Eternals Annual #1
Eternals Annual #1
The (ahem) eternal war between Man and Deviant continues! Zakka The Tool-Master is unleashing horrors out of time on the streets of 1977, so the all-wise Zuras dispatches Karkas, Thena, and The Reject to put things right. Of course, given that Thena relies on a man-monster and a monstrous man to complete her mission, hilarity ensues. Reject rumbles with Jack the Ripper, while Karkas takes on Attila the Hun, wrecking a hotel and in the process panicking the people he was trying to protect. Jack Kirby was always strong at wringing pathos out of his monstrous, misunderstood heroes, and had this series not died in the womb I expect Karkas might have come to be regarded right alongside Ben Grimm in this regard.
With his mortal pawns getting slapped around, Zakka summons the dread Mutate Tutinax, the Mountain Mover (a big momo I don’t think we’ve seen before, or since), and gets his own ass kicked for his temerity. Tutinax runs amok for a few pages, but just when it is getting good — when Tutinax is holding a building over his head, and shouting, “Let this be both your gave and monument! Die!!” — it just kind of … ends. Tutinax pops back to his own era and the adventure is over, like Jack was creating so fast that he didn’t notice he was running out of pages. Thena and the boys walk into the sunset, her spinning a tale about how Karkas and Reject have learned a lesson about true comradeship, but they aren’t having any of it (and neither are we).
- Script & Pencils: Jack Kirby
- Inks: Mike Royer
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Posted on June 18, 2018, in Marvel 1977 and tagged Eternals, Jack Kirby, Marvel Comics, Mike Royer. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
dangvozden
Paul O'Connor
Kris (not Chris)
markginocchio
miloapama
Dean Compton
Moya
ryanmcswain
Longbox Graveyard 
I thought that this was a good story, except that the ending was kind of a let-down.
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Yeah, like a lot of Jack’s stories in this era, it doesn’t end so much as it runs out of pages.
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I have not read much of the Eternals. As a youngster I remember buying the issue with the (fake cosmic-powered) Hulk (robot) in it.
I’ll have to look for a collection and read the whole thing! Looks fun!
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That robot Hulk issue is kind of where the series jumped the shark. My recollection was that Kirby intended that the Eternals stand apart from the Marvel universe, but that editorial (and sales) demanded he bring the series into the mainstream line of books. And so we wound up with a robot Hulk in a story that may or may not have been part of the Marvel Universe. I’m sure later continuity gerrymandering offers a definitive answer … but whatever the answer, it didn’t really work.
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Didn’t even know this existed until a couple of years ago as I was searching online to pick up the final one or two I needed to complete my Eternals collection. Y’know? I don’t think I’ve even read it yet. Off to the bookshelf! (After work, that is.)
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So … what did you think?
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Wonderful character moments throughout. The Reject, Karkas and Thena relationship makes for a good road trip flick. The page with the evil Jakka charming his landlady and showing off his fancy foreign camera was a hoot. The death of Jakka seemed pretty dark! I had a bit of sympathy for him as he was desperately trying to get to his dimension harness – so close! Enjoyed the good number of pages showing destructive fights and the great scenes full of Kirby chaos. The ending didn’t bother me – a little abrupt but that’s not unusual.
I wonder if I could manage a linear re-reading of the series – not sure if I’ve done that in my adult life. I’ve skimmed through random issues but haven’t concentrated and really “read” them. I enjoyed this one enough to consider the attempt. That’s a lot of issues to go through knowing that Mechanical Hulk awaits at the end, tho.
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Mechanical Hulk looms over us like the shade of doom!
But the book is series was (regrettably) short enough that you can grind through the whole thing in one sitting without too much brain damage. I’d rather binge this original book than the convoluted stuff Marvel did later trying to bring the Eternals into their mainstream continuity.
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I really do like the team of Ransak and Karkas. It’s such a simple concept, the handsome human-looking figure who is actually a savage berserker and the huge monstrous-looking figure who is actually an intelligent philosopher, but it works really well.
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Ain’t no man-monster like a Kirby man-monster.
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Hey! What do you know. I’ve a trade paperback with Eternals 12-18 (or something) in ti! Karkas, here I come!
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The Eternals started strong, I loved the first issue.
Although my interest faded quickly, I still have, long lasting, fond memories and I like the art like the first day… Mebbe even more!
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I’ve often felt this concept would have been better-served as a mini-series, a publishing concept not yet fully formed in 1977.
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Yes, a mini-series would have been perfect!
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Probably best enjoyed … without words, these days.
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