Eternals is a 2008 series from Marvel Comics, written by Charles Knauf & Daniel Knauf and illustrated by Daniel Acuña and Eric Nguyen (with colours on the Nguyen issues by Andy Troy). It revisits characters and concepts created by Jack Kirby in his original 1970s series The Eternals, following on from the Soft Reboot within the previous Eternals miniseries.
Following the events of that series, only a handful of Earth’s 100 Eternals have recovered their full power and shaken off their recent amnesia, and those who have are clearly split into two factions.
Some, following Zuras, have returned to the hidden Eternal city of Olympia. Others - the majority - have followed the villainous Druig, who’s now seized control of the human nation of Vorozheika.
The Eternals of Olympia are concerned at how fast Druig’s faction is growing - and even more concerned that some seem to be brainwashed, not recruited of their own free will.
However, both factions have a bigger problem. The Dreaming Celestial, the renegade their creators buried for a million years, has finally awoken. And who knows what it plans for the Earth?
The series ran for nine issues, plus an annual with a different creative team (written by Fred Van Lente, with art by Pascal Alixe and colours by Brad Anderson).
The first issue was released on June 11, 2008.
Eternals (2008) provides examples of:
- Afterlife Antechamber: The Vestibule, where Sersi and Vampiro arrive after their deaths. They perceive it as a cocktail bar.
- Apocalypse How: The sequence the Dreaming Celestial initiates after Makkari’s death will annihilate and reset the Earth.
- Back for the Dead: Vampiro, who previously appeared in a single issue of Thor (1979) is back 30 years later as one of Druig’s recruits. The Horde kills him two issues later (and the Eternals Resurrective Immortality machine is broken by that point).
- Back from the Dead: Joey is resurrected by the Dreaming Celestial.
- Blatant Lies: The Dreaming Celestial to Uatu the Watcher, at the end of the series. It insistently repeats that “The boy woke with the others when the (song/sequence/fail-safe) was aborted”. He definitely wasn’t dead and resurrected by the Celestial. Definitely not. Uatu’s not buying it.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Ajak reaches the amnesiac Gilgamesh before Druig or Ikaris can, modifies his mind, and sets him on both factions.
- The Bus Came Back: Pixie, previously seen in Marvel: The Lost Generation and a couple of X-Men: The Hidden Years stories, returns almost a decade later as one of Druig’s recruited Eternals.
- Crossover Finale: The X-Men join Ikaris for a final battle against Druig's forces and the Horde.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Druig and Legba find themselves facing an angry, brainwashed Gilgamesh. They’re unable to subdue him telepathically and no match for him physically. Druig’s left with a shattered spine and Legba is left with crushed lungs and a broken pelvis.
- Defensive Feint Trap: After Ikaris makes a solo attack on Vorozheika, Druig, Legba, and their allies chase him across the world, knowing that he’s renounced his ties to Olympia and can’t rely on the other Eternals for support. Which is true, as far as it goes - it’s the X-Men, not Eternals, who are allied with Ikaris and waiting to ambush them.
- Face–Heel Turn: Ajak, who’s refusing to accept that Makkari has been chosen by the Dreaming Celestial.
- The Hedonist: It really says something when the actual Emperor Commodus of all people labelled Legba as a "sybarite" during an orgy.
- Humanity Is Infectious: The Dreaming Celestial, like the Watcher before him, eventually begins to notice emotions he isn't supposed to have, like anger and compassion.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Ajak uses this to persuade Californian superheroes the Order that they didn’t see him in Golden Gate Park.
- Mugging the Monster: Two scavengers find a seriously wounded Druig in Brazil after Gilgamesh has shattered his spine. They try to steal his boots. He’s still dangerous enough to snap their necks and turn them inside out.
- Out of Focus: The Deviants don’t appear and are barely even mentioned. At the end of the previous series Makkari’s transformation and the awakening of their deity seemed to herald a change in their relationship to the Eternals, but this series focuses on the feud within Eternal society instead.
- Remember the New Guy?: Legba, briefly mentioned in the Gaiman series, is the most prominent new introduction. Like all other Eternals of Earth, he’s a million years old. We just haven’t met him before. Eramis, Pannix and Akpaxa are the other named new Eternals, but they get a much smaller role.
- Resurrective Immortality: Temporarily averted via brute force. A brainwashed Gilgamesh breaks the machines of resurrection, preventing Makkari’s return.
- Sinister Minister: While amnesiac after Sprite’s reality-warping, Legba becomes a fire-and-brimstone Louisiana preacher. Who’s also hypocritical and very fond of the pleasures of the flesh.
- Take a Third Option: Ikaris can’t gather the Eternals to act against Druig because Zuras has agreed to non-interference and the Olympian Eternals must remain uninvolved. So he renounces his ties to Olympia and recruits the X-Men as allies, in place of his fellow Eternals.
- Take Me Instead: when the resurrection machine is wrecked, Sersi chooses to die so that her body can be transformed into a replica of Makkari’s and he can return to life.
- Time Skip: A Distant Finale in 2115, when reporter Michelle Urich tracks down one of the last Eternals on Earth. The adult Joey Eliot, aka Joey Athena.
- To Be Lawful or Good: The non-interference bargain that Zuras made with Druig leaves Ikaris with this dilemma. If he gathers allies and mounts an attack on Druig, he dishonours Olympia and offends Zuras. If he does nothing, Druig continues to brainwash lost Eternals and increases his power base. Naturally, he Takes A Third Option.
- Underestimating Badassery: After Ikaris attacks Druig and his recruits in Vorozheika, he flees and Eramis flies after him, confident that he can win in single combat. Ikaris lets him catch up, grabs him by the heel in mid-air.. and throws him into a cliff at full speed.
- Unseen No More: Legba, mentioned in the previous Neil Gaiman miniseries, is properly introduced here.
- Wham Line: “Host organism Joey Eliot, unharmed”
