Eternals by Kieron Gillen review

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I’m not too sure why Marvel decided to release this collection of Eternals by Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribić now, nor why it’s a paperback instead of a hardcover. But I’m sure glad I picked it up to review. Collecting all 12 issues of the Eternals run plus three one-shot side issues, it’s an epic in every way imaginable.

From the very beginning, it’s obvious Gillen has set out to write the complete and definitive mythology of the Eternals. Meekly, I must confess I’m no Eternals expert and haven’t actually read any of the previous series. So, I can’t tell you how much covered in this Eternals series is already established continuity, how much is retconned and how much is completely new. For the most part, that doesn’t really matter.

The story definitely picks up with what has been going on with the Eternals just before this series came out. Apparently, a lot of that happened at the beginning of Jason Aaron’s Avengers run. Gillen recaps the necessary details well enough, but I still felt just a little lost at times.

Saying that, it’s really easy to get lost in the sweeping epic Gillen has created. He goes into many details from the Eternals’ past – spanning at least one million years and sometimes up to four billion. He establishes that there are only 100 Eternals. And he’s apparently taken the time to give each a name, a history and a place in relationship to all the other Eternals within the grand Eternals’ mythology. Luckily, the story centers on a core group that aligns fairly well with the characters in the MCU’s Eternals movie. Still, there’s quite a few characters and relationships to keep track of.

And Gillen doesn’t stop there. He has also taken great effort to create a mythology for the Deviants – the Eternals life-long antagonists – thinking up many more than just 100 Deviants’ names. 

Furthermore, Gillen describes and explains the purpose and nature of the Eternals’ exotic, sci-fi cities which usually exist outside or in-between dimensions. And he also goes into the details of The Machine that is Earth – that which the Eternals are meant to protect. In fact, the Machine that is Earth is even the narrator of every issue. Gillen gives the Earth a weird, ironic, sitcom style voice. It’s kind of an acquired taste that I’m sure some readers will end up hating, but I found it pretty entertaining most of the time.

“High-concept” doesn’t even really begin to describe the mythology Gillen has created for the Eternals in this series. It’s very dense and a little too much at times, especially at the beginning. It’s a good thing Gillen uses data pages to overview a lot of the details. I felt like Eternals was Gillen’s attempt to write a Hickman-like epic and he ended up over doing it. Luckily, I really like Hickman-like, high-concept, mythology-rich, sci-fi epics.

With a story of such epic proportions, it’s good that Marvel gave art duties to Esad Ribić, with colors by Matthew Wilson. Ribić’s style has always been epic, following the influence of Frank Franzetta’s sword and sorcery classics. He draws in almost photo realistic detail. The settings, especially the Eternals’ cities always look towering, grand, highly detailed and simply amazing. Moreover, his human forms and especially facial close-ups are so good.

Matthew Wilson also deserves a lot of praise for the coloring. There is a graininess to the pencils and colors that makes the images look like stills from a film. Working together Ribić and Wilson perfect the epic tone of the series.

There is a downside to Ribić’s amazingly detailed style: when something is even slightly off, it immediately falls into the uncanny valley and looks really off. And Ribić sometimes has problems with perspective and the relative sizes of objects – for example, characters sitting on a much too small park bench. And because so many faces are nearly perfect, when an expression is off, it really stands out.

Of course, an epic story needs an epic villain. Enter: Thanos. Gillen and Ribić do a very good job with Thanos, establishing his power, genius and pure evil. He shows up at the end of issue #1 and the rest of the series is basically about the Eternals conflict with him.

Naturally, other epic things happen, too. The Eternals learn of the high cost of their perpetual resurrection. Gillen introduces a villain, Uranos, who is even more sadistic and cruel than Thanos. And the Eternals also learn even more about their purpose in relationship to Deviants and humans as determined by those cosmic-gods, the Celestials.

The depth of lore Gillen establishes is so great it couldn’t be completely contained within the 12-issue series. Accordingly, there are three one-shots featuring different art teams which basically cover some important backstory from the Eternals’ millennium-spanning past. This gives Gillen and the art teams the chance to homage Jack Kirby. And when Dustin Weaver and Kei Zama homage Kirby, it’s absolutely awesome.

So, is this collection worth your money? I guess we can blame inflation, but $45 before taxes seems to be the new standard for a 15 issue, 385-page paperback. It kind of feels like a lot, but for the amazing art and epic story, it’s absolutely worth it in this case.

“]] High-concept superhero sci-fi that’s more Hickman-like than Hickman.  Read More