Happy Anniversary to the Poor Eternals

I don't want this to be some sweeping essay that delves into all of the reasons why I like The Eternals comics and can appreciate the MCU movie for what it was while airing my grievances against a movie adaptation that didn't sit well with movie goers yet simultaneously made me curious enough about the source material to it seek out, read and fall in love with all of the weirdness that made The Eternals comics great in the first place. Not to mention the respect I have for Jack Kirby having ideas that wouldn't fit into any sort of box; considering that we are living in a time when A.I. is stealing from creatives. Which, I'd argue, should ignite creatives to think of things even more outside the box-so much so-that no one could ever mistake it for A.I. because it's so whackadoodle crazy-go-nuts.

Although I feel very passionate about these topics, how they relate to The Eternals comics, the movies, the MCU in general, et cetera, et cetera; I do not have that kind of time and-oh look!-the 50th anniversary comic of The Eternals is already here and I'm already a little late to that party as it stands (although the original comic was released in July, but who's counting). Instead, this will be more of a fanboy Eternals anniversary post celebrating 50 years of gods walking the earth.

This whole post is inspired by my discovery-quite by accident-that Marvel had released an Eternals 50th anniversary anthology one-shot. Which-of note-they did so rather quietly. I can't help but think about where the comics and the movie franchise would be if the MCU adaptation had been more well received. Would 2026 have seen the release of the sequel to the Eternals film to coincide with its anniversary? Would there be several comic tie-ins? Maybe in some other multiverse, definitely not ours.

Regardless, here's some of my strong opinions about The Eternals:

• The movie, which made decisions that I would not have made, wasn't as bad as they made it out to be.

• In the comics Sersi was my favorite.

• Ikaris is an idiot.

• I'm a Thena+Kro stan.

• The most under-used characters are the deviant reject Ransak and his pacifist deviant friend Karkas.

• The best Eternals writer other than their creator-Jack Kirby-is Kieron Gillen.

After the movie was released, I went on to read the entire run of the Eternals, which continues to have short on-again/off-again runs. After each volume I read, I created fan art that represented each series and paid homage to other famous comic covers. Below are the Eternals fan art pieces I made and the covers that inspired them.

And here's an illustration I made from a scene in the movie where the sheer scale of a celestial really made an impression on me.

Today, I'm raising a glass and then pouring one out for The Eternals. For Jack Kirby whose cosmic space opera was so far out that they canceled the series after 19 issues. But who's concepts where so far out that comic creators keep returning to them to explore them again and again for 50 years. For the MCU taking a pretty big swing by adapting the comic in the first place and breaking an MCU movie mold that honestly needed to be broken. They were getting pretty formulaic...wait-they're STILL formulaic. Oh well. Here's to the Eternals! Happy big Five Oh. Hopefully I'll see you again in some form, but no matter what happens next I'm happy to see a brand new issue on the shelves proving that just like in the comics Eternals never die.