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dailyfantastic · 4 years

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IT’S ONLY FOREVER: THE ETERNALS RECAP PART 1

ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE: THE ETERNALS ISSUE 1

Jack Kirby is the king of comics for many reasons, like his peerless art, boundless creativity, and frightening productivity. Also probably his amazing narration skills. Check out Mister Miracle to see what I really mean. But you can also check out The Eternals, which opens with the most powerful question of all:

“IS MAN ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?”

If you’re a thoughtful Marvel comics reader, though, you might recognize a flaw in this question. The year was 1976, and it had been 14 years since Jack Kirby conclusively answered that question in Fantastic 4 Volume 1 Issue 2, “The Skrulls From Outer Space.” Mankind is not alone in the Marvel Universe, because there are Skrulls and Galactus and Impy the Impossible Man. Likewise, Jack Kirby had also already told us mankind is not alone on the Earth, because he has written comics featuring Atlanteans (like Attuma) and mutants (like Unus the Untouchable) and Inhumans (like Aireo).

So what’s the deal? Well....

Literally in this first line, I realized something no one has ever said about the Eternals before: this book is not supposed to take place in the Marvel Universe.

Mankind is not alone in the universe, but the Eternals are alone in their own Universe.

This thought is something we’ll be tracking throughout our read-through. I’ll tell you now, there’s more evidence coming soon, notably that Not A Single Other Marvel Character Even Cameos In This Book.

Depicted: The kind of thing the Fantastic 4 usually would handle

Look, it makes sense. Kirby did not like having his characters messed with. We know he resented the way his ideas got treated once he was gone, and we know he desperately wanted to make his Own Thing. That was the point of New Gods, right? Kirby wanted to carve out his own part of the DC Multiverse; he wanted to tell one complete story that no one else could meddle in. And he tried, but then they did.

So it obviously makes sense that Kirby would want to just have his own little sandbox to get cosmic in, without needing Reed Richards to explain why the Celestials can’t just be threatened with the Ultimate Nullifier this time.

But it explains, already, one narration box in, why this comic feels like such a weird fit in the Marvel Universe. It isn’t about Skrulls or Kree or Kronans. You’ll see that it doesn’t really mesh with Marvel’s everyman themes. This is something new.

This is...well, it’s...something.

There’s probably more worldbuilding in this issue than in any other single issue of any comic, but the plot that happens is basically just a lot of people going to South America. Which is fine, I guess. We’ll talk about the plot later, but let’s take this time to establish some of the primary lore elements we’ve learned so far.

Eons ago, unknowable space gods called the Celestials came to Earth. They saw apes, and like any unreasonably powerful godlike beings, they decided to evolve them into three forms.

Depicted: Some Deviant art

Humans are pretty run-of-the-mill. The Jolteons of the crew, if you will. You know them: they love to cause problems on purpose and on accident. The second bunch are the Deviants. They aren’t artists who love Sonic the Hedgehog, but horrific monstrosities who love doing evil. Flareon, of course. And lastly, the Vaporeons: the Eternals. The Space Gods’ greatest triumph. We learn in this issue that the Eternals are beautiful, cannot die, can hover, shoot lasers out of their eyes, and probably do whatever. Then the Celestials left, only to return semi-regularly to check in on their cool evolutions. Throughout history, Eternals and Deviants have appeared in human legends as gods, heroes, monsters, and demons. And now, in 1976, we are finally becoming aware of this fact as the Celestials return to cast their final judgment on all three species.

They’re doing this in some incredibly-cool-looking Kirby space ruins, located in an Inca temple. Cultural appropriation is obviously a big problem in all Ancient Alien comics, but I can’t deny that the visuals are the best part of the Eternals.

Depicted: South America is basically space

We meet a few characters as well, who are going to show up a few times. The Professor and his daughter Margo are our two main humans. He’s studying ancient history, and has agreed to let a mysterious man named Ike Harris show him these ancient ruins.

Who is Ike Harris? Well, if you say that name really quickly, and pronounce the “I” incorrectly, you’ll realize he’s Ikaris the Eternal, in disguise to try to get to the Andes to send a beacon to guide the space gods back to Earth. We don’t know much about Ikaris yet, aside from that he’s a handsome blond man who can shoot lasers out of his eyes and rearrange the atoms in the air to turn it into a solid wall.

Also joining the fray in this issue are Kro and Tode of the Deviants. Kro looks like how the devil looks when he shows up in certain Twilight Zone episodes, except he has the sunglasses that the Koopa Troopas wear in the early Paper Mario games, and Tode looks like Jabba the Hutt with arms and legs. The Deviants have a couple of key problems. One is that they can’t produce consistently-viable offspring and are instead breeding Deviants who are basically just Humans. The other is that they don’t want the Celestials to return to Earth, presumably because they’ve been naughty and they’ll get in big trouble.

Depicted: Kro’s parents

Also they live at the bottom of the ocean and shoot down airplanes for no real reason.

So the last thing you need to know is that Kro and his henchmen ride a submarine through a stone dragon’s mouth to reach these Inca ruins from underwater, which is a little weird when you remember that most Incan structures are several hundred miles above seawater.

And then, here we are: Humans! Deviants! And Eternals! Together in an Incan ruin, with the Celestials on their way.

It’s a dense issue. We literally learn all of these facts here, and still have time for Kro to try shooting Ikaris with a laser gun. I have no idea how quickly they’re gonna attempt to explain all of this in a major motion picture, but we’ll worry about that later on I guess. For now, we’re left off an exciting cliffhanger: the Celestials are on their way back to Earth, and no one knows if that’s good or bad!!

We aren’t alone in the Universe, but I’m kinda thinking things were an awful lot simpler when we were.

And coming next issue...Does Jack Kirby know any Inca mythology anyway?

#eternals #the eternals #eternals 1 #it's only forever #marvel #comics #mcu

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