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33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gaiman at his best with lovely pictures from Romita Jr., May 26, 2007
Jack Kirby created them and now Neil Gaiman has put his unique and always achingly beautiful spin on the Eternals. I loved this soaring, yet sensitive space opera years ago and what a pleasure it is to be reacquainted with Zuras, Thena and company. Gaiman makes it all fresh again without sacrificing the least of Kirby's baroque characters and concepts. John Romita Jr. provides gorgeous art that respects without preening. Once again this superb graphic novel reveals the heights and depths the comic book form is capable of achieving. Gaiman fans will love it and it would also be a great introduction to his work, in both the fiction and graphic novel genres. No previous knowledge of the Eternals is necessary, but knowing what has gone before certainly adds to the pleasure of the current work. They even managed to slip in some references to Marvel's Civil War big company-spanning and forever-changing multi-series, running concurrently.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well-executed, but not Gaiman's best work., February 22, 2008
This reads like the first three or four chapters of a really good Neil Gaiman series. The problem is, that's all. He does a magnificent job of setting up the characters, starting their stories, and precipitating them into conflict, but then the energy trails off, and the resolution is stamped far more with "ok, time to close this off and work on other projects" than it is "I have thought of a masterful reworking of this concept."
All in all, it's not bad, but it's more a revitalization of Kirby's characters than a reworking of them -- the transformative brilliance Gaiman has displayed in works like the Sandman series or _1602_ isn't present here. There's no flash of genius, just a technically well-executed story. There are strong, believable characters, a decent plot, compelling villains, and so forth. That's still better than a lot of things out there, and overall this is probably worth reading, but it isn't in the first rank of Gaiman's works.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining but Lifeless Blockbuster from Gaiman and Romita, May 25, 2008
Marvel Knights fans will recognize the central conceit here from Paul Jenkins's Sentry reboot--longlost superheroes from another era have forgotten who they were, and so has the world. The main difference between the two series, however, is that the Sentry was a modern-day creation by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, while the Eternals were created by the legendary Jack Kirby in the 1970's.
In the case of the Eternals, at least one person remembers them--Tony Stark--although it's not clear why he does. There's a mythology here involving three alien races, the Celestials, Deviants, and the Eternals, and something vague about the origins of life on Earth. The script, by Neil Gaiman, has its moments, while John Romita Jr.'s art is as visually stunning as always. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that the mandate here is to re-introduce the characters into the Marvel Universe--and not to tell a complete story. While Gaiman doesn't stay entirely faithful to Kirby's Eternals mythology, one ends up wondering if Kirby's original creation, that lasted only 19 issues, was strong enough to warrant bringing back.
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