By April, 1976, the return of artist/writer Jack Kirby to Marvel Comics could no longer be considered news. His first new cover for the publisher (an Avengers illustration fronting Marvel Treasury Edition #7) had appeared the previous July, and his first new full comic book, Captain America #193, three months after that. Still, we hadn’t seen any brand-new series concepts from Kirby yet — and, given that he had been the House of Ideas’ preeminent idea man for roughly the first decade of “the Marvel Age of Comics” (i.e., 1961-70), longtime Marvelites were eager to see what would next emerge from the protean imagination of “King” Kirby — as, of course, were virtually all the creator’s many fans, regardless of their preference for one comics publisher or another.
Your humble blogger counted himself among those eager fans, fifty years ago… despite the fact that he had largely ignored Kirby’s output at DC Comics for the past couple of years. As I’ve discussed in many previous posts, I was (and am) a huge fan of the creator’s Fourth World project, which fused myth-inspired fantasy and cosmic-scale science fiction into an ongoing epic spread over four different titles — and I’d been very disappointed when DC pulled the plug on that enterprise in the summer of 1972. While I’d gone on to faithfully follow the first of Kirby’s “replacement” series (The Demon, whose partial basis in my beloved Arthurian legend pretty much ensured my buy-in), his other major post-Fourth World initiatives at DC, Kamandi and OMAC, largely left me cold. They were fine for what they were, but neither featured what I most wanted from Jack Kirby — which was, you guessed it, myth-inspired fantasy and cosmic-scale science fiction… ideally, in the same package (as they had been in Marvel’s Thor, which Kirby had produced with writer/editor Stan Lee, as well as in DC’s New Gods et al), though I wasn’t going to quibble.
So I’d been encouraged when, in his July, 1975 “Soapbox” column announcing Kirby’s return to Marvel, Stan Lee had touted — along with Captain America and a forthcoming adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey — “another brand-new series dealing with the Gods that walk among us!” That wasn’t much to go on, but it was just about all we’d be given for the next nine months — with the exception of the illustration shown at right, which appeared on December’s “Bullpen Bulletins” page. “WHO IS HE?”, indeed?
Ultimately, we’d have to wait until April — the month when The Eternals #1 at last reached spinner racks — to learn that this mystery man’s name was Ikaris. But while the character appeared on the comic’s Jack Kirby-Frank Giacoia cover (as shown above), he went unnamed there; nor was he clad in the colorful costume we’d seen in the Bullpen Bulletins illo. Evidently, we were going to have to actually read the comic to get the lowdown on this guy; still, even if we didn’t learn anything about Ikaris from the cover, its copy at least let us know that this was indeed Kirby’s long-awaited new “gods” book; and not only was it about gods, but space gods, at that. That in itself was more than enough to clinch the sale for my eighteen-year-old self, back in the spring of ’76.
Of course, by the mid-1970s, the phrase “space gods” had come to acquire a more specific meaning than it had possessed even just a few years earlier, when Kirby had produced his Fourth World tales of New Genesis and Apokolips. That was due primarily to the pop-culture phenomenon sparked by Erich von Däniken’s book Chariots of the Gods?, which had originally been published in Germany in 1968 and had in the succeeding years become a massive international bestseller. Although the book’s core thesis — that Earth had been visited in millennia past by “ancient astronauts” who’d been received as gods, and who had left behind archaeological evidence of their influence on human civilization — was by no means original to Von Däniken, the success of his book and its various spinoffs and imitations had by 1976 given the theory enormous cultural currency. It’s not at all difficult to 
understand how Kirby — who’d dealt with this very same theme several times already over the course of his career* — would see it as a way to create yet another new mythos of “space gods” that would have appeal in the current marketplace and, at the same time, not be seen as a mere rehash of his previous work on Thor and the Fourth World. And, given that MarvelComics had itself already gone directly to this very well in early 1975, via the first issue of the black-and-white magazine Marvel Preview (whose Neal Adams-painted cover is shown at right), his new-old publisher would have seemed likely to be amenable.
And so it did indeed come to pass — although, as reported by author Ronin Ro in his book Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution (Bloomsbury, 2004), not without a couple of name changes along the way for the series that (according to Ro) Kirby had originally wanted to call The Celestials: — the first of which was specifically inspired by the popularity of Chariots of the Gods?:
Someone at Marvel felt the new series could piggyback off the nonfiction book’s success and changed the title from The Celestials to Return of the Gods (during a period in which DC was moving forward with plans to revive the Fourth World pantheon… as “Return of the New Gods”). In their enthusiasm to cash in, Marvel also created a cover with the new title presented in the same font as the logo on Daniken’s celebrated work. Once someone in the legal department saw the cover, the title, and the same font published in a few comics, however, he told the editors, “Wait a minute, were going to get our rear ends sued off here.” The title changed again, to The Eternals.
Your humble blogger is pretty sure that a cover featuring the title Return of the Gods was never actually “published in a few comics” — though it did appear in the “Marvel previews” section of the 127th issue of the fanzine The Comic Reader, cover-dated February, 1976 (see left), which might well have been enough to prompt the legal concerns Ro describes. Indeed, the very next month’s issue of TCR, while not mentioning the Von Däniken angle, reported: “RETURN OF THE GODS, Jack Kirby’s new book, has been retitled THE ETERNALS to avoid conflicts with DC’s RETURN OF THE NEW GODS, in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL”
All of this information serves to explain why, in the end, we non-fanzine-reading Marvelites didn’t get wind of the final, official name of Jack Kirby’s new series until the first issue was practically upon us.
And now that we’ve covered the basic background to our primary subject, let’s go ahead and crack the cover of this baby…
Kirby’s inker for this first issue of Eternals — as well as the three that would immediately follow — was John Verpoorten, Marvel’s production manager. (Interestingly, despite Verpoorten being an established embellisher at the company, with credits going back to 1966, he doesn’t appear to have inked any of Kirby’s work prior to this, outside of a handful of covers.) (UPDATE, 4/4/26, 1:05 pm: Alas, I missed a couple of earlier instances of Verpoorten inking Kirby; see Spiritof64’s comment below for details,)
The image of the Incan “space god and his craft” seems likely to have drawn inspiration from the carved sarcophagus lid of the 7th century Mayan ruler Kʼinich Janaab Pakal, which Erich von Däniken speculated might be a representation of someone piloting a spaceship…
…although actual archaeologists are more inclined to other explanations, such as the theory that the carving depicts Pakal descending into the underworld upon his death.**
As had become his frequent practice in recent years, Kirby has chosen to open his story with a full-page splash, followed by a double-page spread, followed by a second full-page splash. Depending on your receptivity to the creator’s aesthetic, you may see this as self-indulgent behavior that ultimately means you get less story for your 25 cents than you would have otherwise… or, you may feel that you’ve gotten your full money’s worth (and then some) before you’ve even gotten to the first multi-panel page layout, which is coming up next (on page 5, for those keeping score)…
While Dr. Damian and his daughter Margo continue to scoff at their companion’s cryptic pronouncements, Ike Harris himself becomes frustrated at his own inability to find what he’s looking for in a particular corner of the chamber. When the elder Damian asks just what that might be, Harris replies: “The most important object in this chamber, sir — it can turn myth into stark reality!!”
While the scene above may be taking place in the South Pacific Ocean, rather than in the North Atlantic, Kirby is clearly riffing here on pseudoscientific theories concerning the Bermuda Triangle — which, like the “ancient astronauts” notion, was having a big moment in the mid-1970s, inspiring its own wave of bestsellers, documentaries, and, yes comic books (such as Marvel’s own Skull the Slayer, which had debuted about a year previously).
On first reading this page, Kirby fans might have wondered if they’d somehow wandered into Queen Heggra’s bunker on Apokolips, from back in New Gods #7 (Feb.-Mar., 1972). And, yes, Kirby is treading some familiar ground here — though, as we’ll see presently, the Deviants are highly unlikely to ever style themselves as “gods” — which places them in stark contrast to Darkseid and company.
Lemuria, eh? Hmm, doesn’t Marvel already have an undersea Lemurian kingdom, though, as seen in Sub-Mariner? Is this going to be one of those “Aquaman’s Atlantis vs. Lori Lemaris’ Atlantis” kinds of things?
“…if you run both words together, you get Ikaris!!” Or, alternatively, Icarus — a figure from Greek mythology basically known for just one thing. Assuming that this Ikaris shares the defining characteristic of his namesake, it stands to reason that he must be considerably better at it — seeing as how he, unlike the Greek guy, is still among the living.
Again, longtime Kirby fans may feel a sense of deja vu here, as the “origin story” depicted on these pages bears a great similarity to the one that Kirby and Stan Lee had provided for the Inhumans way back in Thor #147 (Dec., 1967) — though with the important distinction that that earlier “hidden race” had been raised up by scientifically-advanced alien visitors (i.e., the Kree) from Homo sapiens itself, rather than from “the dawn ape”.
One thing that sadly dates Kirby’s original telling of this origin narrative is the (probably unconscious) acceptance of whiteness as humanity’s default setting; other than the “monstrous” Deviants, whose physical dissimilarity from their fellow sapients is part of the point, everyone we see on these pages is colored Caucasian.
Despite his earlier bravado before Brother Tode, Kro secretly worries that the Eternals may indeed have found a way to locate the beacon before the Deviants, musing, “…suppose they trained one of their kind — sharpened his senses tenfold for the task! W-why he could –!”
And now that we see Ikaris’ face in full, we can tell at last that he’s that guy from the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page, even if he’s not (yet) wearing the colorful togs see in that illo. We can also see that he’s another idealized, myth-ready figure in the tradition of Kirby’s Thor (whose blondness he shares) as well as Orion of the New Gods (who sports a similar haircut in his earliest appearances) — at least in the latter’s artificially-generated “New Genesis” guise.
Kro and his Deviants charge forward, only to be met by pistol fire from Dr. Damian; meanwhile, Margo hurries to help Ikaris extricate himself from the enveloping shroud. But then…
And that’s that for Eternals #1 — though, clearly, Jack Kirby still has some ways to go to fully establish his new series’ premise. For that reason, we’re going to go ahead and cover issue #2 in this post as well.
John Verpoorten provides the inks for Kirby’s cover as well as his interior artwork, this time around; turning past it, we find the auteur once again opening with a graphic triple-whammy, with a full splash panel for the opening page…
…followed by another jaw-dropping double-page spread…
…and then topped off by yet another full-page splash — although this one’s a little different from what’s Kirby’s served up prior to this, going for up-close-and personal portraits of the four main characters of our story thus far, rather than grand spectacle.
As the ground shakes and heavy pieces of rock fly through the air, the odd foursome retreats back towards the “god chamber”, which Kro asserts “can withstand any attack!” But even as he joins the others in their flight, Ikaris expresses puzzlement. “Strange,” he says, “that the gods should react with such wrath!!”
You’re all familiar with the Inca god Tecumotzin, right? No? Well, that may be because, as best as I can determine, Jack Kirby made him up out of whole cloth.
Kro joins his warriors in beating feet back to their ship — though, before he goes, he taunts Ikaris, reminding him that the Incas and their hero, Tecumotzin, attempted to deal with the gods and vanished. “Now, you’ve come here to welcome them — and shall be buried for your pains!” “So be it,” replies Ikaris. “There is risk in solving a mystery.”
The suggestion that Ikaris “appears” in the Bible as the dove of the Noah’s ark story (never mind that Ikaris’ account doesn’t quite jibe with the version we find in Genesis 8) may be taken as little more than a mildly humorous throwaway — yet, in suggesting that the Eternals not only helped inspire outdated “pagan” myths, but also played a part in events held by many modern-day religious believers to be historically true, it can also be seen as subtly provocative.
Soon, the forms in the crypt coalesce into what the Damians are able to recognize as humanoid figures. Within a few minutes, those forms become fully defined — and then…
He may be wearing “Inca trappings”, but this new arrival’s name, Ajak, is a pretty clear sign that we are to take him as the inspiration for either (or both) of the Greater or Lesser of the two mythical Greek heroes named Ajax. That, combined with the fact that Ajak and his companions look just as Caucasian as every other Eternal we’ve seen so far, reinforces the unfortunate racist connotations of the whole scenario. Again, I don’t mean to imply any conscious animus towards people of color on Kirby’s part; but it seems pretty much indisputable that at least some proponents of “ancient astronaut” theory have worked from the presumption that indigenous (i.e., non-European) cultures simply weren’t capable of producing their civilizations’ greatest achievements of the remote past without some sort of help; and Kirby’s handling of this material, at least in these earliest issues, does nothing to contradict such a notion.
Turning to his cohorts, Ajak orders them to man their accustomed posts. “Open wide the cosmic door and initiate the procedure of welcome for the Celestials!” he calls; and, as they watch the other Eternals scramble to obey, the two humans begin to grasp what’s happening here…
Once again, longtime Kirby fans (or just longtime Marvel Comics readers in general) might detect an echo here of a scene from the King’s previous work… in this instance, the first appearance of Galactus, as depicted on the final page of Fantastic Four #48 (Mar., 1966). Of course, while that earlier awesome giant alien (and fellow wearer of headgear with a vague resemblance to a bucket with side-handles) was coming to bring the Earth apocalypse now, Arishem of the Fourth Host is planning to take fifty whole years to decide whether to consign us all to doom, or cut us a break. (I just realized that, according to Kirby’s original timeline, our Day of Judgement should be arriving, well, right about now. Hmm, maybe he was on to something.)
To be honest, though, I’m not sure that the Galactus parallel actually occurred to my eighteen-year-old self in May, 1976 — perhaps because there was simply so much else to take in and think about. Whatever the case, I was definitely in for the long haul with Jack Kirby’s latest mythopoeic enterprise, even if it wasn’t going to be spread out over four ongoing titles, and even if some of the conceptual underpinnings — alien visitors experimenting on our ancient ancestors, living mythological figures showing up in the modern world, hidden societies of super-beings — seemed somewhat redundant in the Marvel Universe that Jack Kirby himself had done so much to build up and out in the previous decade. After all, who said that this new series had to take place in the Marvel Universe?
As things turned out, of course, Marvel Comics itself would say so. That, in time, would have serious implications for the direction of the series, as well for the satisfaction of its readership… but that, naturally, is a topic we’ll need to reserve for future posts.
*In previous decades Kirby had worked on several stories about ancient alien visitors to Earth; for the purposes of our present discussion, however, the most interesting is probably “The Great Stone Face!”, a five-pager Kirby produced in collaboration with longtime partner Joe Simon for Harvey Comics’ Black Cat Mystic #59 (Sep., 1957)…
…if for no other reason than its first page’s opening splash panel is a clear antecedent to Kirby’s composition for the cover of Eternals #1.
**Kirby’s design is also likely to remind many observers of the “Space Jockey”, as designed by artist H. R. Giger for the 1979 film Alien:
H.R. Giger’s concept painting for the Space Jockey in Alien.
While it doesn’t seem very probable (to me, anyway) that Kirby and Giger directly influenced each other — in either direction — it’s certainly at least possible that they did. For a deep dive down the rabbit hole of unexpected-but-tantalizing correspondences between these two visionary artists’ works, check out this page at the “Alien Explorations” blog.
Hi, Alan,
Thanks for the chance to revisit this series. Have to confess that when I first read these issues a semi-century ago, I was a little less than whelmed. As much as I dug the wide-screen visuals, I felt that we – and Kirby – had been here before. In THOR, in the Fourth World books (which I had loved loved LOVED as a 12- and 13-year-old), and the ATLAS story that inaugurated the 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL title. I had the nagging feeling this was rather well-trodden ground. Plus, by this time I was exposed to the creative approaches of the Steves (you know who I mean) and Don McGregor and Starlin. In contrast, Jack’s approach seemed dated, almost quaint.
On top of that, even with all the splash pages and the Kirby Krackle and the crazy creature design, I felt that Jack wasn’t well-served by Verpoorten’s inks. I missed the prime Mike Royer work that made the middle period Kirby work at DC so cool.
Re-reading these first issues does improve my appreciation for what Kirby was trying to do, though, and how he was trying not to simply repeat himself. Note the word “trying.” Even giving him the benefit of the doubt, I still think this was far from peak Kirby, and I remember why I didn’t stick around too much longer.
But as always, Alan, it’s great to read your perspective on it!
John Verpoorten is okay as an inker (I think he did a good job over Sal Buscema on Captain America) but I’m glad that Mike Royer took over embellishing Kirby’s pencils on The Eternals with issue #4 and stuck around for the rest of the series.
This original Eternals series run 1-19 plus annual was somehow the only complete series set I ever completed and still have. I think most were distributed in the UK in newsagents apart from annoyingly final issue 19 which I must have got from a specialised shop – plus the Annual .
As a teenager i initially found the Von Daniken (who died earlier this year) theories compelling and read most of the books which were rather repetitive if I recall , but then came across a book by Ronald Story called “The Space gods Revealed” which calmly and forensically debunked the VD books and showed how he misrepresented the evidence and was basically a deliberately deceptive crook. That taught me a life long lesson in scepticism, specially for published books.
As for the series, I enjoyed the spectacle , which Kirby excelled at, the awesome scale of the Celestial figures but never felt moved by the characters – then the awkward overlap with the Marvel universe to come with the “comic powered ” hulk but we’ll get on to that later as you say.
Kirby usually did imaginative riffs on popular culture of the time and this started off from one of them but my memory is that it soon veered off into a standard goodies vs baddies saga with elements of past glories eg Inhumans/Thor etc but I’ll look forward to revisiting the series as you do.
that should be “cosmic powered” not comic powered (no pun intended!)
Great write-up as always Alan, although your column never fails to make me feel old. Blimey, 50 years.
I have mixed feelings about this series. While acknowledging Kirby’s importance to Marvel, his return in 1975 left me fairly cold. Among my favourite reads of the early 70s was Steve and Sal’s Captain America and Kirby’s return to that title was bizarre to say the least. It certainly wasn’t to my taste as an 11-year-old reader and the passage of time hasn’t done anything to change that opinion. His 70s Cap and Panther stories were jarring and corny. Although his art and concepts were still impressive, his scripting was anachronistic. Why did every single sentence have to end with an exclamation mark? I found it unreadable and it made me appreciate Stan’s contribution to their partnership even more. Marvel, and comics in general, had moved on and Jack was wedded to the dialogue of overblown Golden Age bombast.
Having said that, Eternals was the best of 70s work at Marvel and his new creations left a lasting impression on the Marvel Universe. His prodigious imagination was clearly undiminished. And his layouts were still a joy to behold.
So overall, a mixed bag. It was comforting to have him back at Marvel but I would have preferred him to work with a talented wordsmith like Englehart, Thomas, Moench or Gerber. I assume part of the deal for his return involved having complete creative freedom, but that didn’t serve him well. And as I look at my thinned-out collection now, 50 years later, I find no issues or Kirby’s Cap, Black Panther or Eternals have made the grade. They were all sold years ago, safe in the knowledge that I’d never want to read that clunky dialogue ever again.
Interesting you should mention the exclamation marks which actually seemed to the default convention for most 60s Lee mags even without Kirby and often beyond without both. But when you start to notice them they do seem to get exhausting. Kirby’s clunky declarative dialogue often doesn’t help.
I was 13 years old in April, 1976 and thus the perfect age to get drawn into all the paranormal hokum that permeated the culture in the mid-70s – ancient astronauts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Nessie, the Bermuda Triangle. I loved all of it, and still have an enormous amount of affection for it, despite being older and hopefully wiser. I still cherish all my old paperbacks by the likes of Von Däniken and Brad Steiger, have the entire series of In Search Of on DVD, and am thrilled to be able to look up the commercials for the old Schick-Sunn “documentaries” like The Mysterious Monsters and The Outer Space Connection on YouTube – sadly minus the breathless listing of all the local theaters showing them that ended each commercial.
On the other hand, I have no use at all for current shows cut from the same cloth like Ancient Aliens or whatever – I’m sure mostly because I’m not 13 any more, but also because the new stuff lacks the ramshackle charm of the vintage stuff. The was a weird, outsider art vibe to In Search Of and the Schick-Sunn films – they were obviously not products of the major film and tv studios, and felt like merchandise you’d buy out of the trunk of a car in the mall parking lot rather than in the mall itself.
Kirby’s 70s-era Marvel stuff had the same feel to me. Yes, he was being published by the biggest company in an industry whose very DNA was inextricable from the name Jack Kirby, but it was just so weird and out of step with anything else Marvel was doing. It definitely had an outsider art vibe to it, that it was being created by a guy whose head was full of visions even he wasn’t able to completely comprehend, let alone anyone else. Of course, in reality Kirby was the ultimate insider in his industry and seemed to feel right at home at the biggest conventions the industry held – but there was always the feeling that he would’ve felt just as at home if he found himself sitting at a table with Henry Darger and Rev. Howard Finster.
The Eternals was Kirby at his most outsider-ish – sure, it was being published by Marvel, but he wanted it to have nothing to do with Marvel. It was Jack at his most unconstrained, for better and worse. Ideas poured out on top of each other, often (usually?) with little regard for plot or character coherence. Ikaris, the nominal lead character, would disappear for several issues at a time. The Deviants had almost no presence at all in the back half of the series, as if Kirby just forgot they were around. Characters behaved completely inexplicably – for instance, Ajak was the Eternals’ point man in dealing with the Celestials, but he seemed to have no plan for or even interest in telling any of the Eternal higher ups that the Celestials were here and possibly planning to destroy the planet. The whole series just felt strange, like the feverish work of a visionary that had stuff he just had to get out of his head or it might explode.
Kirby was probably correct in his instinct that the series ought to be kept separate from the main Marvel universe, although later writers have made parts of it foundational to the MU. It was pretty cool when Roger Stern revealed that the Golden Age heroes Mercury and Hurricane were really Makkari the Eternal and the monsters on Monster Isle in FF #1 were in fact Deviant mutates, and the Celestials have developed a complex mythology within the MU. The weakest part of the legacy is the Eternals themselves – apart from Sersi, Gilgamesh and Makkari and their dealings with other characters, they’ve almost always been a weird little sideshow for Marvel – redundant substitute gods for gods that were already established as actually existing in universe who throw everything out of whack if too much thought is given to them.
Anyhow, Eternals definitely scratched an itch for my adolescent self and my obsessions at that time. I definitely hear the theme music for In Search Of in my head any time I dig out the comics to re-read them.
Thanks Alan.
I will have to wait until July to read these, but just wanted to say how great it is that you are now, after a lull, featuring much of the King’s work again.
I was not old enough for the New Gods, but when Eternal 12 hit I was 12, and so Jack’s intended audience. For me the Eternal was ‘it’, and the art, even today, on Eternals# 2 is phenomenal, back to Jack at his best. Verpoorten was heavy handed as an inker, but took care here. By the way Verpoorten did do some inking of Jack back in the day…the classic cover of Thor #177, some pages of #179, some FF covers (#94, 99) and ‘The Monster’ in Chamber of Darkness #4.
Gosh, thinking of Eternals #1 & 2 makes me feel like a 12 year old again, and in a good way!
And congratulations Alan on the new banner. Kirby, Adams, Wood, Colan, Starlin are there so still very much in the bronze age, but no Kane, Cardy or Wrightson. Times are moving on. Newbies Staton, Rogers and Austin feature, but surprisingly no Cockrum, Byrne or Perez….hopefully you will find time to feature these late bronze super-stars in your upcoming blogs (and I hoovered up anything by them between this point and the mid 80s).
Thanks for the catch on Verpoorten, Spirit — I’m updating the post accordingly.
just realised I missed Ditko, Simonson and Chaykin on the banner…so all in all, a very eclectic mix!
Eternal #2 was Verpoorten’s best work by far, and although he did ok work with john B, he otherwise did not show Adams or Sal B in their best light.
The eyewear from Ikaris and Ajak reminds me of Henry Pym’s goggles in his Goliath and Yellowjacket identities.
Simon and Kirby’s “Great Stone Face” is clearly not Nathaniel Hawthorne’s.
My sole association with the Eternals comes from *The Evolutionary War* sequence a decade later, in which Kro says that he’s a Deviant, not an Eternal (is this like being a lover and not a fighter?), and a woman says: “But a nice Deviant.”
You weren’t keen on *Omac* and *Kamandi* — do you have any thoughts to share on *The Losers* in *Our Fighting Forces*?
I didn’t buy Kirby’s “Losers” back in the day because it was a war comic, and I didn’t read war comics. I did get around to picking up and reading the trade collection a few years ago, however, and while I can’t say I was blown away by the experience, I enjoyed the stories.
I generally didn’t read war comics back then, either, Alan. But I made an exception for Kirby’s “Losers’ stories.
I’m here because of your post on Facebook, which I stumbled over in my News Feed. So, posting links on Facebook works!
I started reading and immediately collecting Marvel in 1964. When Ditko left a couple of years later, I tried following Spidey and Dr. Strange, but they had lost their magic for me.
Thankfully, Kirby was still the heart and soul of Marvel … at least for a few more years. When he left Marvel, so did I.
I bought all the “Fourth World” titles, but was bummed when DC canceled them. Kamandi, OMAC, etc., also left me cold, so I pretty much stopped reading overground comics in the mid-’70s.
Too bad, as your article makes it look like I would have dug The Eternals.
Keep on keepin’ on!
PS: I will send a link to this article to a few of my old comic-book-collecting friends and maybe stir up their also aging memory banks …
I bought a few early issues, but wasn’t excited. Kirby was past his peak.
I do have to say that I like the cover coloring on the reprint compilation:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81reAYNkZBL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.jpg
Though I’m sure it’s merely a coincidence this Steranko cover from the ’60s predates Kirby’s Eternals image:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5D0AAOSwWV5mfZ6d/s-l1200.webp
It would be fascinating if it did influence Kirby, as he certainly influenced Steranko and so many other artists.
I was to the Eternals the way you were to Kamandi and OMAC, Alan. Unimpressed. Based on first impression, I saw the Eternals has a simple rehash of everything Kirby had done before on the cosmic level; The Fourth World, Atlas, the Inhumans and even Thor, and saw no point in revisiting that old ground again when Kirby had covered it all in previous years and so much better. Don’t remember if I said it to you, Alan, but I remember wondering out loud to several people at the time if Kirby was even capable of an original idea anymore, or if he was doomed to spend the rest of his life regurgitating the past. Yeah, I wasn’t kind and as a result, never even sampled an issue of The Eternals until today–not even when the movie came out (and the less said about that, the better).
All of which is kind of a shame, because while the stories contain every old trick and trope from Kirby’s previous work, as I feared, the artwork was more of a return to form for the King. There was a dynamism to his work on the Eternals that Kirby’s work hadn’t exhibited in years and I have to admit, if Kirby was going to attempt to shore up his legacy with another replay of his Greatest Hits, he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself.
I was never a fan of all the “Chariots of the Gods” stuff. Somewhere along the way it stepped on the toes of my religious sensibilities and I rejected it out of hand as sacreligious, or perhaps, I just recognized a scam when I saw one. I don’t think Kirby was trying to scam us. I think he truly thought he had something new to say with The Eternals. Unfortunately, I never cared enought to find out. Thanks, Alan!
The Eternals. Oh, we tried to like it as HS freshmen. We even went so far as having one of our buddies who wasn’t into comic books buy it because we thought it may be a good introduction. That and we could read it without having to pay for it. But this title didn’t work for that guy. Or for any of us. The second issue never entered our lives.
Jump forward a decade and I’m glued to Peter Gillis’s Eternals maxiseries.
Was I just a dumb kid?
Sure. But there’s more to it than that. Given that many of us have the same recollection of this comic and at the risk of resuming my role as Captain Obvious, it seems that Jack Kirby had incredible ideas that didn’t always translate as well when left to his own devices. As Neil indicated, Kirby’s writing talents were limited. But when others tapped into those concepts, the results were often amazing. I say the same for his Fourth World comics.
Essentially, as it’s been said in other comments, I cannot help but wonder what the outcome of the Eternals and Jack Kirby’s other works would have been he worked more collaboratively with others at that time.
Lastly, while I considered his artwork dated at that time, I am thoroughly impressed with those pages Alan shared. Speaking of our host, it would certainly be remiss of me not to thank Alan for another remarkable review.
I did not read The Eternals by Jack Kirby until last year, when I picked up the collected edition. I thought Kirby did really good work… for the first 13 issues, at least, at which point the series sort of went off the rails. But I’m sure Alan will be exploring that in detail in upcoming installments of this great blog.
I did end up posting about The Eternals on my own blog. Over there I stated that I think it speaks to Kirby’s immense creativity & imagination that even in this period of time when he was deeply dissatisfied with Marvel (having returned there under the proverbial cloud, so to speak), he could not help but create an amazing cast of characters.
Anyway, I really like The Eternals, and I wish that Kirby could have done the series with more of a free hand.
I missed the first few issues of Eternals and only got a few of the later issues. I had seen the film “Chariots of the Gods” when it had come out a few years earlier and while it all struck my 10 or 11 year old self as fascinating, along with the Bermuda Triangle mania, I eventually read enough further evaluation of the evidence to realize that the notions of space gods and strange goings on in the so-called Devil’s Triangle were pure bunk – and racist bunk at that.
Alas, of those issues I did read of the Eternals, there was much typical Kirby spectacle and highly dramatic pronouncements but not a whole lot to make me care about these characters or feel empathy for them and their predicaments. Kirby was certainly capable of doing that and had done so in the pages of the FF and Thor, particular Ben Grimm’s learning to live with his transformation into the Thing and Thor’s often difficult relationship with his oh so powerful father. Ike Harris, aka Ikarus, however, just didn’t come off as very interesting despite his mysterious aspects early on.
Reflecting on my overall tastes in comics of 50 years ago and onwards, I was drawn more towards characters with some sense of angst, which certainly fit Peter Parker and Ben Grimm, but also the likes of Warlock as written and drawn by Starlin, as well as many key characters in Gerber’s stories, including Howard the Duck and Vance Astro in the short-lived Guardians of the Galaxy series. Not to mention Steve Rogers, as written by Steve Englehart. But I get the feeling that by this point in his career, Kirby wasn’t much interested in introspective characters but more in taking far out ideas and expanding upon them in his own way but not effectively exploring the inner fears and anxieties of his characters.
Other thoughts — several aspects of Star Wars seem clearly inspired by Kirby’s 4th World epic and upon seeing Brother Tode I couldn’t help but think Lucas may have taken inspiration from him in coming up with Jabba the Hut. Also, given the 50 years given for the coming Judgment Day by the Celestials, I wonder if Kirby planning on his overall story to take the full five decades to unfold towards that coming decision. In 1976, comic books themselves hadn’t yet been around for 50 years, but Superman and Batman had each starred in multiple titles for over 35 years and it wasn’t inconceivable to think that they and many other very popular characters would stay in print for many more decades to come. As it turned out, the Eternals never achieved that sort of popularity and even the film starring them released in 2021, about 45 years after this comic was published, didn’t do all that well in the box office. I saw it but didn’t find it all that compelling and can’t remember much about it.
Enjoyed your remembrances of the opening chapters of Kirby’s third comics cosmic space gods opera (counting Thor as his first) .
Kirby was gone from Marvel before I started reading comics and honestly, I was never a fan of his art in reprints. I know his work was foundational to Marvel itself and he’s one of the main reasons the modern comics industry exits at all but that is academic when aside from some Colletta and Sinnott inked stories I didn’t enjoy his art. Add in his weird naming conventions and stilted dialog, it’s a miracle I picked up and enjoyed this series. It’s also too bad he didn’t end the first series with a time jump to conclude things It would have cost us some wonderful stories with Sersi in the greater MU but if it meant never reading Roy Thomas’ terrible integration of the rest of the characters into the MU I think it would have been a worthy sacrifice.
For me, Eternals and Kamandi, in different ways, are the only A-list Kirby work post-Fourth World. Everything else (as I know I’ve mentioned before) had me wondering “why is this guy supposed to be a genius?” (keep in mind, my 1960s Marvel exposure was limited). So far rereading Black Panther and Devil Dinosaur hasn’t changed my mind.
According to an article in the Kirby Collection, he absolutely wanted no connection with the rest of the MU (taking on T’Challa and Cap was an exception) — this time there’d be not the slightest doubt that everything he created was his own work. This pissed off some of the younger staff at the Marvel offices and apparently there was some unwanted editing on some of the work (not always with an eye to improving it).
Kamandi used a lot of single-page splashes but they weren’t stunning. Here, they’re amazing. I enjoy the whole concept, including things like Zuras showing up and discussing what’s happening on TV, or college classes listening to Ikaris. The human and superhuman meshed together better than in the Fourth World, for me.
I was into the von Daniken and other paranormal stuff as a tween, even though I could see holes in von Daniken’s arguments. I watched the Chariots of the Gods movie for the first time a few years back (I was working on a book about movie aliens visiting Earth) and while it’s even more obviously bullshit, it’s still intriguing, imaginative bullshit (my wife’s comment when they got to “this ancient image is clearly a space capsule” was “What the fuck are they talking about?”). However yes, definitely racist.
I hadn’t thought of your point about all the Eternals being white, Alan, but you’re right. I did notice reading the TPB a few years back that the focus is entirely on Greek gods and Christianity — by contrast, the Elders of Apsu in Captain Atom were established as being all the gods (chinese, Hindu, Aztec, Celtic …).
A bigger problem is that the Celestials are cosmic genocides and nobody has a problem with it — sure they don’t want Earth dead but the focus is on proving our right to exist and managing problems like the Deviants. I’ve heard arguments that obviously Jack would have questioned that eventually — I don’t see any sign of it.
This gets worse when they enter the MU and they’re still treated as if the issue is “how can we prove we deserve their approval?” (Thor 300 was one of Mark Gruenwald’s worse ideas). I expect “Fifty years and then you decide if Earth dies? We Avengers would have words with thee about this — now!” Plus the absurdity of switching from “this is the truth behind our myths and religion!” to “this is a bunch of guys who by a funny coincidence look a lot like the totally real Olympian gods.”
The movie is worse as it’s a random collection of mythological figures.
Thanks as always, Alan, for a comprehensive and considered look at these two issues.
I was ambivalent about Kirby’s work during this period – I loved the reprints of his Thor and FF stories that I’d been reading in the Marvel UK titles but this was just too different from the Marvel house style for me to be quite comfortable with it, and I had real problems with his writing style. But I kept buying his comics and I read them over and over again, so there was obviously something in them that caught my interest.
Eternals was the best of the bunch, at least for the first year and a bit. Kirby was clearly invested in the concept and it showed in his remarkable visuals. He was hamstrung by the monthly 17-page format though; in an ideal world (or my ideal world anyway) this series would have been published in four-monthly, 64-page Treasury format editions. It would have been a commercial disaster, but it would have looked great!
A word about John Verpoorten’s inks on these stories. Mike Royer is usually cited as Kirby’s best inker of the 1970s and I understand he was Kirby’s preferred inker. His brief, as I understand it, was to trace exactly what Kirby had put on the page in pencil, and that’s what he did, very conscientiously. However this, for me, made the work feel a bit sterile. Somebody (can’t remember who) once wrote that reading a Royer-inked Kirby story was like reading an email typed with caps-lock on; after a while it gives you a headache.
Verpoorten’s inks, as seen in these two issues, give the art a much more textured and organic feel, while remaining very faithful to Kirby’s unique style. It’s like the difference between digital and analogue music recordings – the former are more “perfect“, but the latter are more, well, human. I wish we’d seen more of his inking, not just over Kirby – his finishing of John Buscema’s pencils in Thor #200 is just beautiful.
It would be hard to explain to someone young what a massive impact the Von Daniken had on the popular culture. The 70s had endless aliens, Bigfoot, pyramid power, “In Search of,” ESP, Bermuda Triangle, and on and on, and Von Daniken led the way. Very few books in the modern era have had anything close to that impact.
Chariots of the Gods sold about 65 million copies worldwide in the ’70s, whereas Lahaye-Jenkins’ Left Behind sold 80 million copies in the late ’90s/early 2000s.
“According to his agent, von Däniken wrote 49 books, which sold 75 million copies and were translated into more than 30 languages.” (Wikipedia)
Left Behind is a series of sixteen books with “over 65 million copies sold worldwide by 2016” for the sixteen titles. (Wikipedia)
In their obituary for LaHaye, Publishers Weekly claimed “sixteen books and dozens of ancillary products later [with] sales total over 80 million copies.”
(https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/71026-lahaye-co-author-of-left-behind-series-leaves-a-lasting-impact.html)
But for sheer numbers the Harry Potter series warped both of these with 600 million copies sold worldwide.
DWARFED (not warped)
I came to The Eternals much later, the late 80s or early 90s via back issues. As is the usually the case, this meant a fragmented reading experience, but that first issue was a stand out for the pace and what people now call world building. Yes, the personal politics were rooted in the 1930s, and the old professor being accompanied by his much much younger daughter, was a hoary cliche by the 70s. But an American superhero comic with no superheroes was unusual enough for me to want more.
One criticism of the series over the years is that Kirby would ‘forget’ about characters for months at a time, which was totally against readers’ expectations. But I bought the Omnibus ten or so years ago and the narrative holds together much better when I control the pace of the story and don’t have to wait a month between chapters. It would be overdoing things to claim this as an early graphic novel, but the ambition to tell a broader story was there from the start, and having it all to hand in one place helps with the flow.
As for the writing, put me in the column with those who would rather hear the authentic voice of the author, faults and all, rather than have it ‘corrected’ by someone else. Kirby and Lee work exceptionally well together, but sometimes Stan’s captions makes things a little too sweet for me, too smooth and homogenised. Kirby certainly has a earthier tone and can be chilly and austere, but if that fits in with his intentions then I am all for it.
I agree that it holds up well in the TPB format.
I know lots of talented creators have tackled the Eternals in recent years. Still, it’s such a Kirby concept I can’t summon up any interest in anyone else’s work.
I fully agree. I would much rather read pure Kirby, with all his occasional clunkiness and odd word emphases, than Kirby filtered through another creator’s sensibilities. Kirby scripting is idiosyncratic, raw, and primal, like his artwork, and I find this more appealing than more polished and slick work.
Eternals was killed my the editorial mandate to include the Marvel Universe through the Hulk robot. In its first year, it got an annual, at a time when only the most popular books got annuals, but after the Hulk appeared, it was clear that the series deflated. I always got the sense that Kirby sensed that he’d been let down again, would not be allowed to tell his story, so he was just fulfilling his contract to produce the book.