Ready for some dull sci-fi and generic superhero shenanigans? Heeeeere’s Eternals, Volume 1: Marvel Needed a Book Because They Has a Movie Out About These Characters and Not Because They Had an Inspired Story to Tell!
Someone’s killed an Eternal! Whodunit? Better question: who cares?? They’re ETERNAL. They don’t stay dead for long - they get resurrected all the time! Also, the planet’s about to blow up - wow, you never see those stakes in a Marvel comic! The world’s about to end? You mean like in EVERY Marvel book?? And Thanos is the big bad here because he’s never the big bad in anything. Oh wait…
Yeah, it’s just wave after wave of brilliance in this book. I think, like most people who’ve read an Eternals book (and that ain’t many!), I’ve just read the Neil Gaiman/John Romita Jr book from the mid-‘00s and that’s it. I don’t know much about these characters but, after reading this rubbish, I’m not eager for more, and I can see why there aren’t a lot of Eternals books out there - they are not an interesting bunch!
Ikaris is our main character and he’s the poor man’s Superman - he’s not even Marvel’s most prominent Superman knockoff (that would be The Sentry) - while the other characters are just… whatever. Zuras, Sprite, Phastos, Druig, Sersi, Thena, Kingo, Gilgamesh - they’re just silly names plastered onto unmemorable nobodies.
Which is part of what makes this book so boring to read, as there are numerous flashbacks explaining the dreary relationships between these characters. This guy doesn’t like that guy because of some drivel that happened centuries ago, etc. Those scenes might be interesting to read if you cared about the characters or what they were doing was compelling but you don’t and they’re not - it’s simply bland superheroes punching monsters.
The feeble murder mystery is a convoluted, dreary plot that never once entertains. The Earth or The Machine, I don’t know what the difference is in this stupid story, is the narrator for some reason, the villain’s motivations are unclear, and Thanos is involved for name recognition only apparently.
Esad Ribic’s art is pretty good even if every character seems to have the same wide-eyed expression of surprise. Kieron Gillen also incorporates Jonathan Hickman-esque data pages which seem to be a tedious feature of many Marvel books now, so that’s horrible.
It’s not a particularly accessible book for anyone unfamiliar with the Eternals (ie. everyone), nor is it likely to make anyone want to read more about them - “Wow, I was so bored, let me get everything I can find featuring this lot!” Gillen/Ribic’s Eternals did absolutely nothing for me - I don’t recommend it to anybody and I can only hope the movie is nothing like this book.
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