50 years ago, Marvel's The Eternals made their debut

After co-creating many of Marvel's most popular characters (Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, the X-Men, the list goes on), a creatively frustrated Jack Kirby left the company in 1970 for its chief rival, DC Comics. There, Kirby began work on his passion project, The Fourth World, a tale of gods that have walked largely unnoticed alongside humanity throughout the ages. When that project fizzled out at DC, he returned to Marvel in 1976. Shortly thereafter, The Eternals were born. Issue #1 hit stands 50 years ago in April 1976.

The Eternals would carry many of the same themes as The Fourth World’s New Gods. Both titles have enormous, history-altering scope, and both follow pantheons whose ancient rivalries threaten the modern world. Both are grounded in a mix of mythology and science fiction, and both feature characters with clear symbolic counterparts (in The Eternals, Sersi is a stand-in for the Greek Circe, The New Gods’ Orion bears strong similarity to the Greek Ares, etc.)

Still, there are plenty of differences between the two books. The Eternals centered on an omnipotent race of superheroes engineered by god-like alien beings called Celestials, world tinkerers who went on to be major players at Marvel. Unfortunately, The Eternals were fated to a similarly premature end, with the original series concluding with its nineteenth issue. There would be a number of attempted reboots over the years, but none have had much staying power. (This is perhaps reflected in the response to Marvel's The Eternals movie, which remains one of the franchise's worst-rated movies.)

The Eternals may remain not-ready-for-primetime in the eyes of the world, but there's a lot to love about them that dates back to Kirby's first issue. The team and its history are oddly integral to Marvel Comics and the MCU, making it a vital piece of a much larger puzzle.

Image: Jack Kirby/Marvel

Image: Jack Kirby/Marvel

Kirby's Eternals were inspired by Erich von Daniken's oddly influential book Chariots of the Gods?, which eventually served as the basis for the History Channel's Ancient Aliens (Daniken's claims have been largely dismissed as pseudoscience). Chariots of the Gods? proposes that ancient human civilizations were not advanced enough to have created the great wonders of the world — like the pyramids and Stone Henge — and that such feats were due to celestial intervention.

The basis behind The Eternals might not hold up to scientific review, but it works pretty well for a comic book. Eternals #1 introduces us to documentary cameraman Ike Harris, whose monologues read not unlike passages from Daniken's book. Teamed with the archaeologist Daniel Damian and his daughter Margot, Ike describes the creation of humanity in the Marvel Universe. When the mysterious cosmic entities, The Celestials, arrived on Earth, they experimented on a primate and that somehow led to the creation of three "divergent histories": humanity, the Deviants, and the god-like Eternals.

That's kind of a lot to unpack, but, as with most Kirby comics, the fun is in the reading. The first issue consists almost entirely of exposition, but Kirby's trademark bizarre concepts, stunning artwork, and bombastic dialogue mean it never gets boring. Trademark "Kirby Krackle" overtakes the page at various points, and The Fourth World's promises of exciting new realms of consciousness are repeated here. It might not be Kirby's best work, but it carries the same sense of scale his best comics have.

Because Kirby couldn't fully explore those ideas, the original run is infused with the same sense of missed opportunity found in many of his prematurely ended 1970s projects. Follow-ups have been notoriously short-lived. So, where to begin with The Eternals if you're a new reader? You can't go wrong with the original series, easily one of Kirby's strangest works. After that, try writer Kieron Gillen and artist Esad Ribić's 2021 take. This 12-issue arc effectively set the team up for a larger role going forward. Though the property might not have had the steam to continue, this story is well-regarded for marrying Kirby's larger-than-life dynamism with more nuanced themes of ancient beings attempting to adapt in a modern world.

For now, The Eternals is often a story of creative frustration, with several top-notch artists and writers failing to spark interest in the team. It's hard to imagine that The Eternals will ever again receive the same push they got with their feature film, but there has been rumor of their return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nonetheless, the original series is a fun, bizarre read, with concepts that have long-since become foundational when it comes to explaining the origins of the Marvel Universe. As strange as they are, The Eternals remain absolutely vital to the world of Marvel superheroes.