Eternals #1 (1976)
by Jack Kirby
There is absolutely no question that Jack Kirby was the selling point, as it’s prominently advertised on the cover. This was, in fact, his return to Marvel after leaving his brief DC Comics work.
The explicit inspiration for the series is the “ancient astronauts” idea, the pseudoscientific theory that aliens visited Earth to teach ancient humans pretty much everything.
While the idea is not without precedent, especially in science fiction, it really kicked off with the book “Chariot of the gods?” by Erich von Däniken in 1968.
If we’re talking about real life, it’s a thoroughly discredited theory that can have some unpleasant racist implications. And in general, I think it’s just an incredibly dumb theory… which you might have guessed given the prominence of the Giorgio A. Tsoukalos meme on this site.
But I have absolutely nothing against using it in fiction! Not only Stargate is one of my favorite franchises, but I have a soft spot for the Eternals.
That being said… if you’re a Jack Kirby superfan who hasn’t seen my Jimmy Olsen reviews… just be warned that I can be quite harsh on him.
But let’s get to the story proper, which begins with a depiction of some hidden Incan temple that is so TITANICALLY AWESOME that it requires a two-page spread.
We are seeing this thanks to archeologist Daniel Damian, his daughter Margo and his assistant Ike Harris.
This is most likely based on Pakal’s sarcophagus, which according to Ancient Astronaut believers represents a Mayan king operating advanced machinery.
And then Ike goes on a long-winded explanation on how aliens really did visit Earth, as well as mentioning the existence of other species.
Doctor Damian is quite dismissive of these theories…
…which in hindsight is kind of hilarious.
This series was not INITIALLY considered to be set in the Marvel Universe, and in fact I will be tracking how it’s slowly integrated.
But in an effort to support that integration, after the series ends, Dr. Damian will retroactively be considered the same archeologist that shows up in Fantastic Four #64 in 1967.
Which is really absurd for two reasons.
First of all, he was not skeptic about ancient astronauts, in fact he was an ardent believer in the theory!
And second, that story was the introduction of the Kree.
Which means that Dr. Damian discovered something that would fundamentally rewrite our understanding of history… TWICE.
This retcon comes from “Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #9” in 1983. As far as I can remember it’s not been directly stated in a comic book.
Back to the story, Ike admonishes that the chamber they discovered includes a sort of beacon that will recall the gods to Earth.
He does this in one of the roughest Kirby panels I have ever seen.
Is his nose a square?
We cut to the Pacific Ocean, where a jet pilot is forced to eject when he flies above a weird device…
…which is the work of our resident bad guys, the Deviants.
We are introduced to the pink-skinned Kro; he will become one of the few decent villains of the series, but for now he’s subservient to his king Brother Tode.
The deal with the Deviants is that they all look different from one another, and they frown upon their more human-looking members.
Tode assigns Kro to take care of the Cosmic Beacon before the Eternals find it.
The Deviants live in the underwater city of Lemuria.
Not to be confused with the Lemuria introduced on Namor, populated by water-breathing people.
Or with Atlantis.
That’s right, the Marvel Universe has THREE sunken cities. Heck if the Marvel Boy stories are still canon, there are FOUR.
I believe DC Comics still lags behind with just two (the one Aquaman is from and the one Lori Lemaris is from).
Back to the Incan ruins, I don’t know why we even bothered with the doctor since Ike is doing everything on his own.
The title of this story is “The Day of the Gods”.
I would have gone with “The Endless Infodump”.
Both the doctor and his daughter are not characters. They’re a Greek chorus meant to punctuate the narrator, and in fact now the story stops to allow Ike Harris… or really Ikaris… to give backstory for the whole series.
Which, to Kirby’s credit, goes much farther back than Ancient Astronauts theory.
Because aliens didn’t just come to Earth to create buildings… they created humanity.
Future retellings will bend over backwards to say that the aliens didn’t REALLY create humans: they JUST created the Deviants and the Eternals, and just modified the genetics of humans to create what will become one day the mutants.
I’m perfectly fine with the retcon of this being the true origins of mutants, but I think it’s dumb to say that the aliens created two sub-species of humans and didn’t even touch humans.
Here, humans are straight up created by aliens.
Ikaris has, TO PUT IT MILDLY, a high opinion of the Eternal species.
I believe this is the biggest mistake Kirby makes: every other adaptation of the story, as well as every other reboot, introduces the Eternals either from the point of view of a human or by an Eternal who thinks highly of humans.
When you do it like THIS, it’s nearly impossible to sympathize with the Eternals.
Conveniently, the alien ship just happens to be near Earth while this is going on, and they really need the Cosmic Beacon to find it.
Which is a bit of a misnomer, as I really doubt the Space Gods truly NEED the beacon to guide them… it’s more of a matter of knowing Earth is “ready”.
Kro is extremely skeptical of the Eternals being able to find the beacon. This feels very forced.
His forces reach the temple (which conveniently is accessible from the ocean), which makes me wonder: if the Deviants have ALWAYS known that the beacon was here, and they don’t want the Eternals to find it… why are there NO Deviants stationed at the temple?
I have to give it to Ikaris, it can’t have been easy to find the beacon when EVERYTHING around here doesn’t seem to serve any practical purpose.
Ikaris then uses his powers to shield the humans and shoot eye lasers.
Deviant technology is nothing to sneeze at, sure, but I find it REALLY hard to believe this would even remotely slow down Ikaris.
But the confrontation will have to wait, because the Space Gods just arrived.
Too bad we don’t get to see them, because the Celestials won’t show up until next issue.
Historical significance: 10/10
The Eternals series might have been conceived as being its own continuity, but it will eventually become ESSENTIAL to the entire Marvel Universe.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
The idea of that Deviant tech being able to slow down Ikaris for even half a second isn’t very believable once you learn how absurdly powerful he’s supposed to be.
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
There’s a reason why I went into several tangents… not a whole lot happens in this story.
This is 50% exposition and 50% spectacle. And it is a true spectacle to behold, considering that we are still talking about Jack Kirby… but at least at this point it comes off as a bit empty to me.
As mentioned, the biggest flaw is having Ikaris as essentially the point-of-view character; but another is the fact that the human characters don’t contribute ANYTHING here.
My main thesis for this series in this retrospective is that the Eternals suffer more than the New Gods when it comes to public perception because they lack interesting villains and it took them way longer before another writer does something interesting with them… but if you only read the original run, I find the Eternals to be FAR more coherent than the New Gods.
Does this fit the Marvel Universe? 10/10
Since it’s technically a retcon, I will be keeping track whether the story CAN fit in the Marvel Universe. This one is not problematic; despite my jokes about Dr. Damian, it’s not exactly public knowledge that aliens have visited Earth in the past.
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
The entire bit about the pilot getting lost and being killed off by the Deviants has nothing to do with anything.
