31: Eternally Dumped

The Eternals #5-8 (1986)

Pencils: Sal Buscema
Inks: Sal Buscema, Danny Bulanadi

In this middle act of the story, Kro steals the essence of a Celestial from Ikaris' vault, but it winds up in the wrong scaly hands of Ghaur. Thena rescues her ex Kro from certain death at Ikaris' hands, so the rekindled lovers end up on the run from Eternal and Deviant alike. The mismatched pair make an oddly charming couple, risking all for a forbidden love. Again, the action zips along at a fair old pace, although there's more room here for character introspection. There's a particularly affecting scene where Ikaris recalls his son of the same name. Gillis always seems stronger and more comfortable in these quiet moments.

Kirby's Eternals, humans and Deviants can easily be dismissed as counterparts to angels, humans and demons, but Gillis offered a more complex view. To him the divides mirror the class struggle, or to dig deeper, the id, ego and superego. Which is why he was keen to provide a balanced viewpoint from all three sides of the equation. He explores the Deviants society in more depth, giving them a valid motivation for their struggle against what they see as their oppressors, the Eternals and their bosses the godlike Celestials. His Kro is a particularly fascinating character, who despite his power hungry ways, clearly cares deeply for his downtrodden people and Thena. 

Issue 8 features a farcical fancy dress party organised by Sersi, where pretty much the whole cast, plus a few super guests make an appearance. By now the mystery of Ghaur's plan, plus Thena and Kro's narrow escapes from their pursuers are beginning to wear thin. For all its action and character juggling, there's not a lot of discernible depth to the main driving plotline. Although we'll never know exactly where Peter Gillis was going with it, as he was abruptly fired off the book with four issues still to go.

It's never been made clear exactly why Gillis was fired from Eternals, as Marvel never made any mention of it at the time. One thing seems clear, the decision was taken by the man who first hired him:

"Jim Shooter and I had a very weird relationship... He called me up once to say, this is the best story that Marvel has put out this year. But then he fired me off Eternals." 

Peter Sanderson also attributed the firing to Shooter, who "disliked Gillis' scripts". Shooter had previously pulled his Black Panther mini from the presses, and by the mid 80's had a reputation for increasingly arbitrary decisions over comics he felt didn't meet his storytelling rules or expectations. What offended him about Gillis' Eternals remains a mystery. Maybe the light hearted party issue poked a little too much fun for his liking. The dismissal was such short notice, that even Marvel Age listed Peter Gillis as the writer of issues 9 & 10. 

Thor writer and Eternals #1 and 2 cover artist Walt Simonson was brought on to finish the series, with artist Sal Buscema heading the other way, replacing him as Thor penciller. The other Eternals cover artist Keith Pollard penciled issues 10 & 11, with Paul Ryan finishing off the double sized finale. Simonson performed a perfunctory wrap up of the series, considering he had no knowledge of what Gillis had in mind. "I read the preceding issues and then tried to figure out where they would lead logically and dramatically." said Simonson. A lot of the lighter Gillis touches are bludgeoned out for more run of the mill super melodrama. There are several things about Simonson's disappointing conclusion that particularly rankle: 

• Ikaris' human girlfriend Margo is brainwashed by Ghaur, then killed off for shock value. 
• Gillis' addition Dave is also killed off in a needless heroic sacrifice.
• The cause of Thena's love for Kro is attributed to a brain mine he implanted on her, which cheapens and invalidates everything Gillis had developed with the characters.
• Ghaur's master plan turns out to be nothing more than turning himself into a Celestial, so the final issue is a seen it all before battle between a ridiculous looking giant Ghaur, Eternals, and limelight stealing guest stars the Avengers.

If you're wondering what Peter Gillis originally had planned for the final act, as ever Amazing Heroes provides some tantilising hints:

"We will explain a lot about what the Deviant priests are up to, what the Forgotten One is up to, the origin of Phastos and what his torment is." Issues 9-12 "will give you more of an idea of what the Celestials really have in mind for Earth. Thena's mother Cybele will be introduced, and there will be changes in both the Reject and in Sersi's friend Dave Chatterton."

As for Ghaur's master plan... "it's basically one of the more grotesque and disgusting ideas I've ever come up with, and one with which Ghaur plans to gain enough power to challenge even the Celestials."

My theory is that Ghaur was going to combine the Celestial essence with the thousands of rejected Deviants the priests had gathered into one writhing humongous mass of flesh form, large and powerful enough to combat other Celestials. Instead we just got giant Ghaur and an ineffectual zombie Deviant army. 

"By the end of issue #12, there will be a considerable change for both the Eternals and the Deviants. Whether The Eternals will continue after the end of these 12 issues is as yet undecided."

Needless to say, it didn't continue, and the Eternals quietly returned to limbo. What began as a dream project for Peter Gillis ended up souring his relationship with Marvel for good.

32: Shattered Hopes