Eternals #10 (1977)
by Jack Kirby
The cover is selling Lemuria short. It doesn’t just die twice, it’s one of the unluckiest places in the Marvel Universe.
When we last saw Eson The Searcher, he was headed for the Deviant capital.
They’re not happy to see him.
This is Kirby at his Kirbyest, selling the sheer scale of the Celestial with a magnificent double page spread…
…which is IMMEDIATELY followed by a splash page.
I’ve criticized Kirby for wasting splash pages on scenes that don’t really deserve them, but credit where it’s due, in this issue he’s doing a phenomenal job at selling just how beyond mortals the Celestials are.
The caption gives us the Celestial’s thoughts, something I’m not particularly fond of.
But notice how the text is basically treating the Deviants like an infection.
I’ve said it before, but Eson The Searcher is AWESOME. Not only he has a killer design with those multiple eyes on its face (helmet?), but he’s SO alien that none of those are his actual eyes!
He has a single “Universal Eye” on the palm of his hand!
The Celestial’s presence ALONE would cause a disaster, but a ginormous hand poking the city is causing massive damage.
And then he just leaves. Without giving us a clue of what he wanted with the Deviants.
Kirby has two completely different tendencies in his worlds: either he overexplains everything or he doesn’t explain a single thing. This is the latter case, and I think it’s enhancing the story.
The other Celestials don’t get the same level of spotlight.
Notice they are wildly different in scale from one another, and even from scene to scene.
There’s something in how Hargen The Measurer is always just interested in rocks, but it’s also unsettling to think that such a colossal being can move without making a single sound.
Zuras is upset that the space aliens are upstaging the people this book is named after, so he decides to investigate their intentions.
Yeah sure, try to look into the mind of a bajillion year old space god, what could possibly go wrong?
Zuras is upset at the revelation that the Celestials are here to carry out their judgment of Earth.
Why is he surprised!? The Eternals have known about this from the beginning of the series!!!
The fact that the process will take 50 years is taken by Zuras as being imminent.
It’s a bit counterintuitive, but that makes sense: it’s the equivalent of a human being told there’s only an hour left before judgment.
So Zuras gives out the call to ALL the Eternals of Olympia…
…including Ikaris, who has been spending all his time spanking Sprite.
This might be the first time ever that I find myself wanting an Ikaris scene to keep going.
You would think that a character whose only purpose so far has been making fun if Ikaris would be my favorite.
But counterpoint: SPRITE SUCKS.
In-universe, Sprite is supposed to have been the inspiration for the character of Puck in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It’s been ages since I’ve read it, but I don’t remember Puck being so puncheable.
Supposedly every Eternal on Earth hears the call, including Thena who is currently staring down Reject.
Nice visual storytelling by showing everyone else panicking while she’s perfectly calm.
Thena is WAY too powerful for him, so she knocks out Reject with an energy blast.
Notice that for all her noble talk about the Deviants not seeing inner beauty because they only focus on superficial looks… she’s guilty OF THE SAME THING by being stunned by how handsome Reject looks.
If Kirby was a better writer I’d say this was on purpose, but I’m not going THAT far and still think this is accidental.
It’s particularly telling that the hypocrisy is not highlighted when she notices that Karkas is not the monster she thought he was.
Karkas even pleads to be given asylum in Olympia. Not just for himself, but for Reject as well… despite the fact that Reject himself was the one trying to kill him.
Because Karkas is, in fact, one of the most awesome Kirby characters.
And so we end with Thena teleporting back to Olympia.
Historical significance: 8/10
As cool as that whole sequence was, Eson’s visit to Lemuria doesn’t mean much. But the final pages allow Karkas and Reject to join the cast.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
It’s hard to describe, but the Eternals are simultaneously always in a hurry AND the move at a snail’s pace.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
This is probably my Celestials bias talking, but this one holds up remarkably well. The Eson scenes are a good combination of Kirby restraining himself from overexplaining while also letting loose with his brand of awesomeness. And while I think Thena’s hypocrisy is unintentional, it does elevate her plot.
Does this fit the Marvel Universe? 4/10
The Celestial roaming around should have attracted the attention of superheroes. In particular, it’s hard to accept Namor doesn’t get involved.
Splash pages: 2 out of 17 (12%)
Splash + double splash pages: 3 out of 17 (24%)
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
No, really, was he asleep in the previous issues?
Eternals #11 (1977)
by Jack Kirby
I’ve said before that Nezarr has my favorite Celestial design, and I stand by it. Just look at this guy!
All the Eternals of Olympia are gathering in a double-page spread.
Just look at this colorful assembly of different designs! It’s a pity that Kirby ends up focusing on a very limited number of Eternals: think of the possibilities if he flashed out this society a little better!
Every single one of these guys has been around for thousands of years!
Another lost opportunity: just look at how many Eternals live outside Olympia!
Don’t get me wrong, I like Sersi and Makkari the most out of all the Eternals, but we could have explored so many others!
One of these is an Eternal who was incredibly obscure for decades (even by Eternals standards!!!) but had a resurgence: Kingo Sunen, the Eternal actor.
Sersi has decided to bring her latest boytoy friend Professor Holden.
Margo is weirdly upset at this.
We learn that Ikaris is not from Olympia but from a different Eternal city, where everyone is apparently even more boring than him.
But the cover promised some Celestial action, and so we move to the Russians noticing Nezarr is walking around Siberia.
And speaking of the big blue guy, we get a STUNNING splash page to show off his glory.
Notice that it’s being projected in a screen that might as well be almost as tall as a Celestial.
Nezarr hasn’t actually done anything so far, but the Russians have already decided to open fire.
The Russians, however, have been infiltrated by some Eternals from the same polar city Ikaris is from. Including an Eternal that will eventually be VERY important: Druig.
Despite Sersi’s comment, the Polar Eternals are not as boring as Ikaris… yet.
That title however goes to the Delphian Brothers, a bunch of Eternal twins that decide to fight for little to no reason.
There are four Delphian Brothers in this story, but future writers won’t be able to decide on how many there are: they can range from as little as two twins to as much as eight!
Druig is not interested in the Delphian Brothers. And really, can you blame him?
We also have Valkin, Ikaris’s uncle and nobody’s answer to Odin.
Meanwhile, without the Eternals influencing them, the Russians decide to nuke Nezarr.
What follows is an amazing sequence. First Nezarr calmly stares at the incoming warhead…
…then he SENDS IT BACK, giving us a great reaction shot by the Russians.
If the scene ended there it would already be great. But we ALSO get a first person perspective!!!
Unfortunately Kirby has to ruin it, revealing that the Russians didn’t even fire the missile and that this was just an illusion.
I don’t entirely blame Kirby because this MIGHT have been editorial mandate, either to avoid showing a nuclear holocaust on-panel or because then it would have been hard to accept this wouldn’t change the world.
Both are valid concerns, but the scene is severely harmed by this ending.
Historical significance: 8/10
I will talk more about Druig in future stories, where he’s promoted to a relevant character, but first let’s focus on the fact that this is Kingo Sunen’s ONLY appearance in the original series!
He plays a bigger role in Volume 2 where he sports an awful design, and in Volume 5 where he gets a generic redesign.
Only to eventually being one of the best parts of the movie.
Mostly because they finally decided to give him a personality instead of being a walking stereotype, although giving the role to the supremely entertaining Kumail Nanjiani helped.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
The Delphian Brothers have no business being this interested in fighting right now.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Nezarr has one of the best, possibly THE best, Celestial scenes in the series. Given that and the cover, however, it’s surprising to see he’s not given much prominence.
Most of the issue is dedicated to the Eternals reunion, and while it does have its positives it’s an incredible loss of potential given that we don’t explore anyone’s story.
Does this fit the Marvel Universe? 0/10
Up to this point you could have made the argument that, aside from Eson, the other Celestials were being secretive enough to avoid detection. Now the space god is out of the bag.
Splash pages: 2 out of 17 (12%)
Splash + double splash pages: 3 out of 17 (24%)
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
Why was it “of course” an illusion? It’s not like the Celestials care all that much about casualties, considering what happened to the Deviants in the previous issue and in the backstory.
“The caption gives us the Celestial’s thoughts, something I’m not particularly fond of.
But notice how the text is basically treating the Celestials like an infection.”
I don’t think it’s referring to the Celestials but to the Deviants. The caption says that “Eson cares little for the thoughts and fears of the Deviants . […] This kind has been spawned before, on a thousand planets !”, ergo the kind that is treated like an infection is the Deviant species.
Yeah I meant the Deviants. Fixed, thanks!
I’d always been bothered by the whole Zuras is suddenly surprised to learn the premise of the series he’s in sequence, but this post prompted me to take a quick look through the previous issues, and it actually IS plausible that this is the first time Zuras is clued in about the whole Earth’s final judgment angle. (It’s possible I missed something- it was a very quick thumb through.)
Ajak is the first one to figure it out. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Ajak to have any sort of direct line to Olympia set up. He seems oblivious to the thought that anyone else might be interested in what’s going on. He tells Ikaris just because Ikaris happens to be there.
Ikaris, armed with this important knowledge and the ability to speed his way anywhere on the planet, chooses not to go directly to Olympia or to Uncle Valkin or any sort of authority who ought to be informed that the Celestials are here to possibly end things. Instead, he decides to drop in on his hot party girl acquaintance in NYC, then pretty instantly gets brain-mined and dumped at the bottom of the ocean. I don’t think he got around to telling Sersi why the Celestials were here before that happened.
Sersi contacts Olympia that the Deviants are attacking NYC. The Eternals at Olympia at this point are completely oblivious to the fact that the Celestials have arrived, despite their ship being so massive it blots out the moon.
Makkari and Thena head to NYC, stop the Deviant invasion, retrieve Ikaris, then they all decide that putting on a presentation at the local college is much more important than heading straight to Olympia and convening an emergency meeting to figure out a course of action. It’s unclear if Ikaris ever bothers telling Sersi, Makkari and Thena why the Celestials are here. If he does, Thena decides it’s more important to head off to Lemuria with her old boyfriend than head home and tell her dad what’s going on.
By now, even the Eternals have noticed the Celestial ship has arrived. The Deviants knew it was coming before it got here and where to go to try to stop it. The humans independently discovered the ship and the Andes dome. When the Eternals besides Ajak and Ikaris discover these things is unclear, because it doesn’t seem to have occurred to either of those idiots to tell anyone in authority.
So Zuras, who by this point must be exasperated about being kept in the dark by his underlings, decides to mind probe the Celestial ship to try to find out what’s going on and has his “oh crap!” moment.
It’s hard to tell if any of this was intentional on Kirby’s part. Like Thena’s hypocrisy, the idea that the Eternals are a bunch of clueless, self-absorbed nitwits with no conception of how to communicate important news to each other is a pretty interesting idea. Whether Kirby meant for it to be there is debatable – if you read his essays, he did have a lot of big ideas he grappled with, but was not a skilled enough scripter for it to be clear how many interesting ideas were intentional and how many were just a by-product of less than good writing.
The Eternals were a race of immortal, physically beautiful, super beings. It makes a certain sense that they wouldn’t understand such concepts as urgency. How often did any of them have to worry about anything? They aren’t going to die, they can instantly meet any need they might have, and they’re all hot. They have absolutely no practice in how to communicate urgent news because nothing has ever been urgent for them.
On the other hand, the Deviants, whose entire race is always on the verge of mutating into something they can’t comprehend, are constantly on edge and thus detect the Celestials – who have a history of treating the Deviants like crap – are on their way and make a token attempt to shoo them off. The humans, who are on constant alert that other humans might be up to something, discover the Celestials accidentally in the process of spying on each other. The Eternals are the last to know since the idea of watching for threats is not the norm for them because nothing threatens them, and when it does, they’re completely incompetent at responding to it.
Again, if any of this was intentional on Kirby’s part is unknowable. He is the sort of guy who would be interested in ideas like the arrogance of power, which could be communicated through the incompetence of any of the Eternals who know what’s going on at telling anyone else, or through Thena’s smug assurance that the Eternals are so superior to the Deviants that she’s blind to the fact that she’s more guilty of all the shortcomings she’s scolding Kro for than the Deviants are.
Like you, I have my doubts that Kirby intended any of this, but I don’t think it’s impossible. He definitely pondered things like that, but was such a clumsy writer it’s hard to tell what was intended and what was accidental.
A masterful analysis, and I can’t find a fault in your reconstruction of events.
Frankly, if Kirby took this angle the series would be much better.
As always, Kirby is the best at coming up with storytelling engines that he refuses to explore, which are then turned into decades of stories by other writers.
The idea of Eternals not understanding urgency, for example, is a delightful weakness for otherwise flawless gods .
But you’ve probably given more thought to the series with this single comment than Kirby did writing.
Or me reviewing, honestly, because this part of the series is a bit of a slog.
Still better than whatever New Gods was supposed to be.
I like this interpretation. Another example would be in #6, where Sersi is very casual about being held prisoner by the Deviants – and why not, when she can literally escape with a wave of her hand!
Yeah, I have no doubt that Kirby’s conception of the Eternals is they’re all (except Druig) totally virtuous and above reproach, while the Deviants (except Kro and Karkas) are irredeemable.
But it’s much more interesting if the Eternals are viewed as the global elite, blessed by heredity and mistaking that for virtue being insufferably arrogant about it, and the Deviants being the unloved underclass who have every deck stacked against them and are understandably upset about it.