The Mad Titan, Thanos, is murdering Eternals. Is this the cost of past sins? Kieron Gillen, Esad Ribić, Matthew Wilson and Clayton Cowles deliver Eternals #2.
Zoe Tunnell: We’re back! After months of waiting, sitting with Eternals #1 while waiting for this second issue felt like, well, an eternity. Thankfully, this issue whips and is fully worth the wait. A killer fight, tons of lore and a fantastic look back into the ancient Eternals presence on Earth, all in a single issue. God, I love this comic.
Karen Charm: I feel very much the same on all counts! I am especially excited that we get to have a no-holds-barred, spoiler-filled discussion this time around because there is quite a lot to dig into with the second issue. Why don’t we get right to it?
A Tumble Through Time
ZT: This issue picks up right where #1 left off, with Ikaris and Sprite starting down the Eternals’ greatest sin: Thanos. Given how overexposed the Big Purple Boy has been over the past decade, I was really worried his inclusion in the book was going to reek of some editorially mandated push for extra sales. Thankfully, Gillen proved me completely wrong. I love this Thanos, and it’s a feat to make me get excited about the guy after sitting through a collective 5 hours of Avengers flicks built around him.
KC: I’d also kind of resigned myself to Thanos being a part of this comic, but yeah, Gillen won me over too. Some great dialogue there – I love when Thanos calls Ikaris a “fellow poet of annihilation.” Ribić draws the hell out of their fight, slamming and zapping each other with accompanying hand-drawn sound effects (Matthew Wilson again illuminating everything perfectly, as well). You really feel the weight being thrown around here. I love seeing how the creative team uses the time-slippy nature of Titanos for this battle, both in the art and Gillen’s sharp narration. What did you think of this fight, Zoe?
ZT: Honestly? It kicks ass. It is an inventive fight, both in its choreography and setting, and I adore it. The thing that really caught me by surprise is how unique Ikaris felt in the brawl. Traditionally, he fights like a classical Superman type. Flight, super strength, lasers. He punches and zaps and does so while looking heroic and noble. Not here. Gillen and Ribić have finally cracked the code on the big blond brick wall. He’s not a Superman, he’s (as you pointed out in Slack) a Goku. Ikaris is an immortal meat grinder who will take every punch thrown, rather than dodge, and keep fighting for the sake of a fight. Putting him up against Thanos, who is himself an unstoppable engine of destruction, and letting them just beat the hell out of each other, is so much fun.
KC: That panel of Thanos standing over the slain Ikaris – an illusion, don’t worry – gives me chills. Speaking of, I so appreciate how believable Sprite’s rationale was for not reporting back to the other Eternals, and instead staying to help her buddy. No one would believe her. In two issues, these characters already feel so well-defined and fleshed out. You love to see it. As our two good Eternals retreat, Thanos is left to stalk the ruins like an ominous minotaur. I already have so many questions, like why Thanos was so banged up in the first place (his scuffle with Zuras??), but I’m not the only one with questions. If you have nothing else to add here, Zoe, do you want to head back to Olympus to see what the other Eternals think of all this?
Building a Mystery
ZT: Back on Olympia, we get maybe the single biggest shock of the series so far: the Eternals’ resurrection engine is broken. The World is broken. If an Eternal dies, they stay dead. At least for now. For a race as old as time itself and long since accustomed to immortality via endless resurrection, it’s a pretty huge shift. Also a fun bit of mirror synergy with the current crop of X-Titles and their thriving resurrection-based culture boom. This seems to be where Gillen’s big push for the rest of the series, or at least the early days, is going to be and I am officially intrigued.
KC: There’s a lot of subtle, tricky stuff going on here and I am very on board to see how it plays out. It feels very pointed to have Kingo bring up Chinatown, but maybe I’m reading too far into things… One of the things we both enjoyed about the first issue was the narration being the Machine/Earth itself, and it seems the questions posed then – why was the Machine being so chatty? – are carried forward here. The narration can get cutesy from time to time but we can easily see that as part of its “broken”ness.
We get some more great scenes of Ikaris being dumb as he fails to match wits with Druig, both pointing the finger at each other. Thankfully, cooler heads prevail, and… oh, hey! Zoe, it’s your girl!
ZT: Sersi!!! She’s here! And seems like she is going to be a pretty important part of the cast going forward. I appreciate that Gillen has her be clearly charming and mysterious, but also level-headed and able to corral the largely bone-headed dudes currently kicking around Olympia. Honestly the little ensemble of Kingo, Ikaris, Sersi, and Sprite is a fun collection of folks to form the core of the book, maybe with a Thena or Kro on the way, judging from the next issue’s cover. I especially loved when Sersi justifies keeping Sprite around so she can keep an eye on her, but also just because her new female form is adorable. Priorities are important.
KC: The interactions among this little “conspiracy,” as Sersi calls it, are so enjoyable. I love where this is going! As Hammer Daddy Phastos points out, it’s not just that Thanos has broken the Machine, but he shouldn’t have had access to it in the first place. That he could implies there is a traitor among the Eternals who must be discovered. We’d be remiss to skip over the data pages in this issue, which offer a handy guide to what Thanos has to do with the Eternals in the first place. I really like how it breaks down the political differences between Zuras and A’lars that led to establishing a colony on Titan, which led to Thanos, which led to Infinity stuff, hence Exclusion. Kieron Gillen recently did an interview with the Graphic Policy Radio podcast where he talked about using Eternals continuity as myth, and this seems like a clear example of just that.
ZT: As someone who has always been fuzzy on the details of Thanos and the Titan Eternals’ whole deal, I greatly appreciated the info page spelling it out about as cleanly as possible while preserving a bit of mystery via the mind-wipe of all Eternals in the civil war. It is a really fascinating look at Eternals history, and not the only glimpse of the past in the issue…
Your Own Personal Guardian Angel
KC: We saw in the first issue Ikaris receive a vision of the future – a gravestone for a child named Toby Robson. In this issue, the Machine recalls another time Ikaris saw something like that. Looking for some excess deviation to correct, Ikaris instead finds a boy sitting on the shore. With no monster to fight, Ikaris asks the kid to keep an eye out and light a bonfire if anything ever turns up. It never does, at least not until that kid grows old and dies, survived by his grandchildren. This sequence is a poignant illustration of how miniscule human life can feel when compared to an Eternal. It also establishes this pattern Ikaris seems to have with protecting the young.
ZT: The flashback to Ikaris and the boy on the beach is the closest the series has come to feeling like mythology to me. It had all the structure of a classic myth or fable, with diligence in your duty being the moral. Of course, through the lens of Eternals, where we know these gods aren’t any sort of divine creator but instead distant, often cold, protectors that moral is twisted with the human cost of the boy’s task. A lifetime spent waiting for a threat that never came cause him to spend little time with his family, leaving them angry and spiteful when Ikaris arrives and they learn Grandpa’s weird bonfire obsession wasn’t just a story. I really enjoyed this segment of the book and would be thrilled if we get more Eternals Fables™ going forward.
KC: I agree! It does also feel like it’s at least some of the motivation for Ikaris wanting to save Toby Robson. At the end of the issue, Ikaris flies to New York to find the kid, still alive for the moment, to let him know he’s got an angel… I mean, an Eternal looking out for him. The narration doesn’t engender any optimism, however, referring to the situation as a, quote, nightmare. Yikes. I get the impression that Ikaris doesn’t do such a great job with this sort of thing. Actually, this is the bit I find the most moving about the issue, how doomed Ikaris is to fail. See, the tagline for this series is “Never Die, Never Win,” with the emphasis placed on how the Eternals just don’t ever change. So even if Ikaris does the same thing over and over again to the same miserable results, he can’t help but keep repeating himself. You can feel it in the way he leaves the meeting with the other Eternals – it looked pissed, heading off to drown his rage at the bar, but instead he goes off to try to save a life.
I have to say, what all this really makes me think of is Eternals vol 2, where Ikaris tearfully recounts how he wasn’t able to save his son from flying too close to the sun. Yes it’s a bit on the nose, and I’m not sure it makes sense with the current continuity, but it sets a precedence for this pattern of behavior. Something to think about… Anyway, I hope Toby Robson makes it out of this ok.
ZT: I wouldn’t hold your breath, Karen. If there’s one thing Kieron Gillen loves, it’s breaking hearts. Ikaris being stuck in an endless cycle of futile attempts to save lives, seemingly having a chance to break it, only to fail yet again seems right in Gillen’s playbook. Its alright, though, I’ll be crying right there with you.
KC: Oh nooooooo. Anyway, I’m loving this series so much, bring on the pain! Next issue – Lemuria, city of the Deviants!!
Marvelous Musings
- While I am a sucker for snappy dialogue, The World pushes it a few times this issue. You’re on notice, Kieron.
- I’ve gotten so used to Ribić’s new design for Ikaris that I was legitimately startled when he showed up in his old jammies via the flashback
- Sprite’s concern about Sersi collecting humans lol
- Is Geostorm a real movie? Oh my god, it is.
- Karen, we are watching Geostorm next time. [Ed. Note: That will make two viewers of Geostorm]
Zoe Tunnell is a 29-year old trans woman who has read comics for most of her adult life and can't stop now. Follow her on Twitter @Blankzilla.
Karen Charm is a cartoonist and mutant separatist, though they’ve been known to appreciate an Eternal or two.
