50 Years of The Eternals: Marvel's Most Important, Least Understood 'God-Game' Lore
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Marvel's The Eternals, celebrating 50 years, are a fascinating cosmic deep-dive born from Jack Kirby's grand ambitions and a dash of 'Ancient Aliens' pseudoscience. Despite a history of short-lived runs and a lukewarm movie reception, these god-like beings remain a crucial, if wonderfully bizarre, foundation of Marvel's sprawling lore.
Alright, listen up, mates! This one's a proper cosmic brain-tickler, a dive into some of Marvel's most wonderfully bizarre, often overlooked, and yet fundamentally crucial lore. We're talking about The Eternals, who apparently made their grand debut *fifty bloody years ago* this April. Can you believe it? Time flies when you're busy accidentally warping reality, eh?
Now, for those of you who reckon you've seen it all in the Marvel-verse, The Eternals are a different beast. Born from the brilliant, sometimes creatively frustrated mind of Jack Kirby – the undisputed digital wizard behind half of Marvel's starting roster – these cosmic chaps arrived after Kirby's short sabbatical to DC Comics. Over there, he was cooking up 'The Fourth World,' a grand saga of gods and ancient rivalries. When that particular server went offline, he brought a fair chunk of that cosmic ambition back to Marvel in '76, and *boom*, The Eternals were patched into existence. Issue #1 hit the stands and immediately dropped a lore bomb of epic proportions.
Funnily enough, The Eternals share a fair bit of DNA with Kirby's Fourth World project. We're talking massive, history-altering scope, ancient pantheons duking it out, and a delightful cocktail of mythology mixed with sci-fi. Think of it as a shared engine, just with different character skins and questlines. Sersi as Circe, Orion as Ares – the symbolic shout-outs are pretty clear. But where The Eternals really carve their own path is with the god-like Celestials – those universe-tinkering alien architects who became major players in the wider Marvel meta, long before we saw them on the big screen.
Now, here's where the gentle skepticism kicks in, like a suspicious loot box. Despite their monumental potential, the original Eternals series, much like Kirby's Fourth World, had a bit of a premature 'game over,' ending after just 19 issues. And while there have been countless reboots and retries over the years – like developers trying to find the magic formula for a tricky IP – none have really managed to stick the landing. Even their big-budget cinematic outing, bless its cotton socks, ended up being one of the franchise's lowest-rated 'boss fights.' It seems like the wider audience just isn't quite ready for this particular brand of cosmic weirdness, which, frankly, makes me love them even more.
Speaking of weirdness, the inspiration for Kirby's Eternals is a tale in itself. He apparently drew heavily from Erich von Däniken's 'Chariots of the Gods?', that wildly influential (and largely debunked as pseudoscience) book that posited ancient wonders like the pyramids were built by alien intervention. Yes, mate, Ancient Aliens stuff – it's like a bizarre, forgotten side quest in the history of Marvel. While Däniken's theories wouldn't hold up to a scientific patch, for a comic book's foundational lore? Absolutely brilliant, if you ask me.
Eternals #1 throws us straight into a massive exposition dump through the eyes of a documentary cameraman, Ike Harris (who sounds suspiciously like Däniken himself). He, along with an archaeologist and his daughter, unravels the Marvel Universe's creation myth: Celestials arrive, experiment on a primate, and *boom* – humanity, the monstrous Deviants, and the god-like Eternals emerge. It's a lot to process in one sitting, like a multi-hour cinematic intro. But true to Kirby form, his signature 'Krackle' artwork, bombastic dialogue, and wild concepts mean it's never a dull read. You can practically feel the missed opportunities, the unfulfilled quests, in that original run, a common theme for his 70s projects that ended too soon.
So, if you're a curious gamer looking to dive into this particular corner of the Marvel lore, where do you even start? The original series is an absolute trip, a pure, uncut dose of Kirby's strangest work. But for a more modern, acclaimed 'update,' I'd highly recommend the 2021 run by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Esad Ribić. That 12-issue arc effectively brought the Eternals back into the current 'meta,' cleverly marrying Kirby's epic dynamism with more nuanced themes of ancient beings trying to adapt to the absolute chaos of the modern world. It’s like a successful reboot that actually delivers on its promises.
In the grand scheme of things, The Eternals remain a story of creative ambition clashing with audience reception. They might not get another feature film push anytime soon (though whispers of an MCU return are always floating about, like digital ghosts in the machine), but their original run is a fantastically bizarre read. The concepts introduced are now absolutely foundational to understanding the very origin code of the Marvel Universe. They're vital, strange, and a perfect example of how deep and interconnected this digital sandbox truly is. Fair dinkum, you've gotta give 'em a look. (Original insights courtesy of Sara Century over at Polygon, check out the full article here)
Tags: Lore, IP, Worldbuilding, Reboots, Narrative
Original article: Polygon