This is the third Eternals book and it’s the third one that just can’t seem to make me care about The Eternals. But it comes about as close as possible.
The godlike Eternals have had their histories and powers erased, and live as humans in the modern world. We see them wrestling with human things like jobs and being a parent, while at the same time generally being “deep thinkers” and wrestling with the meaning of God.
Of course they “wake up,” and we see them clashing once again with the Deviants, but this time the races take different approaches to spirituality–and their war is one over what it means to worship the Celestials. Their various “wake up” scenes are some of the best parts of this book, like when Thena is suddenly restored and her child becomes a foreign thing to her…
Being a God, apparently, takes away the attachments of motherhood.
Across the series, it is clearly trying to slowly build to something big. But Marvel editorial forces him to crowbar a Secret Wars crossover into the narrative.
And then the book ends before it really goes anywhere. Marvel gave Gaiman another shot at the team in a 2021 online comic, and it was a bit better than this series.
With a script by Neil Gaiman and art by John Romita, Jr., these characters have certainly never been better and … I just don’t care. This is the best Eternals book I’ve read so far, but it is far from the best Neil Gaiman comic I’ve read.
The Eternals are just not my cuppa tea.