eternals” had all the potentials to become a long-lasting hit, and it turned to a random showcase of random events. Bah, humbug!