The fantastic comic book artist Jack Kirby created The Eternals in the late 70s, with the first comic released nearly forty years ago. In 2006, writer Neil Gaiman and artist John Romita Jr teamed up for a limited run that kept the spirit of Kirby’s Eternals alive but with some modernization. This week, the motion comic derived from this 2006 run was released on under the Marvel Knights brand. I had never heard of The Eternals, old or new, before receiving this DVD for review. While I’m sure I would be able to critique this release better had I been familiar with the Eternals, I’m nonetheless able to say that I didn’t feel lost while watching Eternals.
So the motion comic is comprised of ten episodes, each lasting about ten minutes, making for a feature that’s just shy of ninety minutes. Unfortunately, you cannot watch these episodes seamlessly, i.e., like a continuous movie. Even if you “Play All” you’re still going to have to sift through the opening and close credits for every episode, which seems to me to a completely avoidable nuisance. The story isn’t necessarily hard to follow, but just imagine trying to watch a typical ninety minute movie and having to fast forward every ten minutes for several seconds.
Anyway, it’s not too hard to get passed that, and the story and artwork are certainly worth the the “trouble.” Mark Curry, an over-worked medical student, is introduced in the first episode. He’s well on his way to becoming a doctor, but one day he encounters a man named Ike Harris who tries to tell Mark that they’re both essentially demigods that were created by the Celestials who first inhabited earth. Mark believes the man is crazy, initially. The Eternals were created by the Celestials to protect Earth. They’re tasked with protecting the Earth from the Deviants, a race of creatures who are in many ways opposite to the Eternals. The Deviants intend to awaken one of the Celestials who has been asleep, on a remote part of the Earth. This, they believe, will help them rule the Earth. Ike Harris tries to assemble the various members of The Eternals but strangely none of them seem to remember who they are, where they are from. This is because of another, jealous “younger” Eternal we find out later.
Most of the motion comic is about the characters and their development, with only a fraction of the events centered on combat, which I thought was perfectly fine. Getting to know these characters felt worthwhile for the most part. Romita Jr’s artwork compliments the writing nicely and, frankly, the episodes are short enough it’s nigh impossible to get bored before the next one starts. And while I don’t see myself watching it again anytime soon, the ninety minutes spent watching Eternals was worth it.
Shout!’s DVD release is, like the other Marvel Knights DVDs in years past, sufficiently well done. A very slim, all cardboard case contains the disc and showcases the artwork on all four covers. Image and sound quality are fine, nothing extraordinary. There is actually one extra feature too that runs just over ten minutes and it features artist John Romita, Jr who talks about his respect for Jack Kirby and Neil and the story of how he and Neil came together on this project. It’s a smoothly paced, informative interview that adds nicely to the overall release. I just wish there were an option to watch all of the episodes together like one movie.
And with that, let’s get to the summary…
