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IT’S ONLY FOREVER: THE ETERNALS RECAP PART 6

TOGETHER AGAIN: THE ETERNALS ISSUE 6

Miss any part of It’s Only Forever? Click here for the archive!

Gods and Men at City College! That’s the honest-to-Celestial title of this issue, and folks, this is the point in my first Eternals read when I turned to the camera and said “I think I like the Eternals?”

Yeah, it’s got a lot of problems, as I know I’ve said in past installments of It’s Only Forever. But that title reveals so much about what the series’s strengths are...

I know I’ve said The Eternals lacks the grandeur of the New Gods, and I know I’ve said it lacks the key grounded characterization of the best Marvel books. But this isn’t really about either. This is about Gods and Men at City College! This signals what I maybe should have realized earlier: this series should be the midpoint between those two Kirby worlds.

I think Eternals tries its best to fall exactly there. It’s loaded with cosmic mythology about giant space alien gods and stuff like “brain mines,” but also full of real people doing real things in New York City. And Sersi, who loves having parties!

Depicted: Have I mentioned I love Sersi??

Admittedly, this isn’t always successful. As I’ve been arguing throughout this series, there are bigger issues with writing and editing that keep this from being a grand slam home run. But I’d love a series built around these ideas and it’s nice to finally realize exactly what Kirby is intending here.

So what’s going on in this issue? Well, as you may remember, Kro had sent his Deviant minions to NYC to cause mayhem and panic, hoping that humans would respond by attacking the Celestials. Meanwhile, Sersi and Margo had been kidnapped, Ikaris was hit with a Brain Mine, and Thena and Makkari were driving at light speed to get to Manhattan from wherever it is they live.

This issue makes a strong (and pretty gutsy) swerve, however, once Thena shows up. Facing down Kro, Thena opts not to pummel him senseless, but to make a truce with him. Kro agrees, because he’s so convinced his scheme to scare humans will make this meaningless anyway. And then Kro lets his various prisoners go, and that’s that!

Seriously. Marvel’s next big franchise, the Eternals, resolves its first major story arc by having the villains and heroes make a truce and agree to stop fighting. Before they even punch each other once!

Depicted: m’eternal

This is the tone of Eternals: a very different type of comic book, where things never go as we expect. I love the idea of violence settled through allegiances rather than, say, murder. But once again, I’m left wondering how this will read to an audience who has just sat through a ton of lore dumps only to have the main conflict settled so quickly and plainly.

And then all that’s left for this issue is for the gang to hit up City College, as was foretold. This is a weird rehashing of the lore we’ve learned about humans, Eternals, Deviants, and Celestials. Really the only new things to note here are the arrival of Dr. Holden, our new human scientist (who replaces Dr. Damian, who is stuck inside a rock now)...and a cameo appearance by Ben Grimm.

But wait, you say! Petunio, you’ve assured us this series cannot take place in the Marvel Universe, and yet Ben Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing is here???

Depicted: honestly, an improvement on Arnold’s looks

To which I say: well, Sersi turns a kid into The Thing as a joke. Everyone at City College recognizes him as Ben Grimm, but I should stress this doesn’t suggest the Marvel superheroes live in the world of the Eternals. You’d recognize a kid as Ben Grimm if he had a rocky head. This just tells us that the folks at City College have comics.

Otherwise, that’s it. This is the end of the first major Eternals adventure. What did we learn? I dunno. A lot, I guess? Or maybe nothing? Ain’t that just the way.

And coming next time: More Celestials can only mean good things, right?

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