Eternals by Neil Gaiman

Eternals by Neil Gaiman


I am not a prolific reader of graphic novels. So, I get lost when we move beyond the top tier of superheroes. However, with the Eternals movie coming out, I thought I'd get a preview.

So, apparently, a million years ago a group of Very Advanced Beings - maybe God (or gods) - called “Celestials” came to Earth and designed three species of humanity, Homo Deviant, Homo Immortalis, and just us, “Vanilla Humans.” The Deviants are individually different with tentacles, claws, teeth, bad body odor, and a tyrannical attitude. The immortals are “Eternals” who are beautiful, super-powered, and have good hygiene habits. Plain vanilla humans are stupid. The Eternals have names like Ikarus, Makuri, Thena, etc., and were the corresponding gods of ancient human civilizations.

That is a complicated backstory, but it gets worse. It seems that the Eternals have lost their memory because of the machinations of one of their number, who wants to grow older than 11. We get an introduction to the main Eternals. The Eternals is set in the Avenger universe so Iron Man and Wasp play a role.

The writing is supposedly done by Neil Gaiman, but I didn't discern anything particularly Gaimanesque about it.

If you are a reader of this genre, you may like this. On the other hand, I'm not sure I need to complicate my life with another layer of myth.