At the 7-11 Where I Was Taught

Ah, what a great thing it was to be a kid in the suburbs in the 1970's. As much as I love Rush and their whole "Subdivisions" thing, I have a pretty nostalgic view of growing up in the wilds of the just-being-developed land of Milwaukie, Oregon.

F'rinstance: what better way to spend a sunny summer day than to walk through the safe confines of your subdivision down to the 7-11 at the corner of Linwood and Harmony road (a bit of a busy street, but not so bad Mom had to go along) to see what the inconsistently-stocked comics rack had to offer. All you needed was thirty cents -- thirty cents!!! -- and it was likely you would find something to fill your afternoon with fun and excitement. Considering comics now generally cost about ten times that and arent anywhere near as interesting for the most part, I mean, what a bargain!

One such find for me was The Eternals #15. While I was well aware of who Jack Kirby was from my copies of Origins of Marvel Comics and its sequels, and from the odd issue of Kamandi and Omac that passed my way in those days (generally dismissed because they were from -- sniff -- DC) I did not yet know the power of his more cosmic works. The whole Fourth World had come and gone before I ever bought my first superhero comic book, so his attempt at cosmic grandeur that came from Marvel got me totally under the radar.

In one issue - and believe me Eternals #15: "Disaster Area" is far from the best work Kirby ever did -- I knew I had something different, something really special, unlike any other comics I had seen. Who were these strange, godlike beings, the Eternals -- eye-blasting Ikaris, speedster Makarri, molecular manipulator Sersi -- who somehow found themselves fighting an accidentally cosmically-powered Hulk robot (it works when you see it)? There was so much energy, so much movement, so much action in every panel. I was hooked. I started buying every issue, only to have the series cancelled with number 19. Undaunted, I began seeking the first 14 issues, where I discovered the epic opera of giant alien gods coming to earth to judge mankind, and of the secret races of genetically unstable Deviants and immortal Eternals vying for supremacy. Eternals led me to 2001, to Captain America, to New Gods, to Mister Miracle....I would say Eternals #15 is the book that made me a collector.


Interestingly enough, the whole robot Hulk thing was a sore spot with fans of the book, who questioned whether the Eternals fit within the Marvel Universe of on-going stories, or were their own seperate world. Finally, the Hulk arrives, seeming to point to the stories being within the MU, but Ol' Greenskin turns out to be just a robot cooked up by two overzealous grad students. Later, in The Mighty Thor, Roy Thomas would bring the Eternals into Marvel with a long arc that involved the retelling of the Ring of the Nieblung, but it wasn't Kirby's story and therefore not the same, as is usually the case. Largely, the Eternals have been either ignored or handled badly since, though a 12-issue mini-series in the '90's did a pretty good job.

But that original 19-issue run (plus one annual) still holds up to this day as great cosmic storytelling and the best of Jack Kirby.