KNOW YOUR ETERNALS IV: THE MARVEL UNIVERSE AND THE ETERNALS

[MattBrady]

by Robert Greenberger

When Jack Kirby created The Eternals in the latter part of the 1970s, he never intended for their cosmic doings to be a part of the greater Marvel Universe. Despite being his own editor and thinking he could work by himself, Marvel’s New York-based editors clamored for the series to be integrated. Grudgingly, Kirby allowed agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. to appear, plus imitation versions of The Hulk and the Thing. After the series ended in 1978, Kirby stopped working with Marvel and the characters were abandoned, finally letting the editors have their way.

Writer/Editor Roy Thomas was the first to integrate the Eternals/Celestials cosmology with the Universe aspect of Marvel. To Thomas, it seemed a natural for a clash to develop between beings from opposite origins: science and magic. Starting in 1979’s Thor #280 through issue #300, the Asgardians confronted the Celestials. The Eternals, spawn of the Celestials’ tampering on Earth, sided against their creators. In the wake of the battle, most of the Eternals formed their Uni-Mind and went exploring the galaxies, leaving only a handful remaining on Earth.

Once that door was opened, bits and pieces of the Marvel timeline began to show Celestial, Eternal and/or Deviant involvement. For example, the Celestials, these 2000-foot-tall beings, have some special bond with Eternity, the manifestation of the universe. They’ve even performed acts at Eternity’s will. Whenever the Living Tribunal gathers the universe’s abstract beings, at least one of the Celestials can be counted on to observe the proceedings.

Acts of the Celestials have also been responsible for other events that have rippled throughout the universe containing Earth-616, along with countless other parallel universes. Devron the Experimenter and Gamiel the Manipulator were charged with monitoring Earth-78411, home to Moonboy and Devil Dinosaur. The two young Celestials fell into a quarrel that got them reassigned to observing other races – the Kree and the Skrull. It has been speculated by cosmic historians that these Celestials may have been indirectly responsible for the events leading to the Kree and Skrull enmity that has lasted millennia. It is also believed that the Celestials had visited the Skrull homeworld and performed their experiments. Unlike the results on Earth, the Deviant version of the Skrulls became the dominant species, obliterating the other two. On Hala, the sole surviving Kree Eternal was the warrior Ultimus.

When the First Host arrived on Earth to begin their experiments, which led to the birth of the Eternal and Deviant races, Set of the Egyptian pantheon of gods found out. He then dispatched his semi-humanoid Serpent Men, hoping to curry favor with the Celestials’ Gatherer robots and have his people included in the experiment. The robots refused and when the Serpent Men appealed to the Host itself, they were destroyed. The experiment proceeded, creating the Eternals and Deviants alongside man.

It was stated that some 26,000 years ago, there was an Eternal civil war that led a faction, led by Uranos, off Earth, relocating on Uranus. They later used Kree technology to build a spacecraft to renew the civil war. En route, the Kree stopped them and expressed their anger at having their material stolen. The survivors of that space battle relocated to Saturn’s moon Titan. Six thousand years later, when the land of Lemuria was sunk by the Second Host Celestials, it allowed for the creation of the Serpent Crown, which has been the focal point of several titanic tales (Avengers: The Serpent Crown).

When the Third Host arrived, just one thousand years ago, they were worshipped as “space gods” by several of Earth’s developing cultures, notably the Incas. This worship irritated the existing pantheon of gods, including Asgard’s Odin, Olympus’ Zeus and Vishnu. The Celestials communicated to the pantheons via the Eternal Ajak, who said that if these gods interfered, the Celestials would cut off the worshippers’ ability to contact the gods. The gods agreed, for a period totaling one thousand years, but once the deal was sealed, Odin began planning for the inevitable conflict to come, thus the war as seen in Thor. When the Third Host departed Earth, the mutant En Sabah Nur took possession of the craft and advanced technology the cosmic beings left behind. Using it, Nur eventually evolved into the threat known today as Apocalypse.

It was also revealed that Zeus finally discovered the Eternals in their home of Olympia around 450 B.C. and rather than wage war with their doppelgangers, he signed a treaty with them. As part of the meeting, Azura the Eternal adopted the name Thena. This more or less cemented the notion that worshiping humans easily confused the Eternals with the various pantheons of gods through the centuries.

Marvel was no stranger to all things cosmic, ever since the Watcher first was introduced in Fantastic Four. Still, things got kicked up a notch in the 1970s, starting with Jim Starlin’s introduction of the Titans, hailing from Saturn’s moon Titan. Along with characters such as the Blood Brothers and Starfox was also the powerful outcast Titan, Thanos. All of this was later appended to the Celestials’ cosmology going back some 750,000 years when Alars, Zuras’ brother, left for Titan. Alars found that exiled Eternals had waged a bloody civil war on this moon that left but one survivor. He married this survivor, Sui-San, and together they rebuilt the world. Alars eventually took the name Mentor and had several children, including Eros, a.k.a. Starfox, and Thanos, a mutant Eternal.

Makkari, the speedy Eternal, was later revealed to be the Golden Age heroes Hurricane and Mercury, tying him to previous Kirby co-creations (Golden Age Marvel Comics Masterworks Vol. 1-2). It was explained that Zuras, the Prime Eternal, dispatched him to help fight in World War II, ensuring that humanity would survive when the Fourth Host arrived to render judgment. During the 1950s, Makkari worked alongside Ulysses Bloodstone to form the Monster Hunters, a team that included Zawadi, Dr. Druid and Namora. The Hunters opposed and defeated Kro the Deviant. In 1958, the Monster Hunters met the super-hero team the First Line, which counted the Eternal Sprite as a member.

In another nod to linking many of Jack Kirby’s works, it was later revealed that the Black Monolith that appeared during pivotal moments in man’s history was a creation of the Celestials. The reality is that it is a tie to Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a movie adapted for Marvel by Kirby. After the license ended, the series evolved into a new entity focused on another Kirby creation, Machine Man. In the final issue of X-51, this revelation was revealed, noting the Monolith was a recording device used when judging a world.

Other adjustments to the continuity determined that many of the beloved monsters from the Atlas Comics days -- such as Gorgilla, Grottu, the Molten Man-Thing, Gigantus and the Lizard Men, Giganto, and Tricephalous -- were Deviant mutates now living on the Mole Man’s Monster Island. Deviant genetic stock, such as the character Blackwulf, had been found both on the Earth and throughout the galaxy.

When the Fourth Host arrived and the thousand-year period was over, Odin was ready. Much as the Eternals form a Uni-Mind, Odin summoned the spirits of the Asgardians and housed them in the construct known as the Destroyer. Now the size of a Celestial, the Asgardian machine was ready for battle, wielding the fabled Odinsword. The Host prevailed and it took the combined efforts of the other pantheons to restore the slain Asgardians to life. One victim in the conflict, though, was the Prime Eternal, Zuras. The conflict was finally ended when Gaea, the spirit of the Earth herself, offered twelve men and women, representing the very best of humanity, to Arishem the Judge. He accepted the gift and gave humanity a lifesaving thumbs-up. The Host departed, taking the “Young Gods” with them.

Other Hosts have been found across the Marvel Universe, such as the time Thor encountered a Fourth Host judging the world Pangoria. The Thunder God misunderstood Exitar the Executioner’s intentions and they fought until it was made clear that Exitar intended to purge the world of its distasteful elements, allowing it to flourish as a paradise.

On another world, the experimentation went awry and the humans underwent mutation dividing them into the Chosen and the Rejects. That Host of Celestials summoned the ship that was left on Earth during the Second Host, the one used by Apocalypse. By then, Apocalypse was done plundering its technology and it had become the home to the mutant team, X-Factor. The team traveled across space and became enmeshed in the conflict. When Arishem was ready to render judgment, despite the unified force of Chosen and Reject, Jean Grey summoned the Phoenix Force and destroyed his hand, making judgment impossible.

A Celestial experiment in the Black Galaxy, named so for its lack of life, thanks to the living planet Ego, caught the attention of Earth’s High Evolutionary. This advanced human traveled through the stars to witness something heretofore unseen: the birth of a new Celestial. The High Evolutionary felt a mortal and an immortal would be essential to the Celestials’ efforts and brought with him Hercules and Eric Masterson, then the human host to Thor. When the Celestials did need participants, they chose Hercules and Masterson – and not the more advanced human. The new Celestial was born but then was consumed, along with Ego, by the bio-verse that gave Ego life. While Ego has subsequently been seen, the new Celestial has yet to be found.

On an even larger scale were the billions of years of enmity between cosmic observers. The One is the Watcher to whom all other Watchers bring their observations. The One had been designed to survive the eventual end of this universe and bring its information to the new universe to follow. Over countless time, the Celestials determined that the universe’s inevitable end was being sped up by the One, allowing him to fulfill his destiny. The Watchers, sworn to non-interference, and their opposites, the meddlesome Celestials, found themselves finally in a war. Arishem had concluded the Watchers could not be allowed to exist, so Exitar slew The One. Moments later, the Invisible Woman reached into hyperspace and channeled its nigh-infinite energies to kill Exitar, re-balancing the universe. So the balance will remain for countless millennia to come until new incarnations of The One and Exitar are recreated.

The world of super hero and the world of the Eternals finally meshed in a three-part story in The Avengers #246-248, where one of Sersi’s parties was crashed by Starfox and the Wasp. The action quickly shifted from Manhattan to Olympia and by the end of the story readers learned that Starfox was a Titan-based Eternal, a son of Alars, no less. The connection between Alars and Zuras was also revealed here. Many of the Polar-based Eternals left Earth, while their Deviant counterparts remained lurking in the shadows, after these events that set up a 12-part maxiseries written first by Peter B. Gillis and completed by Simonson.

Meantime, the voluptuous and fun-loving Sersi was added to the Avengers’ ranks for a period and later, under writer Walt Simonson, the enigmatic Forgotten One also joined Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Kirby intimated that his Forgotten One was known by man as Gilgamesh and even Hercules, but in the new interpretation, the Hercules connection was glossed over since Hercules was already a separate – and popular – character.

In an unprecedented move, Arishem and the Celestials returned to re-judge Earth after Franklin Richards’ mutant powers created an alternate Earth. Franklin did this to find safe haven for several of Earth’s greatest heroes after a devastating conflict with Onslaught. Ashema the Listener who best understand Franklin’s actions, and in her human guise, felt sympathy for his plight. With her help, the alternate world was spared destruction and was placed on the opposite side of the sun, now called Counter-Earth. Ashema stayed on this newly christened planet and actually found herself teamed with Victor Von Doom to stop a newly awakened Dreaming Celestial from wreaking havoc.

The remaining Earth-bound Eternals have struggled to find their peaceful place in a world filled with humans, mutants, Deviants and the stray Inhuman, among others. More recently, En Sabah Nur, best known as Apocalypse, used the Deviants as pawns, hoping for a war with humanity. Then, Zuras, back from the dead, returned to Earth and expressed his displeasure with Ikaris’s efforts as Prime Eternal. Ikaris, having seen other advanced humans feared or hunted, attempted to stop the Deviants without introducing the Eternals into the public consciousness. He took the name Sovereign and introduced his brethren as a super-hero team, the New Breed. With only halfhearted support from his “teammates,” the New Breed managed to thwart the Deviants and then disbanded.

Since then, the Eternals’ exploits have been largely unchronicled. That all changes as Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr. reinterpret these archetypal characters in 2006’s most-eagerly anticipated miniseries.

Kirby’s original work will be collected in a handsome hardcover available in finer shops everywhere in June. This article was originally written by Greenberger for Marvel.com

Related Articles:

The Eternals

Celestials & Deviants

Kirby & the Eternals I

[delawarejoel]

The interesting thing to me in all these articles is the realization that while Kirby did not intend the Eternals to be MU continuity, their integration into the storyline is, if convoluted, not too much of a shoehorn. The cosmic concepts like the Watchers and Galactus that Lee / Kirby introduced in the Fantastic Four laid the groundwork for stories to follow from people like Jim Starlin, Roy Thomas and others - those original concepts made it easier for the Eternals to "fit". After seeing the JRJR artwork yesterday, I think they're really making an attempt to bring it all together with a Kirbyesque sensibility and I am very excited to see what happens next with what is still my favorite comic series ever. There's some great characters there and it would be a shame if they were left to molder in the Marvel backwater......

[Not From Around]

Tricephalous--now there's an evocative name!

Once the Eternals and Celestials had been dragged into Marvel continuity, it didn't take long for Marvel's editors and writers to start using them to explain all sorts of things. A lot of this stuff was already in place by the time of the Marvel handbooks of the early- to mid-1980s.

Don't forget The Forgotten One, later revealed to have been the ancient hero Gilgamesh. He belonged to the Avengers for a while in the late 1980s.

[OM]

...Ah, finally the Thor run gets some serious mention. However, IIRC, the actual arc was from 283 to 301, with the last issue more of a "wrap-up" where Thor got to visit some of the other pantheons that were forced to bow to the Celestials durning the Third Host.

...One other side note: The two Cosmic Entities who were behind that DC vs Marvel series a few years back, while never stated specifically, were reportedly intended to have been related in some way to the Celestials. Makes sense to me :-P

Originally Posted by delawarejoel

The interesting thing to me in all these articles is the realization that while Kirby did not intend the Eternals to be MU continuity, their integration into the storyline is, if convoluted, not too much of a shoehorn.

...From what I recall Kirby saying after Roy Thomas first brought the Eternals officially into the MU, the problem was not with the Celestials, but with the Eternals themselves. The whole Olympian Eternals vs Graeco/Roman Gods of Olympus conundrum was why he felt they couldn't/shouldn't be brought into the MU Proper. Ergo, the MU already had one set of Gods, and the Eternals would have confused the issue totally. In the end, they sort of chalked it up in later years to one of those "Oh, it's a coincedence" explanations. I can see that with two individual heroes coming up with the same name, but two entire races was a bit too big a pill for most to swallow.

Now, if the King had chosen to use the Norse gods as the templates...

[Not From Around]

Originally Posted by delawarejoel

The interesting thing to me in all these articles is the realization that while Kirby did not intend the Eternals to be MU continuity, their integration into the storyline is, if convoluted, not too much of a shoehorn. The cosmic concepts like the Watchers and Galactus that Lee / Kirby introduced in the Fantastic Four laid the groundwork for stories to follow from people like Jim Starlin, Roy Thomas and others - those original concepts made it easier for the Eternals to "fit".

True.

I had never thought before about how the continually-interfering Celestials were a kind of opposite of the Watchers.

[pmpknface]

This stuff makes my head hurt - BUT I LOVE IT!

[von Doom, M.D.]

Probably not intended to be funny, but I laughed at the "life-saving thumbs up" part. I have FF #400, it's one of my personal oldest comics in my collection, and it's nice to see the storyline from that being mentioned here.

[xdemon]

Originally Posted by delawarejoel

The interesting thing to me in all these articles is the realization that while Kirby did not intend the Eternals to be MU continuity, their integration into the storyline is, if convoluted, not too much of a shoehorn.

His Fourth World/New Gods at DC seemed to be the same kind of thing.

[Bevbos]

Originally Posted by pmpknface

This stuff makes my head hurt - BUT I LOVE IT!

Agreed!

Past a certain point, I just can't wrap my head around this history. Hopefully the new series will give me characters to really identify events with. Still, I hope these characters do remain a tad "aloof"

[MatthewSmith]

Okay, the first two Eternals articles were hard for me to get through, but these last two have got me excited.

Bring it on!

[Mister]

deleted by me for this place negative tool campaign against Superman Returns

[delawarejoel]

Originally Posted by xdemon

His Fourth World/New Gods at DC seemed to be the same kind of thing.

True - but at the same time, the New Genesis / Apokoliptians were "off planet" - easier to fit in because more likely that none of the existing heroes would have seen them previously when Darkseid showed up looking for anti-life. DC seems to have readily embraced the Fourth Worlders and made them (especially Darkseid) integral to the DCU, whereas the Eternals have always remained on an uncomfortable periphery.

I always thought it would have been cool if the Marvel editors had decided to let the 4th host play out their 50-year judgement in full, as opposed to truncating it - as a way to give an overarching storyline to the entire MU -- heck, we'd still have 21 years to go!

But then, I'm a total Eternals geek.....

[Jeremy Williams]

Originally Posted by OM

...Ah, finally the Thor run gets some serious mention. However, IIRC, the actual arc was from 283 to 301, with the last issue more of a "wrap-up" where Thor got to visit some of the other pantheons that were forced to bow to the Celestials durning the Third Host.

...One other side note: The two Cosmic Entities who were behind that DC vs Marvel series a few years back, while never stated specifically, were reportedly intended to have been related in some way to the Celestials. Makes sense to me :-P

...From what I recall Kirby saying after Roy Thomas first brought the Eternals officially into the MU, the problem was not with the Celestials, but with the Eternals themselves. The whole Olympian Eternals vs Graeco/Roman Gods of Olympus conundrum was why he felt they couldn't/shouldn't be brought into the MU Proper. Ergo, the MU already had one set of Gods, and the Eternals would have confused the issue totally. In the end, they sort of chalked it up in later years to one of those "Oh, it's a coincedence" explanations. I can see that with two individual heroes coming up with the same name, but two entire races was a bit too big a pill for most to swallow.

Now, if the King had chosen to use the Norse gods as the templates...

Considering that Kirby created the New Gods and their creation came after the Norse Gods had their Ragnarok, with the return of the Thor and Gaiman doing the The Eternals, Marvel could have taken the opportunity to fuse the two, created a concept that made the two fit together in a organic way. They could have touched upon the Greek Pantheon too.

[Not From Around]

Originally Posted by delawarejoel

True - but at the same time, the New Genesis / Apokoliptians were "off planet" - easier to fit in because more likely that none of the existing heroes would have seen them previously when Darkseid showed up looking for anti-life. DC seems to have readily embraced the Fourth Worlders and made them (especially Darkseid) integral to the DCU, whereas the Eternals have always remained on an uncomfortable periphery.

Jack Kirby also wrote them into the DCU from the start. The "Fourth World" characters' earliest appearances included Superman.

[OM]

Originally Posted by Not From Around

Jack Kirby also wrote them into the DCU from the start. The "Fourth World" characters' earliest appearances included Superman.

...Which wasn't the original plan, either. Kirby wanted the whole thing as a "stand-alone" epic, with a beginning, middle and end, and a graphic novel to wrap the whole thing up. He had AbZero intention of incorporating any of what would become known as the "Fourth World" trilogy into the DCU(*). However, when Kirby came around late '67 - early '68(**), he reportedly was offered the Superman books instead, which were seeing a sales slump following the fall-from-grace that quite a few DC books saw with the fall-from-grace that Batmania encountered. Kirby at first refused, but as the negotiations progressed one of the compromises was that he'd a) incorporate the "New Gods" saga into the DCU, b) confine it primarily into the Super-titles where it would more easily fit due to the lead character's practically being the same as a New God hiimself, and c) Kirby would take over the lowest-selling Super-book and use it as a springboard for the concepts.

...In the case of c), that turned out to be Jimmy Olsen - Lois Lane was actually selling about 3000 issues a month more than the Cub Reporter, probably due to those few female readers wanting something slightly different than the Archie books or Millie the Model. What happened is that JO went from being in the bottom five of DC's sales for the month with issue #132, to in the middle of the top five when Kirby took over the next month with #133. This in turn caused a change in plans on how the three "core" titles of the "New Gods" saga were to be introduced. Originally, New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle were to be given one-shot previews in Showcase, and originally scheduled to follow Mike Sekowsky's wreched Manhunter 2070 three-shot. However, because the initial response to Kirby's JO was so strong the issues were instead skedded for instant series instead of the tryouts(****). Which is why when you look at the last page of New Gods you see whatever Darkseid has his hand resting on as a blank white jagged shape, something Kirby almost never did unless the area was to be used for a "next issue" blurb. The original art supposedly had such a blurb for the next issue of Showcase, and it was subsequently yanked when the story became the first issue of New Gods, leaving the big hole everyone saw and thought was odd.

Gah. I'm digressing. We're supposed to be talking about Eternals...:-P


(*) Considering that DC was known in the industry as National Periodical Publications and not as "DC", save for the fans who bought the damn things, I wonder if that pre-Crisis era could be called the "NPPU" :-/

(**) Accounts differ on when he first started putting out feelers at DC about a possible departure from Marvel. IIRC, not even Mark Evanier is clear on when Jack first made his pitch.

(***) Sales and demand were significantly higher on #134 based on word-of-mouth over #133, something almost identical to what happened when Walt Simonson took over Thor with #337; #338 was an instant sell-out and almost impossible to find two days after it hit the stands. I personally remember hitting everry convenience and drug store in Central Texas for two weeks trying to find a copy, only to find out from the guy doing the newsstand deliveries that there were actually kids *waiting* outside for him to show up so they could get that issue before anyone else. And this was a decade before speculation, kids!

(****) This by some accounts upset Kirby's original schedule on how the three core series were to be introduced. The stronger of the three tryouts would go first, and the weaker one would either be retooled or scrapped. Most critics of Kirby's work during this period tend to agree that odds were high that Forever People probably wouldn't have made a regular series had it been given the tryout first, because back in those days almost *nobody* caught on that this was Kirby's reimaging of the classic "Kid Gang" concept that he and Joe Simon practically owned *and* operated during the 40's. Thanks to the style Kirby chose for these characters, they saw a really weird synthesis of bikers and hippies - two counterculture elements that were starting to fall out of favor in the fallout of the Summer of Love, the Vietnam War protests, and a little event called Altamont where it became obvious that biker scum were *not* good role models.