When Jack "King" Kirby made his return to Marvel in the mid 70's, his fans (me among them) expected big things. We were alas mostly disappointed as he was put to work on Captain America and Black Panther. These were vivid lively stories with the zany imprint of Kirby's creativity, but lack the epic scope evident in his "Fourth World" material for DC. Despite the weirdness of Devil Dinosaur and Machine Man, nothing had the heft of what he'd attempted at the "Distinguished Competition" earlier in the decade.
Nothing that is save The Eternals.
With the debut of this new comic, Kirby tapped into a similar cosmic scheme he'd found in the realm of the New Gods. The Eternals had much in common with the inhabitants of New Genesis, a majestic heroism joined with an urbane self-awareness. But while the saga of the New Gods was about securing victory in the face of war, the Eternals were about survival in the face of possible genocide.
Built upon the singular notion put forth by Erich Von Daniken in his seminal Chariots of the Gods?, The Eternals puts forth the idea that the whole of human creation is the result of interplanetary experimentation, that millennia before in the distant past mighty being descended from the heavens of deep space and using the genetic stuff found in prehistoric pre-humans fashioned three distinct "human races", only one of which was us.
Alongside us who came to dominate the planet in sheer numbers were hidden Deviants and Eternals. The former were genetically erratic creatures who were also seemingly morally limited and hidden in the depths of the Earth and the Earth's oceans, and who are responsible for many of our legends about demons and devils. They had apparently once upon an age challenged their creators the Celestials and brought about devastation to the globe.
The Eternals on the other hand were nothing less than superbeings, possessed of immensely long lives and seemingly complete control of the environment around them. They appear to be gods. Between these to opposites sat us, the humans living within confines of our limited lives and motivations.
Aided mightily by the inking of Marvel journeyman John Verpoorten with Frank Giacoia onb some of the covers, Kirby tells the story of what will happen when the Celestials, the distant gods who created us return to evaluate their work. The first issue of The Eternals lays out this scenario introducing Ikaris, an Eternal who alongside Dr.Damian and his daughter Margo explore ancient Incan ruins for clues to ancient astronauts. They find the evidence and the Damians learn their colleague is more than he seems. The Deviants, specially the Deviant known as Kro turn up to try and stop the inevitable, the arrival of the Celestials themselves who touch down as the comic closes.
In the second issue of The Eternals we finally get to see the Celestials. Kirby was a proper genius in keeping them off stage for a full month, as it added to impact when he finally get to see them.
But even then it is only the ship itself we see at first in one of the "King's" best double-page spreads for the series. Sometimes a scene given double-page status wasn't really worthy of treatment, but that was not the case in the early issues of The Eternals, only double-pagers could display the awesomeness of the Fourth Host as it descended to Earth.
Later in this second issue we meet Ajak, another Eternal and friend of Ikaris, though Ajak and his Incan squad have been only disassembled atoms for a thousand years waiting for the Celestials to return. And just as quick as that, the opening phase of this story begins to wrap up as the Deviants depart and Arishem makes his presence felt.
It is in the third issue that we for the first time see Ikaris in his true form as he and Margo Damian flee the landing zone as the Celestials begin to seal it off. Ajak and Dr.Damian along with the Incan landing crew stay behind and observe as the Celestials begin their research which will determine the fate of the world.
Drawn in a way which offers only hints of faces, the Celestials as designed by Kirby are utterly inscrutable. As Arishem takes his position to observed and render after fifty years his judgment, we are denied any hint of his disposition or inclination. The Celestials are truly alien, here to decide if mankind lives or dies and seeming not to care really how it turns out.
Meanwhile the Deviants plot to draw the whole of humanity into their misbegotten war with their alien creators. To that end, Kro and an army of Deviants prepare to invade Manhattan and inform the population that scary aliens are among them.
It is in the fourth issue that this plot takes off and Ikaris rises to battle the Deviants after having dropped Margo off with another Eternal, a beauty named Sersi who lives not apart from humanity but deep in the heart of the them, though she has a disdain for the species.
The Deviants attack and defeat Ikaris and he ends up in the depths of the ocean sealed in a great metal tube. Kro and his Deviant army pretending to be devils of ancient myth riot in the streets of New York City bringing fear to men.
Meanwhile far away Arishem still stands, implacable and aloof, observing it all.
More to come as I continue a long close look at Kirby's last great epic for Marvel.
Rip Off
I look forward to your posts on the Eternals, Rip. To my mind, no grand concept of Jack Kirby's has been as badly served by others than this one, which subsequent writers have distorted & diminished in a wasted effort to be edgy & (supposedly) sophisticated. Kirby gave us primal cosmic mystery; later writers reduced the concept to cosmic bad guys, with the Eternals as their robotic pawns, which is apparently the approach the upcoming Eternals movie will take as well. The sad irony is that Kirby was derided by fans back then as being childishly simplistic, when in fact he was asking readers to make the jump beyond traditional superhero tropes. Except that fans & pros alike were unable or unwilling to make that jump, even today.
ReplyDeleteThanks. You've put it better than I have been able to. The seeming naivete of Kirby's concepts is caused by their mythic resonance. They make sense almost automatically and we respond to them in the same way, instinctively.
DeleteThat said, I found the early attempts to weld the Eternals into the broader Marvel Universe pretty entertaining in their own right. It was a time when I championed continuity above all else in my comic reading. I've recovered from that.
I'll be intrigued to see how the movie handles the whole evolutionary aspect of the Eternals concept. Any movie in this new backward America I find myself living in is playing with fire when it recognizes basic scientific truths. Kirby's magic was he was able to coalesce the mythic and the scientific.
"Mythic resonance" is the perfect phrase, Rip. :)
DeleteYes, I thought Roy Thomas did a reasonably continuity job in those Thor issues, by essentially having the Celestials render their judgment at the end of it & then depart. If it had been left that way, I could have enjoyed it, even while missing what Kirby might have done if The Eternals had continued. At least Thomas genuinely seemed to be trying to reconcile the Eternals with the Marvel Universe, while still preserving Kirby's original concept as best he could.
But the later iterations, even from as talented a writer as Neil Gaiman, just turned Kirby's vision completely inside-out. Alas.
For some strange reason only the first five issues and the Annual appeared in my neck of the woods, though I was able to track down the remaining fourteen sometime in the late '80s and early '90s. Back in 1975 I found the first few issues entertaining enough, but when I tried to read them again a few years back, I found them extremely tedious - especially the Annual. What would Jack have done if he hadn't had Von Daniken to steal from? For someone who later often complained about being 'ripped off', most of Kirby's output was based on movies, TV shows, books, etc., yet he never gave credit to those who had 'inspired' him. I don't like saying it, but by this time JK had lost that 'old Jack magic' and was just turning out competent but underwhelming stories. That's how I see it anyway.
DeleteCouldn't disagree more with you on this one Kid, except for the bit about the annual. It was a bit of a letdown. I think in the Eternals the Kirby sauce is still strong. Absorbing the influences of your time and distilling them and creating something new is not "theft" in the sense you imply. I don't think he's ripping Van Daniken off so much as just using the popular notion as a jumping off point. Actually Jack beat Van Daniken to the idea in print when he created the Inhumans two years before Von Daniken's book.
DeleteYeah, but the idea of alien visitation probably preceded Von Daniken, so Jack was likely 'inspired' by someone else in that case. Jack of course wrote (as in plotted) many of his own stories (and scripted many too), but the concepts included in them came from a wide variety of sources, they didn't originate with Jack.
DeleteI really enjoyed Kirby's Eternals comic ( I agree the Annual wasn't that good) maybe it wasn't as complex as the New God's but for me that was it's attraction. Unlike many Kirby fans I also enjoyed his Black Panther series ,quirky to say the least. Look forward to your new blog on the Eternals
ReplyDeleteThe Black Panther is fun and light-hearted for the most part, but so very very weird. What hurt the BP was the stunning if overwrought Don MacGregor stuff that preceded it, almost the very opposite in tone and direction. It made Kirby's feel fluffier than it was perhaps.
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