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Underground > Comic Books >

Gaiman's ETERNALS

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Henningjohnathan

21:17 / 27.08.06

Kirby's OMAC is really a masterpiece - It saddens me to see what it has become in the current DCU.

As far as Gaiman's ETERNALS, up to #3 and there really hasn't been much to catch my attention. It's okay. I like a few of the conceptual elements - how do you kill an eternal? The celestial's technology was made from stone. I like the way Romita Jr. portrays Iron Man's armor as almost like a vehicle rather than a suit.

I especially like that part about the Celestech. Tim Powers used the idea in THE STRESS OF HER REGARD that there was a Lovecraftian sort of race on the earth millions of years ago made from a silicon rather than carbon base. I wonder if the idea that the celestials are silicon based and what looks like stone armor is actually their bodies will come up? The idea that all the "crystal" mysticism is based on fragments of their technology left behind could be an interesting element.

Still all these are elements, that haven't quite come together.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:32 / 28.08.06

Read the third issue today and I'm left wondering if the Civil War subplot is absolutely necessary or if Gaiman was forced to shoehorn it in; nothing in the series's basic premise needs it to be taking place in current continuity or even in the actual 616 universe. It is a handy way of bringing up that yes, the Eternals are remembered by those around them - Iron Man bringing up Sersi's tenure as an Avenger. Although I think him remembering her and then the bit with the computer complicates the issue a bit more than is really required. And I want Quasar to show up and try to make contact with Ma(r/k)k.

I like Thena. Her approach to violence connects her up quite nicely to Athena.

Does Sprite know something?

Did the Deviants refer to themselves as the Changing People back in the old Kirby days? Was there a hint of this religious element to their life? I enjoyed it a lot but was left wondering if this was Gaiman adding an element or riffing on one...

12:23 / 29.09.06

Ah, so the Osiris-Thoth mix up mystery is solved.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:02 / 29.09.06

I'm unsure if that was intentional or if the Sprite's bit about Ikaris was meant to patch up NG's mistakes. But Hosts instead of Hordes, yes.

00:10 / 30.09.06

Not sure if it was a patching up of NGs mistakes, but it is a bit odd. Not really forwarding the story or making any big point at all really. Not a big point. Good stuff in issue 4 though. I'm enjoying it a lot.

21:38 / 30.09.06

The Thoth/Osiris, Hoarde/Host thing was a little...odd. It shows that Ike's memories are imperfect, but the average reader would not have caught either one. The misuse of words seems to go no further...

Still, that's a minor quibble with a damn fun series. I was expecting something a little more highbrow and literary, but "gaiman does fun comics"is just fine too.

Being an Eternals fan from back in 76, I had to pick up the THOR; THE ETERNALS SAGA tpb that came out this week. You can see where it all began to go wrong with the franchise. Ruy Thomas has to have the characters keep explaining that Olympia, home of the Eternals, is not Olympus, home of the Greek pantheon. After one instance of this, Thomas goes and muddles things up by having the Eternals in Olympia celebrate their own Olympics. I think at some later date, Marvel established that the pantheon Gods are in fact shapeshifting ALIENS. Oy Vey!

Hopefully, Gaiman's mini will sort that all out and Marvel will do a better follow-up job than they have done with the 1602 follow-ups...

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:39 / 10.11.06

Okay, weirdly, it feels like Gaiman's doing to the Eternals what Mozzer tried to do with the New Gods, only it makes more sense even if has its predictable points. I can't quite grasp what the deal with Druig is yet, and how he connects - Deviant, I assume, or Eternal? I don't know enough about the history, it's been forever since I read an early Eternals comic. Ideas?

Somewhere along the way I started to enjoy this again, even with the odd continuity bits (which seem like mistakes and then are proven to be important and so on--)

Is anyone else still reading this? It's been driven on by inertia and renewed interest at different points. I'm not sure if it's going to leave the world a better place when it's done, but I'm not sure it needs to.

15:42 / 10.11.06

i gave up on this after issue 1. I like Gaiman and all, but it seemed like the same old 'heroes have to rediscover that they're heroes because something made them forget.' I know I've loved comics that have that same plot - it's all in the execution, and I just found Gaiman's execution of it mediocre but slickly done. And I guess I'm discovering it's hard for me to actually care about these characters, even when they're well-drawn by JR JR. Now I read it in the store (or "Byrne-steal" as we sometimes say) and they never convince me to lay down actual cash for 'em.

01:11 / 11.11.06

I hate JRjr's art. Hate it. It's so scratchy and... line-y. Lots of horizontal lines. All his faces have the same shape. I hate his art, always have. And to see Kirby's designs turned into scratchy JRjr's art - blech. No thank you. I'll download it and read it for free.

06:07 / 12.11.06

I, on the other hand, love JRJR's art - nice influence via his pop & Kirby himself.

Also, the series will apparently run SEVEN issues now, according to Joe Q over @ Newsarama. Sic was supposed to be longer than usual, but now we get double the ETERNALS, which is cool by me.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:14 / 12.11.06

I like the bargain that Sersi strikes with Ikaris in the latest, and I do like the reasons behind the memory loss - the initial bad guy's motivations are solid, and remind me a bit of Klarion in some weird way...

11:47 / 13.11.06

I think at some later date, Marvel established that the pantheon Gods are in fact shapeshifting ALIENS.

That particular revelation came about in Earth X so it may well not be canonical.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:09 / 26.01.07

#6 is out this week, and Gaiman makes me smile by stating the obvious about Civil War. Iron Man is a goofball, Hank Pym's put in his place. Not enough Sersi, though.

Janean Patience

11:32 / 14.06.07

Finish this, anyone? Actually, the tailing-off of this thread is about what the series deserves. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't, in my assessment, much of anything. And this is coming from someone who enjoyed 1602.

It's hard to divine what Gaiman's intent was for this series. In one of the introductions, and in the hardback copy there are a few, someone remarks that they didn't want a series that did nothing more than re-integrate the Eternals into continuity. The series having finished it's not clear that it did anything more. It was an attempt to engage with and replicate Kirby's mad inventive energy, I guess, that never got remotely close. The decision to ground the Eternals in reality and have them forget who they are meant it took a long, long while for the series to get going and the eventual plot device

SPOILERS

of Sprite being the architect of their downfall has been done so many times before. "You get tired of being eleven forever," could be from Interview w/a Vampire. Cloaking superhumans in mundane flesh is pure Marvelman. Apart from that lingering trace of romance between Makari and Sersi none of the Eternals had any character, and barely having heard of them before I couldn't give a fuck about what bits of continuity were being nodded to. It all ended with a golden Celestial standing in San Francisco and judging the Earth, while the Eternals that were awake went to find the others. Not a conclusion, really, so much as an adjustment of the status quo that will likely be roundly ignored by all the writers who come afterwards.

I dunno, it just seems that this was a dud. There were decent parts and JRjr's art was great, as it always is, but channelling Kirby didn't happen. There was something very... 90s about the whole thing, like the impetus of the series was a new #1 to make cash off. Not that Gaiman made anything from this, of course, because it all goes appropriately to freeing Miracleman from legal hell. Still, it felt like time served.

12:58 / 14.06.07

Read it in the store after finding issues 1 and 2 not all that exciting. I agree that it was a dud.

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