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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 20, 2021 11:32:20 GMT -5
Comic historian Jess Nevins recently did a Twitter thread on his love for the Eternals: Nevins on Eternals
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dave
Junior Member
Posts: 44
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Post by dave on Jul 20, 2021 13:58:33 GMT -5
Maybe already said, but I think maybe the Eternals is just a bit too high concept for the monthly grind of Marvel Comics. It's one of those concepts that's hard to put in that little character capsule summary above the title page. "Family of explorers was hit by cosmic rays and turned into superheroes" is easier to relate and sell than "Evolutionary offshoot of humanity (which was created by an alien race of supergods) struggle for dominance against another, evil evolutionary offshoot of humanity". Kinda heady, so you're already courting a niche audience, and then the various stops and starts and reboots and all that until the concept becomes... what is the concept, again? Do readers know what they should generally expect when they pick up a comic book with The Eternals on the cover, the way they generally know what to expect when they pick up FF or the Hulk? I don't even really know what to expect from the upcoming movie, and that's going to be the sleekest possible version of the concept.
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Post by berkley on Jul 21, 2021 13:58:36 GMT -5
Comic historian Jess Nevins recently did a Twitter thread on his love for the Eternals: Nevins on EternalsHe makes some excellenty observations but towards the end loses the thread a little, to my mind: after pointing out, correctly, that Deviants shouldn't be seen as traditional good-guy heroes any more than the Eternals, he then makes that mistake himself by implication. In the end, his take on the series is too simplistic and simply flips the surface scenario on its head: instead of good Eternals vs evil Deviants he reads it as evil Celestials and their Eternal lackeys vs underdog Deviants.
This is the Gaiman/Gillen reading and it is just as mistaken as the other good-guy vs bad-guy MU version where the Eternals were good and Deviants evil. Kirby was doing something much more subtle, something that did not fit into this good vs evil framework.
How can intelligent writers like Gaiman and Gillen get it so wrong? I think because they aren't interested: they read the Kirby series as homework, because they had to, not because they wanted to, not because it spoke to them.
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Post by dabellwrites on Aug 16, 2021 17:47:03 GMT -5
I'm like 9 issues into the book (Marvel Unlimited app), something I've enjoyed about the Eternals is the arrogance and haughtiness of the supposed good guys and the will to survive of the supposed bad guys. I think Kirby was attempting to trick the readers with it. Just look at Sersi, she's whimsical and doesn't think twice about hurting a Deviant. Kro started off as your typical bad guy, but he's very honorable and showcased a great sense of care towards Thena.
Perhaps if Kirby had someone who got his vision, to reign him back in. There are some beautiful moments in his book where his characters are just larger-than-life, they're mythic, but then he'll get lost again in his own joy of what he's writing.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 16, 2021 21:17:07 GMT -5
I'm like 9 issues into the book (Marvel Unlimited app), something I've enjoyed about the Eternals is the arrogance and haughtiness of the supposed good guys and the will to survive of the supposed bad guys. I think Kirby was attempting to trick the readers with it. Just look at Sersi, she's whimsical and doesn't think twice about hurting a Deviant. Kro started off as your typical bad guy, but he's very honorable and showcased a great sense of care towards Thena. Perhaps if Kirby had someone who got his vision, to reign him back in. There are some beautiful moments in his book where his characters are just larger-than-life, they're mythic, but then he'll get lost again in his own joy of what he's writing. Well, that is something I wrote about in my own thread. Kirby wrote these as myth and the read very much like traditional mythological tales, with far greater use of allegory. Mark Evanier always described Jack as someone who was a very deep thinker and would say things to you or within his work and years might pass before you understood what he was getting at. I have found that, with his DC work and return to Marvel. When I was young, so much of it seemed bizarre (especially stuff like Arnim Zola, in Captain America or his Black Panther) and Eternals was one of the few series I kind of got into, as it had that interesting hook, with the Celestials and a ticking clock. In more recent years, rereading the material, I see so much more depth than when I was young and many things that passed over my head hit dead on target. I guess I needed to do some living before getting all of what Jack was saying. The creation of Karkas and Reject was brilliant, as they become Deviant ambassadors to the Eternals. Karkas, with the body of a monster and the soul of a poet and Reject, a beautiful man, who is considered hideous by the Deviants (likely inspired by the Twilight Zone story). Black Panther even made more sense to me later, as I understood the pulp traditions Jack was using in his version. problem was, at the time, I loved the Don McGregor Panther, especially "Panther's Rage." Jack was busy doing H Rider Haggard.
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Post by dabellwrites on Aug 17, 2021 13:39:54 GMT -5
I'm like 9 issues into the book (Marvel Unlimited app), something I've enjoyed about the Eternals is the arrogance and haughtiness of the supposed good guys and the will to survive of the supposed bad guys. I think Kirby was attempting to trick the readers with it. Just look at Sersi, she's whimsical and doesn't think twice about hurting a Deviant. Kro started off as your typical bad guy, but he's very honorable and showcased a great sense of care towards Thena. Perhaps if Kirby had someone who got his vision, to reign him back in. There are some beautiful moments in his book where his characters are just larger-than-life, they're mythic, but then he'll get lost again in his own joy of what he's writing. Well, that is something I wrote about in my own thread. Kirby wrote these as myth and the read very much like traditional mythological tales, with far greater use of allegory. Mark Evanier always described Jack as someone who was a very deep thinker and would say things to you or within his work and years might pass before you understood what he was getting at. I have found that, with his DC work and return to Marvel. When I was young, so much of it seemed bizarre (especially stuff like Arnim Zola, in Captain America or his Black Panther) and Eternals was one of the few series I kind of got into, as it had that interesting hook, with the Celestials and a ticking clock. In more recent years, rereading the material, I see so much more depth than when I was young and many things that passed over my head hit dead on target. I guess I needed to do some living before getting all of what Jack was saying. The creation of Karkas and Reject was brilliant, as they become Deviant ambassadors to the Eternals. Karkas, with the body of a monster and the soul of a poet and Reject, a beautiful man, who is considered hideous by the Deviants (likely inspired by the Twilight Zone story). Black Panther even made more sense to me later, as I understood the pulp traditions Jack was using in his version. problem was, at the time, I loved the Don McGregor Panther, especially "Panther's Rage." Jack was busy doing H Rider Haggard.
I actually read the whole thread, which is a big reason why I picked up the book. Glad I did. Interesting stuff. I see some parallels of between Kirby's creations and Tolkien's Elves and Humans in The Silmarillion. They're superficial, but it's fun pointing them out.
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Post by bashbash99 on Nov 2, 2021 7:19:39 GMT -5
Have been re-reading Eternals comics over the past few months. Kirby's series is a lot of fun and its a shame it didn't get to go further, and also that he was apparently pressured to insert some 616 elements. the whole concept just works better when its not set in 616. My uninformed guess is that to pass the 50-year judgment eventually the Eternals, Deviants, and humans would have to put aside differences and learn to co-exist. But of course they never would have reached that point in the series, perhaps temporary alliances and truces being formed and then broken, etc. And i'm sure Kirby would have just started focusing more on individual characters in the Eternals world, with the judgement ever looming in the background but not the main focus of each issue's plot. But really makes you wonder what might have been...
Roy's integration of the Eternals fully into 616 was pretty well-handled imo, even with more focus on Celestials and less on Eternals as his story continues. Although i feel like that whole saga kind of falls apart in the end, but OK he did wrap up the main lingering storyline from Kirby's series, so that's something.
Next I looked at Stern's Avengers run where the Eternals show up around as well As Maelstrom. Good story by Roger as usual, with most of the Eternals forming a uni-mind and flying off to space at the end. Of course the more well known characters stay behind on Earth. Good read.
Tried reading the Peter Gillis/Sal Buscema maxi-series but didn't get very far, just didn't find the storyline compelling enough to continue - although oddly it kind of resembles what i've seen of the movie plot - Ikaris trying to get the gang back together (in this case the handful of Eternals still around) to fight a Deviant navy that came outta nowhere (weird since last i recall the unimind had towed all the Deviant "matter" (now rearragned into a cube) after them into space.
The Gaiman series is probably the one i like the least, though. I don't care for his take on the Eternals, in particular i really dislike the notion that the Celestials created Deviants as a food source (?), it just removes all their majesty and mystery and makes them just giant slobs imo. Beyond that, the pacing and structure of Gaiman's story just don't work for me. Feels like we are being set up for an epic battle but in the end it is instead setting up a new status quo, presumably for future writers to work with. But it felt like this new status quo was quickly abandoned. I like a lot of Gaiman's comic work but this one was a miss for me.
Only read the 1st issue of Kieron Gillen's run but it didn't entice me to read more (although normally i do tend to like his writing).
Will be interesting to see the movie's take on things. Feels like it will be overstuffed due to the sheer number of characters, unfortunately... i think mcu might have been better splitting this one into part 1 and part 2, but we'll see. The Deviants come across as generic cgi villains in the trailer, hopefully they have a bit more personality than what we're seeing there. The Celestials role seems to be assigning Eternals to Earth to protect humanity from Deviants, rather than the Celestials tinkering with humanity to create eternals/deviants directly on Earth.
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Post by commond on Nov 2, 2021 8:04:13 GMT -5
I kind of liked the Earth X idea that the Celestials used planets to reproduce, and that Galactus devours planets that have Celestial embryos inside them.
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Post by bashbash99 on Nov 2, 2021 9:46:10 GMT -5
I kind of liked the Earth X idea that the Celestials used planets to reproduce, and that Galactus devours planets that have Celestial embryos inside them. I liked this too, it was a neat way to tie the two in together. In their own separate continuity, i think Celestials work best as mostly inscrutable, as Kirby seemingly intended. In the 616, giving them more purpose can work if handled well . Most of the time their plot role is outright threatening to destroy the Earth or our heroes - see Hickman's FF and Remender's Uncanny Avengers. But i still think Gaiman's idea (that Celestials "breed" deviants as snack food to gorge on) is the worst. I can't recall if Gillen continued with that idea or what.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 2, 2021 10:40:32 GMT -5
I hadn't read Gaiman's take but y'all have talked me out of it. This makes zero sense given the way the series was set up in the original series.
My take was sort of similar to the Earth X take … not the embryo thing but that their goal is to seek out planets which will one day evolve a Celestial. I thought personally the High Evolutionary ought to have joined their ranks.
Honestly, this would have been better as a long-form tv series than as a film, to capture the politics and relationships between the species. Eternals was never mainly focused on the battles.
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Post by kirby101 on Nov 2, 2021 13:58:48 GMT -5
The new series has amazing art, an overly convoluted story, the needless inclusion of Thanos, and a relevation that taints everything about the Eternals and ruins them as characters, {Spoiler: Click to show} The revelation is that for an Eternal to be resurrected, so that they continue their immortality, a human must die.
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Post by james on Nov 2, 2021 15:33:25 GMT -5
(Not sure if this should go here or in the Modern Comics page, because I want to talk about both the original series and the various later versions, including the upcoming Gillen/Ribic one. But I'll put it here, and when I get to the new one perhaps I'll start a separate thread there.) So anyway, the Eternals Problem, or the problem of the Eternals: what is it? Why does every single attempt to revive or reinvent these characters, this concept, end in artistic and popular failure? Why, though attempted many times over many years by different creators of widely varying levels of skill and talent - and some of the very highest - do they not only fail consistently, but even fail in the same ways over and over again?
To me, the answer is simple: they all try to do the same thing, and that thing is a mistake - they try to fit the Eternals into the Marvel Universe. To do this, since they approach the problem from the Marvel Universe rather than from the Eternals perspective, they have to make the Eternals not just something different, but something lesser than what they are in the original series. And by "lesser", I mean something quite specific, which I'll try to describe in detail as my tale of woe unfolds.
But to explain why the concept doesn't work in the MU, it's necessary to explain briefly what I think the whole thing is about in the first place - though it's both simple and deep, so any sort of concise précis really isn't going to do it justice. And to be fair, I'll also try to explain how it might be made to work in the MU - not perfectly, not as well as it would, as it did, on its own, but better than it has done in the MU up to now - if a creative team were motivated and were given the creative freedom to do so.
I've always felt this way about the Inhumans.
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Post by berkley on Nov 2, 2021 23:37:15 GMT -5
Yeah, I like the idea that if the Eternals, Deviants, and Humans of a planet succeed in uniting, they'd form a Uni-Mind that would be the first step towards developing into a Celestial - and if you look at the Uni-Mind issue of the original series, the formation of the Eternals' Uni-Mind is a huge, dramatic climax, with multiple large panels one after the other at the end of the story: this symbolic importance has been missed by later writers, in keeping with their consistant lack of feeling for what actually happens in the series and how it's presented by Kirby.
In keeping with this idea, I suspect the Fifty-Year Judgement would have turned to be, not the obliteration of the earth by the Celestial Host, but the Celestials simply leaving the earth to wallow in its own failure, doomed to never-ending conflict amngst its three species and probably eventually an outright war that destroys themselves, but which certainly prevents them from ever evolving into a higher form of life.
One of the many reasons the Eternals don't fit in a superhero universe is that the symbolism of the two stories is at odds: in superhero comics, the heroes represent, among other things, moral superiority (in contrast to supervillains) and Humankind's technological mastery of its environment (Alan Moore in Promethea called them "Science Heroes" for a reason). In the Eternals, all those things have yet to be achieved - in spite of the superficial similarity between the powers and abilities of Eternals and superheroes.
I'll try to get back to this thread and pick up where I left off. Truth be told, the current Gillen series got me down so much that I didn't have the heart to think too much about the Eternals, as I find the contempt for the original concept shown in the new series depressing.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 3, 2021 11:08:20 GMT -5
The new series has amazing art, an overly convoluted story, the needless inclusion of Thanos, and a relevation that taints everything about the Eternals and ruins them as characters,
I thought Mark Gruenwald's retcon of Thanos (that he was a mutant Eternal rather than half-Greek god / half-alien) to be pointless and obnoxious, however it does place the character directly in the Eternals camp so his inclusion makes sense.
(although really, if they're going to do that, they ought to make good use of Eros/Starfox as well)
(not that I love the character so much, especially after he was redefined as a mind manipulator, but as Thanos' brother he really ought to have a higher profile)
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Post by profh0011 on Nov 3, 2021 12:33:27 GMT -5
I thought Mark Gruenwald's retcon of Thanos (that he was a mutant Eternal rather than half-Greek god / half-alien) to be pointless and obnoxious That was Mark Gruenwald across the board from the moment he became an editor.
This is the guy who FIRED Roger Stern off THE AVENGERS, remember, after Stern spent 5 years doing better on the series than anyone since Steve Englehart.
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