tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7629130.post5848700207908962241..comments2023-05-30T10:15:40.341-04:00Comments on Comics Ate My Brain: Looking at Eternals in light of New GodsTom Bonduranthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07209820912557263080noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7629130.post-82542438333132270782008-10-11T22:11:00.000-04:002008-10-11T22:11:00.000-04:00Hey, I'm just glad you and RAB are around to comme...Hey, I'm just glad you and RAB are around to comment! It is a lot to think about, and it makes me realize how much of Kirby there really is to explore. Looks like I need to add those <EM>Essential Thor</EM> books to my wish-list.<BR/><BR/>Still, I am working my way through the <EM>Fourth World Omnibii</EM> with RAB's approach in mind, because honestly I had not really considered the New Gods as their own pantheon. I am also right there with you, RAB, on the whole vaguely-Hebraic-sounding names of the Celestials. That's one of the things which, to me, gives <EM>Eternals</EM> a lot of its otherworldly feel.<BR/><BR/>And plok, I agree about the Celestials and Galactus, but I completely forgot to put Alicia in the compare-and-contrast lineup. Whatever Kirby's intentions about <EM>Eternals</EM>' place in the Marvel U., the series definitely got incorporated into the all-inclusive <EM>Earth X</EM> timeline, and it is a convenient, Ultimate-style way to explain the super-heroes. I note that the Fourth World left Superman behind fairly early on, using him (as you say) as a point of comparison. The real Final Battle can't be between Superman and Darkseid, as much as DC Editorial might like to make it so. Ironic, then, that DC has done so much with the Fourth World, and Marvel has done (at least to my knowledge) relatively little with the Eternals.Tom Bonduranthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07209820912557263080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7629130.post-2656446601964459192008-10-11T20:29:00.000-04:002008-10-11T20:29:00.000-04:00For me it's more like this: the Fourth World real...For me it's more like this: the Fourth World really is about "new" Gods, beings quite a little ways past Superman and into something else...but the Eternals is about <I>old</I> gods reinvented to keep pace with "new" humans. Old hat for Kirby: in Thor he did a lot of weird things with Old Gods (gave them never-explained "technology" for one -- but technology based on godly principles, not human ones, technology different in <I>kind</I>), and plunked them down in a superheroic milieu with supeheroic/supervillainous motivations...with the Inhumans he messed around slightly with the idea of a vaguely Von-Daniken-ish "hidden history" with (for example) Gorgon and Medusa and Triton...but was also content to keep things at the level of allusion: Medusa never lived in Ancient Greece, and it wouldn't have made sense if she had. Then he peppered the not-quite-superheroic stew with other characters that didn't allude to legends of monsters at all -- making it more of metaphor for something, than the thing itself.<BR/><BR/>With the Eternals he does something different: turns the Earth being into the space being, explicitly. Because the Earth is <I>in</I> "outer space", itself...we were "space beings" too, even before the Celestials came. And as RAB says, the Eternals are, in every meaningful way, just different kinds of <I>human beings</I>, with human purposes and feelings.<BR/><BR/>I also think it's significant that Eternals is very Marvel even though (as with the Hulk issues, which I loved) it's plainly not in continuity...because it goes around Kirby's Marvel obsession of "cosmic power!", that neat assertion that there are impersonal transformative "energies" out there that are beyond all understanding or leashing, but that come come and touch <I>you</I> at any moment, just right out of the blue. Because human beings are space beings too, and already. This goes all the way back to FF #1: the universe itself changes Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben. "We know what it <I>wasn't</I>...but we don't know what it <I>was</I>", as Ellis puts it in Planetary before he blows up the mystery. But in the Fourth World, this namelessly transformative "cosmic power" doesn't really exist at all -- there's astro-force, omega beams, and alpha bullets, and whatever it is Lightray does, but these all have names and faces and they leash <I>themselves</I>, because they're <I>in</I> the New Gods, they <I>are</I> the New Gods. So it's a different kind of spirit of change Kirby deals with at DC. Back at Marvel, the cosmic-powered Hulk almost seems to say that in this little continuity-free bubble there aren't any Fantastic Fours or Spider-Men because there's the science we know and then there's pure "cosmic power" which is beyond our ken, and there's nothing in-between...even the Eternals, though beneficiaries of cosmic power, have to be in a Uni-Mind before they can really do much with it. So the Marvel stuff's got a much more evolutionary slant to it than does the DC stuff, I think...the Eternals represent "hidden history" and therefore hidden future, but the nameless cosmic power intrudes on everything...and there you go, there are the Celestials themselves, huge and all but free of identity, just slightly suggestive of it <I>but not quite</I>. Like Galactus done over: in fact I don't think Eternals is a do-over of the Fourth World so much as I think it's a do-over of Fantastic Four comics...the cosmic-powered Hulk for Him, the Celestials for Galactus, humanity as a sea of Alicia Masters...the Eternals as the FF and the Deviants as the Inhumans. FF comics, stripped down and with the superhero conventions much more peeled-off to show the SF elements beneath. It almost makes you think of the Ultimates line, doesn't it? Not millions of causes, just a couple simple near-Newtonian rules that animate everything...and a way to make all the busy business in early Marvel cohere as a single story, with a single beginning and a single end, and a single explanation for everything. By contrast, New Gods is all about intersection, the intersection of this world and another one...it's the SF of the humungously advanced Galactic civilization gone all Lord-Of-Light-y coming down to meet the one <I>special</I> inferior world...um, except they're Gods for real.<BR/><BR/>Minor distinction, in a way.<BR/><BR/>Crap, no wonder Kirby worked on that Lord Of Light stuff! The Fourth World certainly has a Bhagavad-Gita flavour to it at times...all foreordained. But not quite, as in Eternals, with the possibility of frustrating fate.<BR/><BR/>Ooof, that's all I can write for now! Sorry it took me so long to get around to it, Tom.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7629130.post-52142717541325770832008-10-01T19:22:00.000-04:002008-10-01T19:22:00.000-04:00New Gods and Eternals both being stories about reg...<I>New Gods</I> and <I>Eternals</I> both being stories about regular everyday folks finding out that the history of the world and their status in the scheme of things is very different than they supposed, and the whole human species is caught in a battle between vastly more powerful forces of good and evil -- yes, that totally works for me.<BR/><BR/>Where I find them radically different in theme is like this: the Fourth World is about characters who are gods. It's not just what they call themselves: these guys are <I>Gods</I>, in the sense that there's a god of war, a god of light, a god of sadism, a god of brutality, living embodiments of abstract concepts. <BR/><BR/>But the Eternals and the Deviants are just different kinds of <I>people</I>. They may not be humans but they're complex, confused Earthfolk just like us. Think of them as akin to the Inhumans rather than Asgardians. This is why, as you say, there's no living embodiment of good or evil in the series. Ikaris isn't a god; he's kind of a thickheaded dope. Kro isn't malevolent; he's sentimental and heartsick. The Eternals merely represent the class and civility you can see in an elite who don't have to worry about mortality or suffering. That leaves them a lot of time to become well-mannered, but they aren't always nice. Eternals are the baddies in the final installment of the series. The Deviants are merely the product of their situation as well.<BR/><BR/>Ultimately, <I>Eternals</I> is Kirby's most explicitly Judeo-Christian book. The Celestials appear in angelic-sounding "Hosts" and are totally unknowable and unfathomable to all characters -- the highest Eternal is as remote from them as any of us -- they have quasi-Hebraic sounding names, and they arrive to herald, yes, Judgement Day. <I>New Gods</I> could be inspired by Norse, Greek, Roman, or Hindu mythologies...but <I>Eternals</I> is pure Old Testament at heart.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714171897239398438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7629130.post-17393729219266730972008-09-30T02:58:00.000-04:002008-09-30T02:58:00.000-04:00Okay, that is not the approach I was expecting you...Okay, that is not the approach I was expecting you to take!<BR/><BR/>I think I may make a longish comment, but have to gather my thoughts first...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com