Marvel Has Been Trying (And Failing) To Make ‘The Eternals’ A Thing For Decades

They’re Thanos’ Distant Cousins (And A Ripoff Of A Ripoff)

The Eternals were born from the mind of legendary Marvel Comics architect Jack Kirby and his endless imagination — or maybe not to so endless in this case, since these characters are the result of Kirby recycling old ideas that he’d already recycled in the first place. See, Eternals can be tracked down to the time Kirby wanted to kill off the old Asgardian gods appearing in Thor and introduce some new ones, but Stan Lee said “nah.” A while after Marvel rejected his “new gods” idea, Kirby moved to DC and started a completely unrelated series called … New Gods.

Marvel Comics

He wanted to call it Eat My Butthole, Stan Lee, but there was already a DC comic by that name.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

New Gods was a clear continuation of Kirby’s Tales of Asgard stories at Marvel, even if he never flat out said so (because he’d be sued). Later, after DC had cancelled New Gods, Kirby moved back to Marvel and pitched another completely unrelated series called Return of the Gods. Marvel apparently thought that name was a little too on the nose and told Kirby to think of something else, and that’s how The Eternals came about.

Marvel Comics

“Guest starring Parker Peters, The Impressive Arachnid-Man!” “Jack, we own Spider-Man, you can just use him.” “Who?”

The point is, we’re two steps removed from Kirby’s original burst of inspiration, and it kinda shows in the stories, which were duller and more by-the-numbers than Kirby’s usual stuff. The Eternals’ origin story is that a million years ago, a race of giant aliens called the Celestials visited Earth and experimented on a bunch of cave people, turning some into super-powered immortals (the Eternals) and others into unsightly mutant creatures (known as the Deviants). You’ll be shocked to learn that the good-looking ones happen to be heroic and righteous while the ugly ones are evil and depraved.

Marvel Comics

The most fantastic concept in the Marvel Universe is that the “ancient aliens” guy on History Channel isn’t full of shit.

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Most of the Eternals stuck around on Earth and were mistaken for gods by the dumb humans, who couldn’t even pronounce their names correctly — “Thena” was known as “Athena” and “Makkari” became “Mercury,” for instance. Other Eternals settled elsewhere in the universe and got freaky with the local aliens, resulting in powerful beings like a certain Thanos (who looks like an eggplant to recessive Deviant genes).

Of course, Thanos being part of the Eternal’s extended family is a retcon introduced years after Kirby’s original series, so it’s kinda sad that he’s by far the most famous Eternal ever. The good guys just aren’t terribly memorable. Which probably explains why …

Continue Reading Below

Advertisement

Their Comics Are The Opposite Of Eternal (Read: They Keep Getting Cancelled)

Many have compared The Eternals to Guardians of the Galaxy, another Marvel franchise no one gave much of a crap about until Hollywood came knocking. But here’s the thing: even those guys had over 120 issues under their belt before the first movie. Eternals has like half that, despite starting around the same time. You could probably read every Eternals comic in one sitting during one bad post-Arby’s bathroom trip.