Chapter Six of Neil Gaiman’s Eternals series begins by forging the first known connection between the works of Jack Kirby and the collaborations of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Kirby created the original Eternals series in the 1970s, and Chapter Six’s title, “Modified Rapture,” is a famous line from Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1885 comic opera The Mikado.

Presumably Gaiman is alluding to the concept of the “rapture,” whereby at some point in the future, Christians will be transported into the sky to join with the returned Christ. The parallel in the Eternals mythos is the Uni-Mind, created when Eternals rise into the sky and merge together into a single being that represents their collective consciousness.

On the first page various people, most of them asleep, speak what appears to be the words of the awakening Dreaming Celestial, with the repeated declaration, “I am” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 1). This alludes to Yahweh or Jehovah, the Hebrew name for God, which is commonly believed to mean “I am.” The Dreaming Celestial is asserting his claim to be God, and through Thena’s son Joey, he even says, “Let there be light” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 4), the words with which the Biblical God began the creation of the universe in the Book of Genesis. Readers should remember that he is only one of an unknown number of Celestials, and that the Dreaming Celestial also seems to be based on Lucifer and Cthulhu. If the Dreaming Celestial is a God with a capital G, he is opposition to the other “space gods,” his fellow Celestials. As his blackened armor signifies, the Dreaming Celestial represents darkness, not light, even though the armor regains its original golden color as dawn approaches.

Note that Thena tells Ikaris that “I couldn’t fly well even when I was at full power” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 5). That seems unlikely, considering that she had thousands of years to practice self-levitation; based on the goddess of wisdom, Thena should be capable of mastering such mental feats, and there’s no indication in past Eternals series that she has trouble flying. But Thena’s statement is a reminder that, not having undergone a death and resurrection, she has not been restored to full Eternal status.

The Deviant Morjak captures and threatens to kill Joey. When Thena shows parental concern, Morjak sneers, “He’s not your son. He’s not even the same species as you. He’s your pet” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 9 panel 3). Well, ordinary humans (Homo sapiens), Deviants and Eternals are probably both separate species within the same genus, Homo: Zuras later refers to the Eternals as Homo immortalis (Gaiman issue 7 p. 9). The Deviants are driven by racial prejudices that, in the Kirby series, even led them to condemn other Deviants whose genetic makeup violated certain unstated standards. It is no surprise, then, that the Deviants have contempt for ordinary humans, and even regard them as potential food (see Gaiman issue 6 p. 9 panel 1).

As the Dreaming Celestial’s armor reverts to its original golden color, “the universe shudders and shifts” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 12). This dramatically indicates just how powerful a Celestial, the Dreaming Celestial in particular, can be. Miniscule as a Celestial’s physical armor may be in comparison to the unimaginable vastness of the universe, Gaiman is indicating that the Dreaming Celestial is enough of a “God” to endanger the entire cosmos. I appreciate the inclusion of cameos by Uatu the Watcher (the only character to appear in both Gaiman’s Eternals and 1602) and Galactus, which further establish the Eternals mythos as part of the Marvel universe, and also may allude to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s monumental “Galactus trilogy” in Fantastic Four #48-50 (March-May, 1966). Uatu and Galactus’s reactions to the awakening of the Dreaming Celestial reinforce the impression of the latter’s universe-threatening might. Possibly Gaiman is also alluding to Walter Simonson’s story about a final clash between Galactus and the Dreaming Celestial in an alternate future in Fantastic Four #339-340 (April-May, 1990). Since he refers to the universe “shuddering” as if it were alive, Gaiman could have even worked in Eternity, the living embodiment of the universe, but perhaps including the occult aspects of the Marvel Universe would not quite fit a science fiction/superhero series like Eternals.

Ikaris asks Thena if she is “ready” to help form a Uni-Mind, but Sersi replies that “I don’t think I want to be part of this. . . .I’m not even sure I like changing things into [other] things,” referring to her Eternal super-power (Gaiman issue 6 p. 17). Later she rejects her Eternal identity, declaring, “I’m nort on of you. Please just leave me alone” (Gaiman issue 6, p. 26).

Back when I began my critique of this series in “Comics in Context” #193, I pointed out that the dilemma of these apparent humans like Mark Curry and Sersi who are awakening to their true, godlike selves, was comparable to that of various other characters in fiction, such as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ and even the Doctor in the 2007 Doctor Who two-parter “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood,” in which he has been transformed into an ordinary human with no memory of his true identity. A recurring theme in such stories is the protagonist’s need to choose between the potential happiness of an ordinary human life and the lonely, more difficult path of the hero or even of a godlike being. Jesus’s “last temptation” is the fast-forward vision of his future as a happily married man with children, ending in his peaceful demise; significantly, the Doctor has a similar vision in “The Family of Blood.”

The initial issues of Gaiman’s Eternals show that Mark Curry’s life has reached a dead end, so it’s not surprising that in the final issues Mark has no regrets about resuming his Eternal identity as Makkari. Sersi, though, clings to her life as a human even when she learns of her Eternal identity, powers and responsibilities. Perhaps Gaiman believes this is true to Sersi’s personality in the Kirby Eternals. KIrby’s Sersi does seem at first glance to be the ultimate hedonist, who devotes her millennia-long life to continual partying.

But I think that this is an incomplete view of the character. Gaiman portrays Sersi as a much more subdued, quieter character than the one in the Kirby series. Kirby portrayed Sersi as uninhibited and passionate in whatever she did. Sersi makes her entrance in the original series by literally dancing (Kirby Eternals hardcover p. 51). She speaks of “the joy of living” and says that Eternals “love a good laugh” (Kirby p. 97). Certainly she does, and she is willing to party at any opportunity, and she clearly loves using her powers to transform atomic structures: as soon as Ikaris and Thena leave her alone with Dr. Samuel Holden, she transforms Holden’s furniture into what appears to be a BIg Band out of the days of Kirby’s youth. “Shall we dance??” she asks Holden (Kirby p. 133).

What readers may overlook is that Kirby shows that Sersi is equally passionate about waging battle when the need arises. She erupts in fury against those party-pooping Deviants in Kirby’s stories. At the end of Kirby’s Eternals #16, the narrator asserts that “In a battle between males, the deciding factor is always an angry woman. . .Next–Sersi the Terrible” (Kirby p. 323), which is the title of the next issue (Kirby p. 325).

So it seems to me that in Gaiman’s series, as Sersi’s powers reemerge, she should be delighted by them, not frightened, and that she should discover that there is a side of her personality that enjoys combat. In Kirby’s version, Sersi was the Eternal who most enjoyed being an Eternal.

In a trance Joey continues to voice the thoughts of the Dreaming Celestial, who says that he once intended to reward whoever freed him by endowing him with “the power of a Celestial,” but then, as his imprisonment wore on, decided to reward his rescuer instead by sparing him “when I destroyed this part of the universe,” and finally, hundreds of millennia later, vowed that “whoever freed me would perish first, and that would be my only gift” (Gaiman issue 6, pgs. 22-23). Here the Dreaming Celestial seems like a genie, who will grant a reward to the person who frees him; instead of three wishes, there are three different versions of the “reward.” Once again, we are reminded that though the other Celestials’ motives are unknowable, the Dreaming Celestial’s passion for destruction is evident.

Ikaris, Thena, Zuras, Ajak and Druig form a Uni-Mind, and here is the greatest visual disappointment in the entire series. John Romita, Jr. draws the Uni-Mind as a glowing humanoid figure (Gaiman issue 6 p. 28), but this is a visual cliche. Kirby’s Silver Surfer is a superior version of the same image. Kirby visualized the Uni-Mind as a colossal floating brain, complete with brows, as if it had eyes (see Kirby p. 198). It may be grotesque, but it is unforgettable, and powerfully conveys in visual terms that it is the collective consciousness of an entire race. Radically altering a Jack Kirby design is usually a mistake, as it is here.

As the Celestials did to the Uni-Mind in Thor #300 (October 1980), the Dreaming Celestial causes this Uni-Mind to dissolve back into its component beings. So, you see, this “rapture” did not last long: it was only a “modified rapture.”

From there Gaiman and Romita shift into a sequence that takes place within Mark Curry/Makkari’s mind, as the Dreaming Celestial, in the guise of Sersi, converses with him. “Sersi” tells him that “I am a tiny part of the mind (a subroutine/a demon/the smallest circuit) of one of the order of beings you call Celestials” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 32).

In the interview in the back of the hardcover collection of this series, Neil Gaiman says that he was attempting to “remain true to the Kirbyness of it all. And that includes. . .making the Celestials rather more unknowable than they have been.” That’s surely why Gaiman specifies that only “a tiny part of the mind” of the Dreaming Celestial communicates with Makkari and, presumably, communicates through the minds of the various humans who voiced his thoughts earlier in issue six. Neither ordinary humans nor Deviants nor even Eternals can comprehend more than this “tiny” part of a Celestial’s consciousness, by which Gaiman probably means the simplest level of a Celestial’s inconceivably complex mind. I’d speculate that Ajak, whose specialty is communicating with Celestials, likewise only communicates with “tiny” parts of their minds. If God exists, humans like ourselves could not fathom what God’s consciousness, capable of monitoring all of time and space while existing beyond both, is like; presumably when God speaks to people in the Bible, it is only a “tiny” part of God’s mind that communicates with them.

Even so, I feel that it’s wrong to have the Dreaming Celestial speak, even in this allegedly limited fashion. Although Gaiman tells us that we perceive only a miniscule portion of the Celestial’s mind, we are nonetheless reading the Celestial’s thoughts. And one of the most important themes of the Kirby Eternals is the absolute inscrutability of the Celestials’ minds and motivations. Remember, in the Kirby series, we did not even know why the Dreaming Celestial was “destroyed.” (Kirby’s narrator even calls it a “tragedy”; it was later stories that established the Dreaming Celestial as a sinister rebel guilty of a “crime against life.”) In the final dialogue in Kirby’s Eternals, Ikaris declares that “The space gods remain an unconquerable enigma–mysterious and majestic among the creatures of the cosmos!” (Kirby p. 377).

When Kirby depicted rival images of God in the “Galactus trilogy,” both Galactus and the Watcher spoke. But in his Fourth World books for DC, the Source, who represents God, communicates only with Highfather, who resembles an Old Testament prophet, and only through “handwriting on the wall,” in an allusion to an episode from the Bible (see Rembrandt’s depiction here). In his Eternals Kirby went further: only Ajak could communicate with Celestials, but, significantly, Kirby never showed us the thoughts that the Celestials conveyed to Ajak. Nor did Celestials literally speak through Ajak the way that the Dreaming Celestial speaks through various people in Gaiman’s Eternals #6. Thus Kirby kept the thoughts and motives of the Celestials mysterious.

At the outset I linked Kirby to Gilbert and Sullivan in part as a joke. But I am serious now in linking Kirby’s Eternals with the works of the late filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. One of Bergman’s themes was the silence of God, and this is one of the principal themes of Kirby’s Eternals as well. Bergman may not have known if God existed or not; Kirby brings his “space gods” onstage but makes the point that we do not and cannot understand them or what they want. We are at the mercy of the judgment of the space gods–or the real God, if God exists–but do not know what they–or God–want from us.

As far as I’m concerned, it is always a misjudgment to portray Celestials as speaking at all. Marvel writers have made this error in the past, for example, with Ashema, the Celestial who took human form.

It no longer seems right to call the Dreaming Celestial by that name since he has woken up. He can’t be the Black Celestial now that his armor has changed color; maybe now he should be called the Golden Celestial. But I will continue to refer to him as the Dreaming Celestial until such time as Marvel gives him a new official name. (So he’s the Dreaming Celestial–with the initials “D. C.”–who threatens to destroy Marvel-Earth. Nah, that’s just a coincidence.)

The Dreaming Celestial claims to have personally created Makkari. But when? Kirby established that Makkari was a comparatively young Eternal, so he’s not a first generation Eternal like Zuras, who would have been created by the First Host. Gaiman and Romita show Makkari battling Deviants just before the arrival of the Second Host (Gaiman issue 1, p. 29). Then again, that’s part of Ikaris’s faulty memories, and also shows Sersi, who was a child at the time of Gilgamesh (see Captain America Annual #11, 1992), long after the Great Cataclysm that sunk Deviant Lemuria. Certainly the Dreaming Celestial has a reason to lie to Makkari, whom he is attempting to enlist as his willing servant. But perhaps, whenever Makkari was conceived, the Dreaming Celestial somehow manipulated his genetic structure from afar to endow him with super-speed.

The Dreaming Celestial instructs Makkari to bring a “message” from him to the ordinary humans, Eternals and Deviants of Earth. It makes sense that Makkari should be a messenger, since Jack Kirby based him on Mercury, the messenger of the Roman gods. Kirby established Ajak as the Eternal who communicated with the “space gods,” so arguably Neil Gaiman has made Ajak’s principal role redundant. Then again, a future writer could have Ajak conveying messages from the other Celestials while Makkari acts as spokesman for the Dreaming Celestial. In the original series Kirby seemed to be setting up the Forgotten One to serve as an agent of the One Above All, and in Thor #287 (September 1979), Roy Thomas brought the Forgotten One back, conveying a message from the Celestials. Now this may be one messenger too many.

So at the beginning of Gaiman’s Eternals, Ikaris was a Campbellian “herald,” delivering a message, a “call to adventure,” that Mark Curry/Makkari refused to heed. Now, as the series draws to an end, Curry has not only accepted his Eternal identity but has become a messenger himself, a herald for the Dreaming Celestial, who warns him that Makkari’s message will also be met with resistance and disbelief: “it is not a good thing to be a prophet, Makkari” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 33).

And what is the Dreaming Celestial’s message? He directs Makkari to proclaim “that I will (watch/listen} and that once I have seen enough, I shall judge” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 34). Thus Neil Gaiman restores a version of the status quo from Kirby’s Eternals series: once again a Celestial stands upon Earth, eventually to deliver a judgment upon it that could lead to the end of humanity.

I can understand why Gaiman did not bring Kirby’s Arishem the Judge back, as if he had changed his mind about the “thumbs up” he gave Earth back in Thor #300. Yet having the Dreaming Celestial serve as judge still weakens the original Kirby theme. Interestingly, Gaiman has Makkari say that he is not certain just what the Dreaming Celestial is judging: “Maybe judge the people on it, but that didn’t seem to be what it meant.” No, I think that Kirby meant for us to think of Arishem as judging the human race: Kirby was evoking the image of the Last Judgment, and even of a harvest: “They planted intelligent life on this planet–the crop has matured. . .the Celestials will test it and weigh its value” (Kirby p. 37).

Moreover, post-Kirby stories about the Eternals mythos made it clear that the Dreaming Celestial is predisposed towards destruction: the Dreaming Celestial tells Makkari that when he woke, he intended to “terminate this (Earth/Planet/Place) and all that walk upon it” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 33). Now the sentient denizens of Earth have to persuade the Dreaming Celestial not to carry out his original plan to annihilate him. It is like trying to persuade Satan or Cthulhu to mellow out: the odds don’t look good. But what made Arishem’s fifty year judgment a more powerful concept is that Kirby gave us no hint of what Arishem thought or what he wanted. How can you persuade a judge when you don’t know the standards by which he judges you? Arishem was utterly unknowable to human minds, just as God might be. “Inside the impregnable armor,” Kirby wrote about Arishem, “is a mind incomprehensible to man” (Kirby p. 123).

Insisting that Zuras and his fellow Eternals register as superheroes, Iron Man and Yellowjacket miss a rather significant point. Sersi is definitely a New Yorker, but the other Eternals in this series, as far as I know, are not American citizens (not unless Sprite legally established them as such when he gave them human identities). If Zuras were a citizen of any human nation, it would be Greece. But perhaps that doesn’t matter to Iron Man or to others with a post-9/11 you’re-with-us-or-you’re-against-us mindset. “Whose side are you on?” demands Iron Man. Drawn by Romita as if he is staring the Avengers down, Zuras points out that the immortal Eternals don’t take sides, that from their perspective countries are merely “lines in the sand” and empires (like the United States?) are transitory. Zuras seems to agree with Sersi, who indicated earlier that the superhero registration act really amounted to forcing persons to take a loyalty oath (Gaiman issue 5 p. 17). When Yellowjacket persists in telling Zuras to register, Zuras gets tougher and sternly informs the Avengers that to the Eternals humans–including Iron Man and Yellowjacket–are merely “children” (Gaiman issue 6 p. 39).

Earlier on that same page Makkari, smiling, informed Iron Man that the Dreaming Celestial “likes you.” Since the Dreaming Celestial is the Satan or Cthulhu of the Eternals mythos, this is not a compliment. It would be nice if that induced Iron Man to reconsider some of his recent Civil War-related behavior.

At the start of issue 7 Gaiman and Romita show us a caricatured family of tourists staring, unafraid, up at the Dreaming Celestial as it looms, unmoving, above San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Gaiman’s point is that people quickly grow blase even about a “miracle” in their midst (Gaiman issue 7 p. 1). This makes the necessary point that the presence of the Dreaming Celestial (who the public does not know is a menace) does not prevent other Marvel series from continuing as before: life goes on.

But I think that Gaiman is being too cynical here, even considering that extraterrestrials are nothing new in the Marvel Universe. (Gaiman establishes through the tourists that the public does not know that the Dreaming Celestial is alive, but they know that his armor is alien in origin.). Besides, I think that any Marvel story in which, say, a costumed superhero walks into a bar, and nobody pays much attention, is subverting what makes the superhero genre work. Superheroes aren’t just like normal people, and normal people should react–with awe and wonder, or with fear and distrust, but with some strong emotion– when a superhero flies by. In Kirby’s Eternals people were awestruck or frightened by the sight of the Celestials appearing in their midst; SHIELD attempted to take action against them. Kirby was also wise to put Arishem the Judge in a place far from civilization, where his presence could be kept relatively secret. Perhaps the Dreaming Celestial should stand in some similarly remote place. (Will any Marvel story set in San Francisco now have the Dreaming Celestial drawn into the background?)

Zuras and Iron Man resolve their staring contest through compromise. Zuras drops his superior attitude, conceding that “I’m not” a “god.” although Zuras declares that the Eternals “defend humanity,” he makes it clear that the Eternals intend to “return to Olympia” and find the missing members of their race (Gaiman issue 7 p. 10). In other words, Zuras indicates that he has no current plans of intervening in human affairs. Since the Eternals are leaving America for Olympia, Iron Man need not insist on forcing them to register, and he and Zuras shake hands. What might happen if, say, the Eternals wend up battling a menace to Earth on American soil remains to be seen.

So in the final issue Iron Man/Tony Stark ends up being more open-minded and lenient in enforcing the registration law, and more like the character I remember and admire. Although Sersi, as noted, is definitely a Manhattanite, he does not insist that she register, either, at least in part because she has no intention of resuming her superhero career. Sersi still cannot remember her stint as a member of the Avengers. (She’s lucky. Sersi was written so far out of character in those early 1990s Avengers stories about Proctor that I wish I could forget them, too.) Stark’s sympathy for Sersi has grown to such an extent that Gaiman and Romita even subtly hint that he is growing attracted to her, and feels hurt when she goes off on her own (Gaiman issue 7 pages 9-11).

Then comes what I expect is the most controversial segment of the series. Zuras finds Sprite on a bus and kills him by snapping his neck (Gaiman issue 7 pgs. 15-17). Yes, it’s another child star who has come to a bad end. Sprite had a death wish, and you know what they say about being careful what you wish for. Last week I observed that, despite his adolescent ambitions, Sprite was like an adult trapped in a child’s body. Here Zuras tells Sprite, “You haven’t been a kid for a million years.”

But Sprite was a child emotionally, and it is downright creepy (as Gaiman surely intended) to watch Zuras murder him. Was this the only possible solution? If Sprite had indeed turned into a normal human boy, couldn’t Zuras have simply imprisoned him somewhere to live out his life, which is all too brief by Eternal standards? (Of course we can’t be certain that Sprite won’t be resurrected by an Olympian reactivation chamber.)

Despite my qualms about Sprite’s characterization and fate, I’m quite pleased with the Gaiman-Romita Eternals, whose richness becomes more apparent on rereading. I wish that it had gone on longer. Neil Gaiman has said in interviews that he felt he had too large a cast in 1602 and did not want to face the same problem in Eternals. But there are many memorable characters from the Eternals mythos whom Gaiman did not use yet who are well worth reviving in the proper hands.

The Forgotten One: He only appeared in a single issue of the original series, yet Jack Kirby told us just enough about him so that this mysterious Eternal remains intriguing, even tragic, three decades later. He was a hero who overthrew tyrants and battled “beasts,” yet, Sprite tells him, “Zuras banished you for your pride! Your will to meddle in human affairs!” Just what did the Forgotten One do to provoke Zuras’s wrath, and was he right, or was Zuras? Confined to an isolated part of Olympia, the Forgotten One was even stripped of his name. Yet later writers established that he was Gilgamesh, the hero of the ancient Babylonian epic, that he was responsible for some of the feats attributed to Hercules, and that he was mistaken for the Biblical Samson. (Hey, Neil, maybe in the Marvel Universe, the Forgotten One was Beowulf, and Grendel and his mom were Deviants.) No writer after Kirby has treated the Forgotten One satisfactorily, but he remain a character of great, untapped potential.

Kro: Recently I brought up Kirby’s Eternals in conversation with a friend, who asserted that the greatest character in the series was Kro, the Deviant warlord. He may well be right, so it’s surprising that he’s missing from the Gaiman series. Kro can serve as the villain in the Kirby series, in which he even takes delight in masquerading as the devil by sprouting horns on his forehead to terrify superstitious humans. Yet for millennia Kro has been in love with the Eternal Thena, who recognizes he is “noble, wise and brave” (Kirby p. 131), values that seem to separate him from the rest of Deviant society. In the Kirby series Kro invites Thena to accompany him to the Deviants’ undersea city of Lemuria. It is a symbolic descent into the underworld. Thena tells him, “Once before I went beneath the waves with you. Mythology records it as an unhappy story” (Kirby p. 131). I believe she is referring to the myth of Hades and Persephone. Thinking about Kro’s undersea home today, I realized that the relationship of Kro and Thena echoes the sexual attraction between the Sub-Mariner and Susan Storm in the early issues of Fantastic Four. Unable to remain together as lovers, Kro and Thena are also unable to remain eternally apart from one another.

The Reject: His fellow Deviants regard him as physically repulsive because he looks exactly like a “normal” human being, who is so handsome that Thena calls him “sweet prince.” But she’s also being ironic. Kirby introduced the Reject (later dubbed Ransak) as a combatant in the Deviants’ gladiatorial ring, “I am what I am,” the Reject once explained: “A thing taught only to make its kill–and prepare for the next” (Kirby p. 244). Never having known love, having trained only to destroy, the Reject can suddenly become like a savage beast. “At that moment,” Kirby’s narrator states at one point, “the Reject’s eyes glaze and his jaws distend like a carnivore at the kill! A snarl escapes his lips!” (Kirby, p. 156). A little later the narrator tells us, “the killing frenzy is upon Reject! Combat is the only life he knows!” (Kirby p. 157).

Years earlier, Kirby had created Orion of The New Gods, a hero who was capable of savage violence, reflected by his cruel, bestial face. Orion needed his living computer, the “Mother Box,” to hide his true face, transforming his ugly features into handsome ones. Similarly, the Reject’s outer handsomeness conceals the beast within.

With his “animal instincts” (Kirby p. 224) and “killing frenzy,” the Reject reminds me of Wolverine and his berserker rages. The Eternals debuted in 1976, two years after Wolverine made his first appearance. I doubt that Kirby was paying any attention to the “new” X-Men at the time. Rather, I see the similarities between the Reject and Wolverine as further evidence of Kirby’s ability to tap into the zeitgeist. His Eternals may not have been a commercial success, but Kirby was still pioneering new developments in the evolution of the superhero genre.

The Reject’s handsome exterior hid his inner savagery, but Thena seemed to sense that perhaps he really had the potential, buried deep inside him, to be a “sweet prince.” She recognizes that his destructive urges are a form ofd self-destruction: “Poor Reject,” she says, “he has the death-wish!” (Kirby p. 204). So she takes the Reject under her protection, attempting to civilize him and even to teach him the meaning of love (Kirby p. 203). So perhaps Kirby was consciously or unconsciously tapping into another myth: Pygmalion and Galatea, with the sexes reversed?

But again, no one has successfully exploited the potential with which Jack Kirby endowed this character.

Karkas: You could regard this gigantic, grotesque Deviant “mutate” as a variation on the Thing in Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Outwardly Karkas appeared to be a ferocious monster, just as his opponent in the gladiatorial arena, the reject, looked like a handsome storybook prince. Yet it is the Reject who can become a monster of savagery, while, when not engaged in combat, Karkas is actually a sensitive intellectual. “Your intellect far exceeds your talents as a monster,” Thena tells Karkas (Kirby p. 202). Karkas even hopes that “I may yet become a philosopher of note!” (Kirby p. 204). Kirby paired these two paradoxical characters, Karkas and the Reject, as a team, mentored by Thena. But among subsequent Eternals writers, only Peter B. Gillis, a former academic, has demonstrated an understanding of Karkas’s personality.

Dr. Samuel Holden: One reason that Gaiman did not use Dr. Holden may be that he claims that even in “Marvel time” thirty years have elapsed between the events of the Kirby series and those of his own. But as I pointed out in column 194, that just doesn’t work: in “Marvel time” less than a decade would separate the events of the two series.

There’s something appealing, charming and even touching about the romantic relationship between Sam Holden, this rather proper academic, and the beautiful, uninhibited Sersi. Jack Kirby could depict their relationship with surprising subtlety: look at how Sersi places her hand affectionately on Holden’s chest on page 279 of the hardcover collection. Peter B. Gillis further developed the Sam and Sersi relationship in the second Eternals series, but other writers didn’t get it and didn’t follow it up.

Ghaur: This is the potentially great villain of the Eternals mythos, yet he was created not by Jack Kirby, but by Peter Gillis and artist Sal Buscema in the second Eternals series. (Ghaur’s name, by the way, is pronounced as “gore,” and I should point out that it was not intended as a reference to Al, who was much less famous in 1985.) As the Deviant priestlord, Ghaur should be even more relevant today, when the toxic mixture of religious fanaticism, violence, and lust for power poses such dangers around the world.

My favorite scene with Ghaur is his first appearance, which takes place in Eternals Vol. 2 #2 (November 1985). It is a meeting between Lord Ghaur and another Deviant, Ranar. On the surface Ghaur speaks quietly and politely, but everything he says has a sinister subtext, a lethal edge like a dagger’s: Ghaur is cutting Ranar to pieces with words that foreshadow his doom.

Stan Lee had a flair for heightened, melodramatic language: back in the 1960s he could make Doctor Doom’s boasts and threats work brilliantly. But in lesser hands, the standard Marvel style for villains’ dialogue degenerated into empty bombast. Gillis’s Ghaur was a new kind of Marvel villain, who spoke in a more sophisticated manner, and whose cunning seemed credible and real.

Many writers used Ghaur after Gillis, but once again, none of them understood what was revolutionary about the character, and they turned him into yet another Marvel villain given to pompous ranting. But in the 1980s first Alan Moore, and then Neil Gaiman brought a more realistic and sophisticated style to comic book dialogue, and a new generation of writers followed in their path. So perhaps today Ghaur could find writers who would understand and recreate the distinctive voice with which Gillis endowed him.

Here is a major problem with the ongoing continuity of the DC and Marvel Universes. Great writers and artists can create brilliant concepts and characters, which are then misunderstood and mistreated by lesser talents who follow on the same series. It is a cause for celebration when another major talent comes along on the series who not only grasps what its creators intended but builds important new work upon it.

This is the case with the Gaiman-Romita Eternals. It’s not perfect, but Gaiman and Romita “get” most of what Jack Kirby intended, and have created a worthy sequel to this underrated Kirby classic, that successfully revitalizes The Eternals for a new century.

And thus I bring my six-part critique of the new Eternals to a close. Please come back next week for a landmark event: the two hundredth edition of “Comics in Context”!

–Copyright 2007 Peter Sanderson

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