I liked the book, the story does seem quaint especially for the 1970s but that is an expected, at least for me, part of a Jack Kirby comic. The art, of course, is the main attraction and does not disappoint. It does go hand in hand with the very-comics story to create interest in a way that only Jack Kirby can in my opinion. The story, though simple, is unique combining aspects of Meso-American myth with UFOs and bits of Christian stories to create a strange but interesting doomsday tale that definitely gives Kirby plenty of opportunities to flex his art skills. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Jack Kirby's work. ( )

This series started out fairly strong, and I was enjoying it at the beginning for its unashamed Big! Kirby! Fun!

Unfortunately, it simply devolved into a New! Big! Crisis! every two or three issues, and it felt like Kirby was desperately trying to wring some action out of a concept that he had the beginning of, but no follow-through planned. I mean, when he resorted to a mechanical Hulk that got blasted with cosmic rays, and he wrung two full issues of destruction out of it, you could see he was running out of steam.

Kirby, like Stan Lee, was a fantastic idea man. Whether it's his Eternals, or OMAC, or Kamandi, or Machine Man, he had an amazing and intriguing initial idea, but he couldn't seem to plan much beyond the first few issues.

Instead, in this collection, we get Sersi, who is godlike, but basically wants to create a hoe-down party. Makarri is there to back up Ikarus. And Ikarus? He is, quite frankly, somewhat boring.

And I think that's also a big part of the ultimate downfall of any Kirby series. He creates big colourful characters, but he's so busy throwing other big colourful antagonists at them that we never get anything beyond surface details. Ikarus is a polar Elemental. They're surly and stoic. And that's pretty much all we know. And it's about the same level of detail that we know about everyone else.

Kirby also seems to have so many balls in the air that he ultimately drops a bunch of them. What happened to Ajak and Dr. Damian? What happened to the three SHIELD agents? What happened to that mechanical Hulk? What's going on with Kro and Thena? So many plot points dropped or simply forgotten.

Kirby's a legend, and rightly so. Marvel and DC owe a lot to his talent. But, I find that when I dig into his stuff at a series level and read several issues back-to-back, while there are flashes of brilliance (the exact same can be said about Stan Lee), there's also a lot of sub-par stuff to wade through.

Overall, the basic idea of the Celestials is just freaking amazing, and I'm glad to see James Gunn working to bring that to the audiences, however briefly, through the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The basic idea of the Eternals is also a very good one, though a lot less focused. To be honest, the Deviants I could live without.

Still, this was a good refresher on where the Eternals came from. I'm going to have to go revisit the Neil Gaiman limited series again, to remind myself of what he did when he got his hands on Kirby's stuff. ( )