Abandon All Hope? in Eternals: Celestia #1

Abandoned by their Space Gods, Ajak and Makkari find new purpose via… Jason Aaron’s Avengers? Eternals: Celestia #1, is written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Kei Zama, colored by Matthew Wilson, with lettering/design by Clayton Cowles.

Karen Charm: A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that… oh uh hey. Just got caught up in something there, sorry. Welcome back to the second Eternals special by Gillen and co, this time with art by Kei Zama, and it’s all about the holiest Eternals Ajak and Makkari. We’ve both been pretty excited for Makkari to make an appearance in this new series (and I’m always impressed by Ajak’s hats), so what did you make of this issue now that she’s shown up at last, Zoe?

Zoe Tunnell: Love it! Love her! Love this issue! The idea of pairing the two of them together isn’t something mind-blowing, they clashed in the 00s ongoing after all. But between the new existentially terrifying status quo for the Eternals and both Makkari and Ajak deciding to be reborn as women (and without healing the damage done to her hearing in Makkari’s case) it gives their dynamic a whole new energy that I found endlessly fascinating. If we’re still waiting on proper major trans characters in a Marvel comic, I’ll take these two being complete messes in the meantime.

Karen: And you know, if the Eternals are Marvel’s angels, something about that just seems right to me. Anyway, this is a softer issue than others but with some interesting things to think about. Away we go!

God’s (Not) In His Heaven…

Karen: The issue starts off with Ajak, weeping for her shaken faith. I want to say how much I love Zama’s artwork throughout this issue. She is really quite good at conveying the scale of the opening two pages, as the “camera” pulls back incrementally to show how tiny and insignificant the once-proud Eternal has become. There’s a harshness to the linework that feels carved, statuesque – fitting for such a religious comic. Wilson’s colors take on a muted, rosy tone throughout that sits nicely with Cowles’ black and blue lettering.

Back to the story, Ajak is given the descriptor of “believer,” except this new status quo leaves her with very little to believe in.

Zoe: Once again tying back to Gillen’s view on the Eternals as Marvel’s angels, having the most devout and passionate believers in The Faith be shaken to their core and coping with it in different ways is just so much fun. Ajak’s almost spiteful aimlessness is especially interesting as she openly admits that the Celestials never spoke clearly to her. Even when her faith was most affirmed and powerful, it was still very much the blind faith of someone who can never truly know her gods. With even the scraps she had gone, she now searches for meaning in every possible sign even when there is none to be had. She’s become the Eternal equivalent of the lady who thinks dinosaur bones are a trick designed to test faith in God, and I love it for her. Well, for me as a reader. It ain’t a great time for her.

Karen: Yeah, she’s pretty bummed out! I think you’re getting to the heart of what this issue is trying to say, and I like what you’re saying about the messy translation from Celestial to whatever the Eternals have been speaking all these years.

This is a fun issue for Continuity Watch, with Gillen actually doing the work to square Ajak’s history. Out of anything in Gaiman’s run, moving Makkari to the front of the stage was probably the most interesting aspect to me, and Ajak’s reaction to being usurped was a highlight of the following Knauf run. That conflict was just kind of dropped until now, so I really appreciate having the space to explore where the relationship between the two characters stand.

Zoe: Makkari turning into a radicalist, deciding that there’s no good reason they can’t just build their own new god when they have all these perfectly good god bits lying around is maybe my favorite reinvention Gillen has done so far. It fits her as a speedster, someone who is constantly thinking and assessing and adaptable to quick change, but furthermore it helps make the trans themes that are, at absolute best, minor a bit more potent. If Makkari can choose to be reborn as a woman, one whose injuries rendering her deaf are something she deems as Part of Her rather than a wound to be healed, why can’t they just make a new god? It spits in the face of rigid traditionalist views of not just religion but also bodily continuity. Who cares if Makkari is a woman now or if their new Celestial is a Frankenstein, the important part is how she, and presumably the new Celestial, view themselves.

Also, as a side-note, Zama absolutely murders it with Makkari in every appearance she has. The frantic energy, the fidgeting, the constant zipping around at super-speed while speed-signing everything, it was some of the best speedster art I’ve seen in ages.

Karen: Yes! As someone who, shall we say, takes a little bit longer to process certain things, I really felt the dynamic between Ajak deliberately piecing answers together for herself and Makkari just like “yep I already figured it out, I already checked it out, 1,000 steps ahead of you,” haha. I also like how the word balloon tail for Makkari’s signing looks kind of like a winding road, perfect for reckless street racing. The only thing I’m worried about there is that her Frankenstein’s Celestial idea was inspired by Mr Sinister. Seems sus. (Also, is this the first time in the series that Gillen has referenced his earlier work?)

I do appreciate that Makkari doesn’t just leave Ajak in the dust, though. Even if the feeling isn’t mutual, Makkari doesn’t seem to have any beef with the other, and I hope their pilgrimage was enjoyable (even if it was purposefully slow).

These People Again

Karen: Ok so I swear my Don McLean intro wasn’t totally out of left-field – the other half of this issue is a flashback where Ajak takes us waaaaaay into the past to the first time she met… the Avengers. Yep, it’s Jason Aaron’s Avengers BC, a team that posits that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are not a 20th Century invention but instead have a very direct prehistoric precedent. Maybe I’m lacking something joyful in my heart, but this is just another high concept in Aaron’s (currently active) run that I find exhausting. Zoe, am I the problem here, or do you also roll your eyes when these people show up?

Zoe: Oh, I hate them. I love heroic legacies but they have a time and place and I think making The Avengers some sort of primal concept that has existed since the dawn of humanity–and with a bunch of heroes who somehow kept their legacies going for over a million years just does nothing for me at all. And I’m one of the world’s biggest Iron Fist marks! It’s wild!

That said, I think this is probably the best implementation of the concept I’ve read, incorporating the Eternals into the equation and framing the ancient Avengers as being not just completely outclassed, but absolutely ignorant of how out of their depth they are was a pleasant surprise over their usual positioning as being super important and vital to the MU.

Karen: I do admire Gillen being a good sport and playing the cards where they lay. What he and Zama do with the material is quite spectacular, all things considered. Being a flashback, Zama cuts loose with more expressive layouts and ornate borders – each composition deserves a place on the wall.

Basically, this is the first time any Eternal has encountered another super human and so Ajak doesn’t realize that necessitates a fight. She holds her own while the proto-Avengers just smash the tar out of her (Zama draws the bloodshed as black splatters). Of course, as an Eternal, death is no concern for her and she’s recording data about this encounter. Out of everyone, her reaction to Ghost Rider stuck out to me – “you may as well have a Deviant on the team.” The fight scenes in this issue are pretty fascinating, I’ve gotta say.

Gillen and Cowles provide a handy data page of “relevant history” that firmly weaves Kirby and Aaron’s histories of the Marvel Universe, so I suppose we’re really stuck with this.

Zoe: I think it’ll be fine once Aaron’s run ends and they stop showing up every 3 months. Folks’ll move on.

Going back to your comment about Zama’s absurd flourishes during the flashback, the big reveal page that an entire Eternal war party was ready to take out the Avengers at a moment’s notice is the single most gorgeous page of the issue, for me. It’s Kirby by way of the late, great John Paul Leon in just the best way possible.

My favorite little detail from the fight was when Ajak was cataloguing the various members for Eternals records. Between this being the first documented use, as far as I can tell, of the term “Sorcerer Supreme” and Gillen riffing on the tendency to have every kick Iron Fist throws be given a fancy signature attack name by labeling them with strings of reference numbers it was just a delightful little scene to pick apart.

Karen: God yes! The war party! What is that all about?! One of those fun surprises that this run continues to slip in.

So Jealous

Zoe: After the past, we return to the present where Makkari and Ajak arrive at Avengers Mountain to see what the hell is up with the Avengers squatting in a giant Celestial corpse. Ghost Rider, of all people, being the one who has to deal with them cracked me up because that kid has never once had his head above water since he’s hit the big leagues and now he’s got two weird cosmic ladies on his front door yelling at him because they find his house sacreligious. I think this is another case of Gillen spinning straw to gold as he takes the…very fast and loose handling of The Celestials in the first arc of Aaron and McGuinness’ Avengers and uses how wildly unusual it was as justification for Ajak just totally losing it.

Karen: Haha why did they leave Robbie home alone in the Celestial? I recently read his first appearance and I’ve grown to like this Ghost Rider, so I was happy to see him.

Ajak really has a meltdown here. In a way, this is like Makkari all over again, with the Progenitor being the second Space God to threaten her sense of feeling special (after the Dreaming Celestial, of course). The location is even similar to where Ajak fought with Makkari back in the ‘09 series. This time, though, the speedster Eternal knows what’s coming and gets them away from poor Robbie Reyes before he gets hurt.

Again, this fight scene is outstanding. The captions describe something so completely abstract – a “limited bubble reality,” Makkari granting access to the “outer layers of her consciousness” – while the art makes it make sense without taking away any of its grandeur. The best part is that Makkari manages to get through to Ajak at last.

Zoe: When I was reading the pilgrimage sequence I thought “oh, these two are cute, its the grumpy one/sunshine one dynamic.”

Then Makkari whisked Ajak away via an intimate, protective hug, putting her body on the line to try and reason with her and admitting that they are the only two Eternals who could possibly begin to understand each other. Finally, once their fight is over, despite still holding utterly different ideas on the future of Eternal faith, as she sits side by side with Makkari…Ajak feels “less alone for the first time in a long time.”

I ship the absolute hell out of this incredibly doomed romance between two immortal women from two opposing schools of faith and no force on this planet could stop me.

Karen: We ship it big time.

Fitting with the nature of their characters, Makkari is the one who can move forward and Ajak just can not. She calms down enough from feeling jilted by the Celestials, but rather than accepting that they have chosen the Avengers she goes hard in the opposite direction. “I can’t possibly be wrong, so the only answer is they are wrong.” Since the Celestials never say anything outright, Ajak determines that the Avengers misunderstood, and are in fact blaspheming by living inside a dead Space God (tbh it’s pretty tacky). It’s a very super villain road to go down, but I say “fuck ‘em up.”

Zoe: AVENGERS VS. ETERNALS, COMING SUMMER 2022.

I doubt this ends up being a huge crossover monstrosity. Even with a movie on the way The Eternals are still a very small dog in the MU kennel, but I think it’s a fun way to both push them into a bit more prominence and also remind folks that the Eternals are a force to be reckoned with. Even the current powerhouse Avengers team would have a challenge taking out even just half-a-dozen determined Eternals, let alone the entire host. It’s a fun angle on smashing the toys together!

Karen: Like I said, I’m here for it lol. This is a lovely pin to put down in the map of Gillen’s grand plans for the Eternals. The issue ends with another glib “I’m sure that will work out” from the Machine narrator which, at this point, is maybe a note that has been struck too many times.

Zoe: I love a good Gillen snark but yeah it’s a very familiar string to pull and I’m hoping The Machine throttles it back a touch as Season 2 is on the horizon.

Karen: I really am quite fond of this issue, especially for how deftly it handled the aspects I was least excited about. It really was an Ajak showcase, and if anything I do wish we had gotten slightly more from Makkari. I don’t think this is a criticism as much as I’m saying I want more of this character who Gillen has positioned under a very intriguing light. I don’t have any doubt we will see much more from her moving forward

Zoe: 2022: The Year of Ajarri, you heard it here first.

Marvelous Musings

I REALLY want to meet the Delphan Mother!
Something something that time Sersi turned her body into Makkari…
As much as I miss her old hat, Ajak’s new outfit is probably my favorite of the new designs. It’s SO good.
I was just about to say something about Kirby hats! We do still get to see the classic look here, which Zama handles expertly.
I like that Ajak and Makkari meet a nice polar bear
Just a big fuzzy murder friend.