When Jack Kirby's original Eternals series ended in the '70s, the comic's characters and mind-bending concepts were folded into the larger Marvel Universe. Suddenly, cosmic beings who were mistaken for gods were side by side with actual deities of old. That meant that Eternals occupied an odd role in the larger cosmic order of the Marvel Universe, but they and their enigmatic, colossal masters, the Celestials, became an important part of the larger cosmic Marvel mythos. They'll also become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe next year with the debut of director Chloe Zhao's upcoming Eternals feature film.
Before that film's scheduled 2021 debut, the Eternals will be reintroduced into the Marvel Universe this November in a brand new series, Eternals, by writer Kieron Gillen, artist Esad Ribić, and colorist Matt Wilson. CBR spoke with Gillen about the series, the new corner of the Marvel Universe it carves out for the Eternals, and its massive scope and scale.
CBR: You've been away from Marvel superhero comics for a while now. What was it about the Eternals that lured you back?
Kieron Gillen: Mainly, I've never taken a set of Marvel characters who've been away for a while and revived them. The big vision thing. The movie is also a factor. I've never written something that was happening the same time as the movie. That puts an interesting level of eyes on it. To be able to present a book to people who are excited about the movie and want to know more about those characters is a great way to show what comics can do. I’m always interested in trying to reach new audiences. I was also hired to think big on this job, and being able to do what I do as an indie creator at Marvel was part of the appeal. Plus, these characters are an interesting bunch of glorious, fascinating weirdos!
I wrote one of my enormous “bibles” that outlined what's good about the Eternals, what's not working with them, and how I'm going to fix it. They showed it to Esad Ribić, and I understand he was like, “I'm in!” That was an enormous thing. Esad is one of my favorite artists. To be able to do all the above and then have Esad be on board was a thrill.
There have been a number of books starring the Eternals over the years, but none of them have lasted super long. Looking back at them with the hindsight of the present-day why do you think they didn't last?
I don't think you can give a “one size fits all” style answer for the simple reason that every single book happens at a different kind of time. To speak broadly, the problem I sense with the Eternals though was kind of two-fold. One is that they don't really have their own niche in the Marvel Universe. They were created as their own thing and then integrated into the Marvel U. So, why should we be interested in someone who was once mistaken for Thor when we have actual Thor over here? They're in a universe where they're often described as gods, but that job is already “taken.” [Laughs] So, part of my thinking was how could I give them their own niche?
The second thing is there's a mixture of power fantasy and tragedy that lies at the heart of most great Marvel superhero comics. The Eternals though had existed outside the Marvel U and were solely created by Jack Kirby. So, there's not really a downside to being an Eternal. I was interested in developing that aspect.
Those are the two big reasons why I think they've been an odd fit in the Marvel Universe, and part of the reason they haven't stuck around as much as we've liked. At the same time, the Eternals fingerprints are everywhere. They've been really good secondary actors, and the Celestials are such an important part of the Marvel cosmology.
So, the Eternals have been secondary actors looking for a good place to be, and that's what the book does. By the end of the first issue, people will roughly understand exactly what they are and what they do. Then by the end of the first arc, you'll get why they're Marvel Universe characters.
The last time we saw the Eternals was in the opening of Jason Aaron's Avengers run where they all “died” and realized their purpose for existence wasn't what they thought it was. So, how much freedom did you have to redefine these characters?
I had enormous freedom, but my entire concept is about how the Eternals do not change. Eternal doesn't mean living forever. It means unchanging. That's right there in the title. At the same time, I want to lean into the original Kirby concept even more. I want to focus in on those really interesting ideas.
One of Kirby's original ideas was, “The Celestials arrive. They made 100 Eternals and a hundred Deviants and then left.” That's the core creation myth, and I forget who originally wrote this line, but the Deviants are a species of one. They're all individuals. They're rapidly changing. They bred enormously, and there're millions of them.
So, one of my ideas for the Eternals is they've never bred. There's only ever been a hundred of them. In Marvel history, it’s been described as generations of Eternals. So, they get rebooted often, but they've always been. They've just been in stasis. There’s familial relationships, but they’re static family relationships. Thena is Zuras’ daughter, but there was never a procreative act which led to her. Each reset allows them to change bodies or looks, but fundamentally there's only ever been a hundred Eternals and that's why they're the opposite of the Deviants. The Eternals are set, and the Deviants change.
That's part of the tragic element to them. Even after they realize they have no purpose anymore they can't change. They're programmed to be the way they are. They have these set rules that we'll articulate on the first page. It’s a little Robocop prime-directive-y.
I've also looked as much as I can at the Eternals various Marvel appearances and tried to work out ways to make it all canon. I've said there's a hundred Eternals. I listed everyone I could find, which was about 50-60. Then I made the others, bringing it up to the 100. Basically all the stories we know happened. We just look at them slightly differently and try to put them in a single canvas.
Part of their history is that the Earth Eternals founded Titan. So how does that work? I have a myth cycle of the past events that changed the Eternals as a society, the reason why the Titan society founded, how it linked to a previous heresy, what it meant and so on. Actually, I’m going to stop, as this is deceptive about the book. I'm able to get lost talking about the Eternals is the scale of the thing. I know all these things, sure, but the story is focused on this very specific moment in time. It’s the full Tolkien. Yeah, I know what Morgoth was doing in the first age, but this is a story about Sauron, thousands of years later.
So, looking at both Kirby's original concepts and their later Marvel appearances helped you find the Eternals' niche in the Marvel Universe?
Yes, the Eternals are beings created by actual space gods, put on Earth to protect people, and are unchanging. So, what they are isn't gods. They're literally angels. Especially since they're literally set against the Deviants, which are “demons.” So, that's my niche for the Eternals. They're the guardian angels of the planet, and they've been here for a very long time.
Do you have plans for the Deviants as well?
Yes, the Celestials made both the Deviants and the Eternals and dumped them here. We've learned that the Eternals had no real purpose, but the other question is, “What on Earth was the purpose of the Deviants?”
I have picked up on a theory that Neil Gaiman developed for the Deviants. They believe they're a tasty snack. They're kind of like Space God caviar. [Laughs.] If you look at how badly the Deviants have been treated, it would make sense at least some of them would believe that. I see them as a group that may look weird, but they're not all ravening monsters who want to take over the world. Some of them do, but the average Deviant is a bit like a Fraggle. They're small, they're all weird, but they do their own thing. Lemuria is just pandemonium, like a mix between Fraggle Rock and Hell.
Occasionally, a Deviant changes and becomes a monster. The way the Eternals describe that is, ”excess deviation.” Those Deviants start killing people and occasionally try to take over the world. So, some are straight monsters. A better way of describing the others might be, “philosophical deviation.” That's a character like, Kro, who specifically wants to be a conqueror.
I put a line in the first issue, “That seems like a weird bug to have in a species.” And I imagine a Deviant would say, “Well, serial killers are kind of weird for you guys.” So the question is if we don't judge humanity for the actions of serial killers; why do we judge the Deviants for the acts of their most monstrous members?
So, the Eternals have to deal with this species that is mostly fine but occasionally gets gremlin-like outbursts. If you want to talk about the core mythology and what they've been doing for a million years it's mostly that. That's kind of their day job. A species of Buffy the Vampire Slayers hunting the Vampires that pop up.
Earlier, you mentioned you've given the Eternals a specific set of rules.
Yeah, I've given them three Asimov style principles. One is protect Celestials. The second is protect the machine. And the third one is correct excess deviation. The machine of the second law is Earth, but that's open to interpretations. Some Eternals might take that as, “let's protect the humans.” Others might take that as “Let's rule the earth.” Because the best way to protect the machine is to kill everything else on Earth and then we can rule it. [Laughs]
So, that's one of the ways you get the politics involved with the Eternals. These people believe and want stuff and this is how they think things should be done. A character like Druig, who is a very sneaky Eternal, has a distinct point of view and can argue it. So we might be able to sympathize with him to a degree.
I've looked at the history of the Eternals and the early ones who did really awful things were locked in an Eternal prison. They've been considered too dangerous. Uranos is almost a Satan figure in Eternal history. He's someone who wanted to wipe out everyone on Earth.
So, this is a book where you can deep mine both the present and the past for stories?
Yes! The mythological connections of the Eternals is an area that has been covered so well by Thor and other similar books. I'm more interested in human history. They've been in the Marvel Universe for a million years, but they've also been on Earth for that long. So, there will be flashbacks to various periods in human history and pre-history. Those will be based upon what was happening in the world.
Anyone who's read my indie stuff knows there's often a historical filter to it, and it's definitely in this. I imagine someone like Sersi being, “Yes, I knew Cleopatra, but you really had to get to know her first handmaiden. She was the person to know.” Sersi is a much more serious character, but I see her as a name-dropper on the same level as Tahani from The Good Place [Laughs].
Who are some of the established characters you'll initially focus on?
One thing to be aware of is the Eternals aren't really a team. They're a society. So, I'm not in a rush to introduce every Eternal in the movie.
Ikaris is one of our key characters early on. He's probably the most recognizable Eternal of the cast, and he's this fascinating straight-talking person of action. Sprite is another key early character, who was last seen being murdered by Zuras because he tried to break the machine. We reveal of course that all Eternals come back, and he's been languishing in the Eternal prison, the Isolation, ever since. When the book begins, they've finally decided to let Sprite out. We follow them in issue #1.
Another important character is Sersi who is smart, rich, and has been an Avenger. So, she knows a lot of humans. There's a certain ennui to her that I like.
We also have Kingo who is interesting because he's me trying to square an Eternal being who's becoming obsessed with one culture. In the comics, he's obsessed with Japan in a certain period, which is really weird in lots of ways. He also became a movie actor! I can't think that anybody who was a serious samurai would ever become a movie actor. So, he's a playful character, but he's also hyper-competent.
We'll also see Thena who is presently living with the Deviants, and Gilgamesh, the Forgotten One, who is the person who punishes Eternals. When they get out of line, he's the one who sorts them out. He's got other Forgotten with him, and they're basically vigilantes. They'll make an appearance in issue #5. I've mentioned Druig who is like a snake. And Zuras is basically the prime Eternal and the major mover of everything.
Since a lot of characters have died and come back a lot have chosen to change their bodies. So, there's a lot of gender and body switching. That's just something Eternals do. They've been around for a very, very long time. So, it's not like how it is for us.
We have all these characters in a story that's basically a murder mystery meets an end of the world plot. If they can't solve this mystery, the world will end.
Who are some of the new Eternals we'll meet early on?
It's more important to me to make sure you care about the ones we care about. I focus on those characters. So, I don't spend too much time on the new Eternals, even though we put all the Eternals in the first issue. You'll know their names.
So our initial focus will be on readers falling in love with the established characters, but hopefully, there's a feeling of like, “Oh! Who is this new character? They sound interesting.”
Eternals is a book with a huge toy chest of characters and concepts and you're limited in page space. So, how do you make this book feel connected to the rest of the Marvel Universe? Is that something you want to do a lot of?
For the first 12 issues, we're telling our own story. Iron Man does turn up in issue #1. So there is an impact, but I wanted to make a really good pitch to why the Eternals matter. The best way to do that is to make a nice, clean, artistic statement of who the Eternals are and why you should care about them.
So, could this be viewed as an indie book set in the Marvel Universe?
I wouldn't go that far because I am doing the soft nods to Marvel continuity that rewards readers of other books and doesn't distract those who don't, but that's how I've always written Marvel books. That's part of the reason why I've set it on Earth instead of going into the cosmic stuff. New York is such a Marvel Universe character. It's like if we don't see the Eternals in New York, will we really know they're actually in the Marvel Universe?
Finally, it sounds like Eternals is a chance for Esad Ribić to do the same type of work he did on Thor, but turned up to 11.
I get what you mean by referencing Thor, but taking it to 11 would imply that it wasn't already there. What I think we do is we find a different gear. We push things in slightly different ways and therefore it feels different from Thor. To me, Esad is the premier fantasy comic artist our time, especially when he's working with Matt Wilson. How he and Matt interact with the colors is really interesting. Esad does scale like no one else. When he does New York it bustles. When he goes back to these historical periods they feel real.
If you remember the Marvel Universe character Kronos; before he became a space god dude he was an Eternal. Before he became space god dude he basically turned one of the Eternal's cities, Titanos, into Chernobyl, but with time waste. So, imagine a Tardis cracking open. Esad draws that city! It's horrific, magnificent, weird and humbling.
The joy of Eternals for me is it's just so much, but it's also such a clean, accessible book in terms of, “These are people who we're going to hang around with, they're fun to be with, and oh my god! They're in trouble.” It does everything I love a Marvel book doing in terms of action, romance, and philosophy of ideas, but it's also absolutely me coming back to Marvel with the kinds of skills I've honed over in indie books like Die, The Wicked & the Divine and Once and Future; that way of thinking about how to make a universe really pop.
0 Links