Customer Reviews

Eternals

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Neil Gaiman, who took a mothballed and gimmicky character from the DC Comics warehouse and created the Endless phenomenon, does similar service for Marvel Comics here by revisiting the late Jack Kirby's extraterrestial immortals. Kirby, who co-created Captain America for Marvel and devised the New Gods for DC, crafted the Eternals (nee Celestials) as a graphic response to "Chariots of the Gods?" and other ancient ET theories.

The fruit died on the vine back in the 1970s, but Gaiman has given new life to the concept.

Let me be frank: I've never been a fan of Kirby's inventions that, for all their purported godly origins, were just your average, oddly costumed superheroes. But, while DC inserts the New Gods into countless storylines, making them hard to ignore, the Eternals had fallen entirely off my radar over at Marvel. Until now; Gaiman's involvement was enough for me to give them a chance.

And he does it. He successfully remakes the Eternals in a way that honors Kirby's source material while shoehorning them into the Marvel Universe in a way that makes sense -- something Kirby himself was unable to do. And, while he hasn't created a sensation like the Endless, Gaiman has put some interesting concepts on the table; it remains to see what Marvel does with them next.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(n e t) editor

Kirby's original Eternals was a truly cosmic epic and, typically, all over the place in execution. Of course it did have The King's usual massive action with eyepopping art and colour.

Gaiman's update brings an almost common sense focus to this vast many headed beast with some nice creative twists and suprises. The basic premise of superheroes who've forgotten who they are is done well. Mix in those nasty Deviants as religious zealots (Good touch) who want to raise a long dormant rogue Celestial and you've got quite the powder keg, but it doesn't really go off. And the overall plot doesn't quite gel, it would've been better off without the Civil War subterfuge jammed in there. But it's damn entertaining with some fantastic JRJR art and Gaiman's typically fine attention to character details. Recommended.

When I was a kid, I collected all of the original "Eternals" series... It wasn't really very good, but it was fun in a goofy, campy kind of way, like much of Kirby's work in the 1970s. The characters were definitely paper-thin, and thus the prospect of having the great Neil Gaiman take on the story held out the promise of these stick-figure personalities gaining some depth and interest. Sadly, he seems to have dropped the ball in that regard -- other than the eternal-child, Sprite, very little is done to make any of these characters interesting or compelling... Certainly not anything on the level of Gaiman's best writing ("Sandman," et al)

This book was reasonably entertaining, with lavish, action-y artwork by John Romita, Jr. (gotta love him!) but nothing in the plot that really blew my mind. Oh, well. I might pick up the next book, but then again, I might not. This one didn't wow me as much as I'd hope it might. (Axton)

Okay I will start by saying I am a huge Gaiman fan. So, I really like his stuff. When I saw that this had been released I stuck on my wish list and finally got it for Christmas!

Supposedly this is a revamp of The Eternals as done by Kirby back in the day. I never read any of the originals but this still looked pretty cool.

The drawing is fantastic; the super heroes and Eternals have undergone a revamp and are now sleek and updated. I thought it was fun that some classic super heroes made appearances in here, the appearance of Iron Man was especially timely.

The Eternals themselves were made into mysterious and curiously deep characters. In the beginning I was a bit confused about who was "good" and who was "bad'. Of course that was the point the Eternals don't take sides, they just are. As usually Gaiman made the story go deeper than the overall plot; bringing in questions of mortality, eternal youth, and the origin of life.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel. I am very happy I read it. The only thing I was really disappointed in was that Gaiman did all this work to set up these great characters and this great story and then it was over! I hope that there are more additions to this set.

I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan, and a comic fan as well. So to find this was such a boring and uninspired story was a big disappointment. One dimensional characters and a story that has no real ending, and little dramatic tension throughout, it's sadly a book that is best left on the shelf.

It is very disappointing to feel compelled to advise you to save your money, and while it's tempting to speculate why Neil would put out such a pitiful book, I will refrain from doing so.

Neil Gaiman, Eternals (Marvel, 2007)

Neil Gaiman working on a superhero comic? I signed up for this one as soon as I heard about it, and it didn't disappoint. Not much, anyway. (My disappointment will vanish entirely as soon as there is a volume 2.)

Eternals is basically set-up for a larger, as yet unrealized, series; we get to meet the characters, all of whom we already know in other flavors through the Marvel universe, and then we get the scene set for us. The characters, of course, have Gaiman's touch added to them, and a fine touch it is, as anyone who's perused his Sandman books is well aware. So you're not really reading this one for plot (though I don't mean to suggest there's no action to be found here; there certainly is), but just to get a feel for what's happening. The obvious-setup angle made me think about other series that simply started off with a bang and built up from there (Azzarello's 100 Bullets is the one that comes most quickly to mind); Eternals is a great example of the fact that a nothing-but-setup book is quite capable of working in the correct hands. Can't wait to see where this one is going. ****

While a long-time Marvel fan, Jack Kirby's Eternals were not part of my previous comic reading other than a brief, long-forgotten appearance or two in the late 70's or early 80's. One of my favorite writers breathing life back into the cast of characters made it easy to not worry about that.

This collects issues 1-7 of the re-launch, and it really is more of an into that than a new story. A few of the story events are not clear when first presented, but subsequent pages explain them. In my mind, not as enjoyable as Gaiman's 1602 from a few years back but still a good read.