As with other comics that cover entire species, like the X-Men or Inhumans, there are a lot of them. The actual characters of The Eternals, four decades on from their original conception, remain a relatively blank slate. Jack Kirby/Marvel Comics But who are the Eternals? Sersi calls up Makkari in The Eternals #5, Marvel Comics. The more familiar versions just a case of human mispronunciation. Of course, according to the Eternals, it’s their names that are the real deal.
The Eternals live on Olympia, and their name are all twists on classical mythology, so that Mercury becomes Makkari Zeus becomes Zuras. The idea is that the Eternals inspired humans’ earliest conceptions of gods, from the Aztecs’ Quetzalcóatl to basically the entire Greek and Roman pantheon. Kirby takes this opportunity to mash up real history and legends and mixes them with the Eternals’ story, referencing the biblical flood and the lost continent of Lemuria, and encounters with Shakespeare and the Incan Empire. Since then, the Eternals have existed alongside human history, mostly in their secret mountain-top cities, but occasionally descending to mingle with their genetic cousins. As with all good superheroes, it’s actually the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong, back in the Eternals’ first home city of Titanos. This isn’t a quality they were naturally imbued with, though. This grants them the ability to reshape the world at a molecular level, as well as levitation, telepathy, super-strength and a grab bag of other fairly generic superpowers.Īs their name suggests, the Eternals are also immortal. The Eternals are the winners of this genetic lottery: They’re all in excellent shape, with fantastic hair, and imbued with cosmic power. They also created the Deviants, misshapen creatures with no genetic stability - each individual looks like they belong to a different species - and Homo immortalis, better known as the Eternals.įrom The Eternals #9. This, in the Marvel Universe, is canonically how humans evolved from our ape ancestors - with a helping hand from the gods.īut homo sapiens weren’t the only result of the Celestials’ experiments. Millions of years ago, giant beings known as Celestials descended from space and genetically experimented on Earth’s hominid population. With The Eternals, Kirby again mixed mythology with science fiction to create an origin story for the entire Marvel Universe, or at least its version of Earth. Jack Kirby/Marvel Comics The Eternals are sorta the origin of the Marvel Universe A group of Celestials gather in The Eternals. Which is to say that, at first blush, the Eternals are a hell of a lot like the New Gods - another league of superpowered mythical beings, at war with their dark reflection. When Kirby returned to Marvel in 1976, he brought back with him all the preoccupations that had defined his Fourth World books. These stories introduced characters like Darkseid, Mister Miracle and Justice League villain Steppenwolf to the DC universe.
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Across four series and one graphic novel, Kirby wove his own science-fiction mythology centered on the New Gods, two warring pantheons. His opening salvo there, beginning in 1970, was the “Fourth World” saga. However, Kirby didn’t feel he was being adequately credited for these contributions, one of the reasons he jumped ship to rival publisher DC Comics. To call Kirby a legendary creator would be severely understating it: In his time at Marvel, and its precursor Timely Comics, he was responsible for co-creating Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther and helping to lay the foundations of the entire Marvel Universe. In order to answer that question, we have to go back to 1970, the year Jack Kirby parted ways with Marvel Comics.
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The second is that, even for long-time comics fans, the Eternals are the kind of characters that prompt the question: Who are they, again? The answers are, as you may expect from the trailers for the movie version, strange. The first is that these characters are built around a concept which could rewrite everything we know about the MCU. It’s a bold move - even for a studio that has previously taken risks on properties like the Guardians of the Galaxy - for two reasons. Alongside the more earthbound Shang-Chi and the time-loopy Loki, November’s Eternals helps the mega-franchise take a major jump toward the cosmic.
In 2019, Spider-Man: Far From Home brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 3 to a close, and the fog lifted on what Marvel planned to do next.