The Omni-Evil is Revealed in Eternals: The Heretic!

Thanos comes face-to-face with Marvel’s true Darkseid, the omni-genocidal Uranos in Eternals: The Heretic #1, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Ryan Bodenheim and Edgar Salazar, colored by Chris O’Halloran, and lettering/design by Clayton Cowles.

Karen Charm: We’ve been looking forward to talking about this one for a while, but its arrival is bittersweet. Artist Ryan Bodenheim passed away halfway through drawing this issue at the age of 44. As much as we love these comic characters, I never want to overshadow the importance of the people who make them for us. It’s completely heartbreaking, and I feel immense sympathy for everyone who knew and loved Ryan. I believe condolences can be directed to this page. I can’t presume to know how he would feel, but as an artist I think it is meaningful that we have Bodenheim’s art still with us to enjoy, and I’m grateful to talk about some of it with you, Zoe.

Zoe Tunnell: It’s tragic and I truly just don’t have any half-way clever thing to say about it. Ryan was a fantastic artist, as this issue showcases, and I have nothing but sympathy and condolences for his loved ones. I’m glad we get to talk about this last piece of work from him, as it is well worth praise.

The Underworld

Karen: The issue kicks off with me being happy to see Valkin, Druig’s dad and Ikaris’ uncle, in his classic, owl-ish helmet. Thanos is wasting no time into his dictatorship by tossing his opponents and dissenters into cages.

Zoe: Thanos is gonna Thanos. Valkin is a fun choice here as he is just about as Heroic of an Eternal as you can find outside of the main cast. Which means he’s entirely out of his depth with Thanos and Druig, they run circles around idealistic heroes like its a hobby.

Even more fun than that, however, is The World’s reaction to Uranos entering the conversation. Its probably my favorite bit of twee narration in the whole run so far, having it actually leave the issue because it’s so damn creeped out by Uranos is both an incredible gag and a shockingly effective tonal shift for the special. Loved it.

Karen: I’m going to confess, the narration here reminded me of you haha. But yes, the fact that it doesn’t return is the kind of detail I lose my mind over. All we’re left with is the grim, ever darkening reality of what secrets are kept in these prisons buried deep in the Earth. I didn’t notice until my second read-through the crystal skull cavern that Uranos is locked away behind, perfect for the Worst Guy Ever.

A few things about this sequence. One, Chris O’Halloran is amazing in this issue. The atmospheric iciness of this scene is wonderful. Bodenheim’s style is very clean, giving the colorist plenty of canvas to show off. Two, speaking of Bodenheim, I think this is my favorite Druig has looked throughout this entire run. Finally, I love the design for Uranos. The vents on his shoulders, his cracked face, the texture of his cowl. I assume this is another great contribution from Bodenheim, but whether he designed the look or not, he draws it perfectly.

Zoe: I’m going to have to sit down and process “the snarky world-mind AI reminded me of you” for a bit later but for now: I absolutely agree. The vents in particular made me go “oh shit this RULES” in a way comic design facets rarely do. It’s a very tactile, physical part of his design and when it is deployed as a build-up to him doing something terrible it hit me in the same way as the wind picking up or earth shaking before a big anime power-up. Bodenheim executed it just perfectly, which is tricky as hell for the medium.

Karen: Face to face, Thanos and Uranos begin a BDE-off. Each tries to manipulate the other to getting what he wants without giving up anything. I already love how Gillen is writing Uranos, the way he gets right to the point – ”let me out.” Thanos wins this first round at least, betting on the elder Eternal’s pride in his awful exploits.

Jack Kirby’s Thanos

Zoe: The bulk of the issue leaves Thanos behind as Uranos tells his own account of The Heresy rather than allow it to be filtered via Druig’s delivery. Hey, Karen? I get why The World was creeped out now.

Karen: No kidding. Like the other “specials” we’ve gotten so far, this one gives us an extended history lesson establishing the world these Eternals inhabit. Uranos’ tale is a little surprising as he refers to a time when Eternals and Deviants existed before homo sapiens. The classic Kirby lore has them all created at roughly the same time but I don’t quite remember if there has been anything before this to contradict that. It’s entirely possible.

We just saw in Eternals #9 the tragic aspect of the directive to “correct excess deviation,” but for Uranos it’s more Sisyphean than anything else. He feels nothing for the Deviants but tedium and this is his motivation for finding a way out of his programming.

Zoe: The scene we get where his programming kicks in and he is just...bored by the whole thing is straight up chilling. Saving a Deviant family, looking a breathlessly kind parent in the eye as they say that they know it was just his programming but they’re still grateful and then burning them all to ash with a blink was a hell of a thing to see. Even more, it wasn’t cackling villainy. It was evil, monstrous even, but Uranos reacts as if he did little more than make a slight mess.

It makes the following conversation, where he tells Thanos that his devotion to Death is little more than a glorified school-boy crush and, ultimately, simply another prison akin to the one the Eternals find themselves in, ring true. Uranos is not an Eternal prone to hollow bragging or grand speeches, he simply says what he feels is true. It’s just that that truth is utterly horrifying.

Karen: That’s right. So direct and single-minded. At some point in the lead-up to this issue, there were analogies being made (perhaps by Gillen himself) between Uranos and Darkseid. I admit I’ve not yet read any of Kirby’s Fourth World or much DC stuff at all so I can’t say how well that tracks. However. I think it’s an interesting lens to view this addition to the mythos, especially considering how much Jim Starlin’s Thanos feels like a Jack Kirby character. Darkseid is the real deal, and is completely obsessed with math and destruction (also, like Uranos, a fan of a nice seat). I will leave it up to the DC fans to pass final Judgment, but I am pretty pleased with the one we’ve got over in these pages.

Zoe: I’ve read a fair bit of Fourth World stuff (I’d never call myself an expert, though, go yell at Ritesh if you want that pedigree) and I think the comparison holds up. A key facet of Darkseid, to me, is that he is. All that Darkseid is, it is in service of being The Most Darkseid. He has no sympathetic origins. He has no hidden depths of mercy or flicker of humanity. He is the crushing weight of fascist, despotic rule and pain and nothing more or less. Uranos is the same in his convictions. He isn’t angry with the Deviants or even his fellow Eternals. He’s simply tired and annoyed that he’s the only one with the commitment to follow through.

To further solidify the comparison, there’s a specific bit of dialogue Uranos has: “Come! I am Uranos! I am the dungeon where all lights fail! Join me! We will rule together or die!” That just oozes Kirby to me to the point I think it was an intentional nod. The “I am the tiger-force at the core of all things” of it all.

Karen: That scene, drawn by Edgar Salazar, is great because it could easily be taking place on the Astral Plane (like we saw in Eternals: Celestia) or just a floating door somewhere. I want to give proper credit and appreciation to Salazar for his work here. The scenes between Thanos and Uranos are quite good.

Unilaterally Assured Destruction

Uranos gives Thanos the key to destroying the Machine.

Karen: So we find out about what ideas Uranos has and they’re outrageously evil. I imagine Gillen had some fun trying to come up with the worst possible villain he could. This data page outlines Uranos’ extrapolation of the Eternals’ programming with all roads leading to “omni-genocide.” Protect the Machine? Murder everything on and around the planet. Protect the Celestials? Enslave the Space Gods so that they won’t get into trouble. Turns out his earlier critique of Thanos’ half-measures wasn’t just a cute diss – Uranos wants to turn the entire universe into dust.

Zoe: Honestly I’m more than a little in awe of this swing. Not because Uranos’ plan is anything but ABSOLUTELY MONSTROUS but because Gillen somehow found a way to raise the stakes from Thanos’ schemes of genocide without it reeking of needless escalation and edginess.

Whenever a “oh the bigger, older version of ____ villain” story hits I always dread this sort of plot beat. It frequently feels awkward and even more frequently makes the existing villain feel lessened in the process. The Uranos Doctrine does neither and has me excited and utterly terrified for what’s on the horizon for Judgement Day.

Karen: This issue is so well sequenced. The reader is guided by the hand to understanding who Uranos is and why he thinks the way he does, but then we’re still shocked by the gall of his conclusions. It’s still completely believable based on everything Gillen has laid out about Eternals throughout this run. The majority of Eternals don’t care much about humans or Deviant life, and we’ve picked up glimpses of this Urranite schism since early on. The more pieces we put together, the more I feel like we’re only about 20% done with this puzzle.

Perhaps the most shocking of all is the way Uranos has boobytrapped himself. As he gloats to his brothers, “I play the longest of games…” To avoid the complete destruction of the planet, Kronos and Oceanus are forced into a permanent state of check with their brother.

Zoe: As delightful as his cosmic dead man’s trigger is, a fun mirror to a similar role Thanos himself played back in Annihilation, the final reveal is my favorite. Since they first laid eyes on each other, Uranos treats Thanos with an utterly unconcealed disdain. But after Druig is shooed away, we learn that it was all a ruse maintained in front of the resident Eternal schemer.

He gives Thanos the keys to the kingdom. Well, the destruction of life as we know it. All because Thanos is the one single Eternal Uranos doesn’t view as a disappointment. He may not be as strong in his convictions as Uranos may like, but its impossible to miss that Thanos is very much his grandfather’s boy.

Karen: I wonder about that! There’s so much open to interpretation with the dialogue in this comic, I feel. My reading on this was more manipulation on Uranos’ part. I completely see him as the kind of self-absorbed patriarch who hurls out insults before trying to take you into their confidence. I also am of two-minds about Thanos’ final line, where he decides to call Uranos “grandfather.” On the surface, we can see this as Thanos choosing to correct the error of his lineage and write a more fitting family tree for himself. But the self-satisfied smile on Uranos’ face makes me wonder if Thanos is just continuing to butter him up. These men, I swear, indecipherable. Just go to therapy.

It is pretty alarming that Thanos has access to the doomsday weapon, though, lending some weight to his muttering in Eternals #10, “as if I needed another reason to destroy this pitiful planet.”

Zoe: Karen, if these scary meat men went to therapy then we wouldn’t have any comic books and I’d be playing video games right now. Truly, a better time.

Karen: We could have comics about therapy!! An argument for another time. This issue feels pretty straightforward on the surface but when you start looking close you can see it lacing fine threads of gold throughout the grand epic Gillen is crafting for the Eternals. Few other issues in this run have made me want to go back to the start to find new meaning in previous data pages and off-hand phrasing.

Zoe: OH GOD WE DIDN’T EVEN MENTION HOW THE MATRIARCHS HAD THEIR DATA ERASED FROM THE ARCHIVE KAREN WE GOTTA START OVER!!

Karen: AHHH- – –

Marvelous Musings

One interesting thing about how Eternal families work is that even though someone like Druig is two generations removed from Uranos, they’ve existed for the same amount of time. So when we learn that Druig was the one who betrayed Uranos back in the day, it’s a surprise that shouldn’t have been at all.
I can’t wait to see more of Oceanus.
Uranos kind of looks like Josh Brolin.
The sadness surrounding this comic only deepens when you realize that the last page Ryan Bodenheim draws is Uranos vaporizing an entire city of Deviants. It’s a mostly wordless page, equally beautiful and gutting. Rest in peace.
It’s honestly a little uncomfortable given the subject matter, even knowing it’s sheer bad luck that it worked out that way. But even that can’t detract from how incredible his work on this issue was. Just outstanding stuff.