Eternals: Kirby was Kewl Before it was Hip

 While I had an encyclopedia of Batman since like 2nd Grade, I never bought a comic book until I came across Jack Kirby's The Eternals in the fall of 1976. I don't even think it was a first issue. As a side note, the second I bought was Kamandi which was being written by Gerry Conway and Chic Stone, not the title's original creator a certain Jacob Kurtzberg (Jack fukking Kirby). These two purchases were like mana from heaven, both delving into ideas that the two biggest movies, Chariots of the Gods and Planet of the Apes, that I had ever seen. This was the start of my love of Kirby and his works, especially the clunky 1970s stuff.

When I saw the trailer for the flik, with its less-than-Kirby looks and feel, I can't say I was overly excited. The focus seemed to be on minor characters mentioned as nods to tropes in various mythologies and then lost by the original author, until Marvel would start rewriting them using the hip and happening authors of the time. The works of these later authors were doing their best to fit the cycle into the rest of the publisher's comic book universe.

Still, the movie release this month happened at the right time. People are getting back out to movie theaters and Peryton and I could really use a dinner and movie night. So almost impulsively, I bought some tickets online mostly to find where in the heck the place was in my new hometown. I should mention there will be SPOILERS in the following text here.

Okay, as in the standard comics to film crossing there is a lot of to be outraged over. Not only was the premise of the Eternals somewhat altered, the Deviants, the essential foils to them, were generic Japanese video game space-holders in action sequences probably done before the movie's script was written. Gone were the analogies between gods and characters from fable and myth to superherodom. Then there was the gender-swapping and repurposing of many of the characters away from Kirby's yarns about them and into new roles that younger, meaning non-Cold War-raised North American males, audiences could find appealing. Can't really say much of the movie looked like it could've been designed by its author-artist. And the overall result was not a bad piece of celluloid at all.

Okay so the Eternals are ageless and nearly indestructible beings that are sent to act as the guardians of terrestrial humanity by the Celestrial, super-dooper big ass beings that kept the universe (as in the physical space) from going falling into entropy. As you'd expect, the main characters mark their time in millennia if not millions of years. Ajak, Ikarus, Thena, Makkari, snd Sersi are lumped in with supporting characters like Phastos, Druig, Kingu, Gilgamesh, and Sprite. Whoever the leader is gets to chat with the god-ish Arishem. These are the young lions that Babylon, the oldest city that the script writers think that anybody would recognize, would use to show order to early humanity. They shepherd our species here and there whenever a spindly, sinewy species that likes to resemble video game doodles of wolves or dragons with eight eyes known as the Deviants wants to eat us.
Well, it's all a sham. The Celestrials use planets of sentient beings as eggs to make omelettes that feed their young. Our characters are not here to establish peace and stability for the perfect civilization to emerge. The Eternals are the dogs which keep the foxes, as long as they're Deviants, away, until the Celestrial infant is ready for its birthday brunch. The immortal heroes die along with their foes and their charges and are rebuilt into new bodies. This iteration of Ajak sees this as wrong and works to undo this brutal ritual using the tools that she has, her compatriots. This is where the fun ensues. There is a good, if not surprising, plot twist, for once, in this movie.

The large cast is the thing I am seeing other ppl criticizing the movie for. I frankly think it works. The comic books always had too many characters and things going on; hive-minds, uniminds, and ultimate judgement being only the more notable ones. The writers, Chloe Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, with Ryan and Kaz Firpo, give each of them something to do in the tale going on around them. I frankly love how the two bigger names, Ma Dong-seok (Don Li) and Angelina Jolie are given roles where they get to phone it in when they need because of the familiarity that they have the roles that they are given.

My disappointment comes from the video game villains that the Deviants are. Okay Kirby's design for them was rather like evil muppets/goblins with a devil thrown in trying to still have an edge. But there are some rather kewl characters like Lord Tode, Kro, Reject and Karkas. The whole Thena/Kro relationship thing could've been a first movie and the events of this film an awesome sequel. I mean sheesh, Kro was voiced by Bill Skarsgard-- I suppose its chic these days to have bigger name, but not too big, name actors doing limited vocabulary (Groot, Shark, and now Kro).

The film does what it's supposed to which is work in the Eternals into Disney's rendition of the Marvel Universe. The gods of Asgard being human-like aliens already stole the science fiction take on mythology that Kirby was striving for with the series. Making them get into the deeper side of world-eaters like Galactus and world-destroyers like the Celstrails or say Annihilator. So things are getting ready for the more Jim Starling take on comic book sci-fi, that is when he wasn't forced to steal Jack Kirby's DC work (Thanos), so he can get wrapped around the axle with his take on religion before it got old and boring, Adam Warlock and the weird things that ensued from there in various comic sagas.

The movie was a Bigfoot on the scale of Smurf to Godzilla. Perhaps the following movies featuring any of the Characters presented here will be full enough of Easter Eggs from the comic books to keep them interesting, but they've kind of painted themselves into a corner story-wise.