NEAR-MYTHS: THE ETERNALS (2006-07)

 

Prior to the original run of Jack Kirby's ETERNALS, there were a couple of attempts to revive the franchise. I read one and not the other, but have the impression that neither one particularly grabbed the Marvel audience. If anything, the EARTH-X appearance of the Celestials, the "space gods" of the series, might be the most mythic use of any element from Kirby's concept. Neither the eight Eternals who comprised Kirby's ensemble nor their devilish foes the Deviants really caught on in the Marvel universe, despite Roy Thomas having brought them into contact with Thor and other Marvel-cosmos deities.

Neil Gaiman, no stranger to mythic motifs himself, took his shot at finding a new approach to the wonky premise. Gaiman decides to attempt re-introducing the main characters by having them all subjected to the diaspora of memory loss, so that for many years they've become integrated with humans. Their more numerous foes the Deviants are still out there, and some of them are attempting to knock off the Eternals before they regroup. For once the Celestials, except for a particular one, are offstage during the conflict.

Ikaris, who was most often the focal hero during Kirby's run, is one of the first Eternals to begin reviving the others in his quasi-family. The battles between Eternals and Deviants are punctuated by appearances of a handful of Avengers, who don't have much to do except to spoof the "Civil War" tropes of the time. 

Gaiman has to take a lot of time both introducing the Eternals' current identities and re-establishing the quasi-mythic personas they held in quantity, and the result that the plot drags. Some of the characters are moderately interesting, but the size of the ensemble mitigates against developing any of them. Possibly Gaiman could have done more with the heroes and their opponents had he come back for an encore.

Yet toward the end, Gaiman and artist John Romita Jr do summon some of that old Kirby awe as Eternals and Avengers bear witness to the resurrection of the so-called "Dreaming Celestial," whom Kirby introduced toward the end of the original series. The Celestial's revival ends without a proper resolution, though I imagine some other Marvel raconteur followed up on it.

Since I haven't read all of the ETERNALS reboots that followed Kirby, I'm not sure whether or not Gaiman introduced the most daring wrinkle: that the Celestials actually bred the Deviants as fodder. This might be deemed a reversal of the H.G. Wells trope of the Eloi and the Morlocks from his TIME MACHINE, for instead of the gross humanoids eating their fairer-looking kindred, we have the handsome humans being kept on a pedestal by their creators, while the ugly ones are the Celestials' livestock. But the idea isn't developed, and I will be surprised if anyone else has done so since 2006.