Thor #288 and Thor: The Eternals Saga vol 1 TPB (1979)

Holy cow, Roy Thomas is awesome. This first Eternals Saga trade of Thor comics has totally turned me around on the long-lived characters. When I was a kid reading the Marvel Universe Handbooks, I thought "Uni-mind? Gross!" Now I think it's awesome! Kirby came up with a fantastic origin for the Eternals, but Thomas seems to be the guy who integrated them perfectly into the Marvel Universe.

This issue has the Forgotten One (who we later know as Gilgamesh) show up to be the champion of the Celestials. He wants to allow them to finish their 50-year judgment of Earth. (Incidentally, surely Marvel will do something to play off this in 2027, right?) Thor and the rest of the Eternals want him stopped, so naturally Thor and "Hero" as he's known here thrown down. I love it, what good is that possibly going to do? When things start getting dicey, the lead Celestial actually teleports Thor and Hero up to his ship (I think so they can destroy more impressive looking Kirby technology). I love seeing Thor give props to all his strong opponents in this story. He's constantly talking about how noble and great Hero is. Actually, Ikaris does it too, at one point stating that comparing his and Thor's strength is like comparing two mighty mastodons. That's tremendous, I think I'll use that.

In any case, this whole trade is packed with awesome ideas. Luchador Deviants facing off against luchador Eternals. An alliance of Zeus and Odin to take on the Eternals. Makkari vs. Mercury. Thena vs. Athena. Ikaris vs. Ares.

Keith Pollard and Chic Stone do a tremendous job making the Eternals look awesome. Thor always comes off well, but I love how they handle his hammer-tossing flight. And the covers by Pollard and Bob Layton are stunning. I highly recommend this trade for fans of classic Marvel.

Excellent

Eternals: Manifest Destiny TPB

What a colossal disapointment. The Knaufs had done a wonderful job picking up after Neil Gaiman's relaunch, so seeing everything peter out like this is really depressing. The first Eternals trade was filled with awesome re-imaginings and fascinating new personalities for some of the Eternals. Thena was a caring mother. Ajak was a schemer and not to be trusted. Phastos cared more about his mortal life than his Eternal one. It was a fantastic set up.

But I have to assume the Knaufs sort of gave up when the book was cancelled.

There is no resolution to Ajak's betrayal of Makkari. There is no explanation for new Eternals like Viralkin and Vampiro showing up. Sersi's fate is never explained. Heck, the whole point of the series was the Eternals facing off against the Horde, and that gets breezed over. We have to assume the Eternals won since the last issue takes place a hundred years in the future. What a mess. Why bother reading any of these if we were just going to assume the Dreaming Celestial took care of it? This is the worst conclusion I've seen since Unbreakable. I know the Knaufs can do better. Heck, there is one great idea in this trade. When Ikaris wants to take on Druig's faction without involving the rest of the polar Eternals, he drafts the X-Men. That's a fun idea and the Knaufs handle it well. Again, I've got to assume they weren't interested in speeding up their conclusion, so they just skipped it.

The art is inconsistent. Eric Nguyen draws most of the regular series material, and he's fine, although a huge step down from Daniel Acuna's visionary pencils in the first volume.

The Eternals annual is reprinted here too. Fred Van Lente and Pascal Alixe tell a perfectly acceptable filler type story, but when the riveting main plot is not going to get any resolution, I can't make myself care about pages that could have furthered the core storyline.

Poor

Incredible Hercules: Secret Invasion TPB

By switching to the trade on so many of my favorite comics, I'm always worried that I'm going to accidentally spoil thinks for myself. I've been really worried about that happening with Hercules, since I loved the first storyline so much. I did accidentally hear about Snowbird's involvement with the God Squad (Herc's team of anti-Skrull deities in this story) and I had also found out which member of the Squad was secretly a Skrull. But I actually had avoided finding out the full lineup of the squad, specifically that it included my favorite Eternal Ajak. The God Squad idea is a tremendous one, and Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente do a fantastic job developing the rival Skrull gods. I actually think the evil deities in this would have been a better reveal for Secret Invasion than the silly God statement that Queen Veranke dropped in the core series. The God Squad was neat too, I love Snowbird's look, so having her show up anywhere is fine with me. I'm not sure I entirely understand why the Demogorge made himself look like an Egyptian god though, I was never exactly clear on that. Amadeus Cho is growing on me too, he's seeming a lot more like a hero with flaws than a super-villain, in the first trade he was basically a bad guy. I like seeing him kind of deal with that in this trade. The use of the Eternals as guest stars was a neat idea and I'm really quite taken with Athena in this manipulator/ally role. She seems like a character that could get a lot more development and has quite a bit of potential.

This comic is trucking along nicely. I hope the sales hold up so we keep getting this fix of Herc for a good long while.

The JRJR covers were fantastic, and Rafa Sandoval does nice work throughout. He's not fantastic, and his use of the Ajak re-design is a little tame, but overall the book looks good.

Good