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Post by profh0011 on Mar 5, 2021 16:09:37 GMT -5
In a related mindset, I'm reminded of how years back, in interviews, John Byrne seemed to think HE and HE ALONE was the "only one" who ever wrote any of JACK KIRBY's creations properly.
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Post by berkley on Mar 5, 2021 18:03:34 GMT -5
Anyway, getting back to Kirby's Eternals once again: there are a lot of little things that will seem strange or irrelevant or just escape notice altogether if you're looking at it through the lens of superhero comics, and one of the most importantis this attitude towards science. Since in superhero comics the power fantasy is usually paramount, science tends to be seen in terms of technology (e.g. the ultimate nullifier) or in knowledge that enables the hero to defeat the villain or the villain to temporarily get the upper hand over the hero. In the Eternals, science and knowledge are ends in themselves, not instruments to achieve victory over the enemy - unless perhaps in the figurative sense of achieving victory over ourselves. As Ikaris says, "We shall see them [the Space Gods] ... and in doing so, learn more about ourselves than we have ever known." This quest for knowledge is noted as a characteristic of the Eternals from the beginnning: "The Eternals took to the highest mountain-tops. They probed the universe with their minds ...". It is also recognised by others, e.g. the powerful, mind-controlling Deviant Dromedan: "Not even the edge of doom can keep you Eternals from your love of wisdom! Then take it with you - into the realm of micro-particles!"
As we can see from that last quote, it isn't just an idle whim, it's something of supreme importance. Ikaris again, in response to Kro's warning that the Space Gods' arrival will bring doom to Ikaris and his human friends as well as to the Deviants: "So be it. There is risk in solving a mystery!" That this mystery is symbolised by the Celestials is something made clear over and over again, e.g. Ajak's words to Doctor Damian in #4: "Behold! It's one of the Celestial Host. To merely see him is to wonder at the marvels that lie among the stars!".
So how we go about solving this mystery? The answer once again is science, the quest for knowledge. And that answer is often expressed in ways that will feel very strange to anyone reading the Eternals as a superhero story. Thena: "Humans must learn the entire story about their relationship to the Space Gods and our two species! But it must be revealed first to academic sources - who can analyse and verfy the facts!" What, academic sources? We don't need no academic sources, we got Reed Richards, we got Tony Stark! All we gotta do is steal some Celestial tech and turn it against them, end of story!
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 5, 2021 18:36:32 GMT -5
The "Peter Pan Syndrome" (as I like to call it) continues.
When I watched the Mary Martin stage play for the first time in decades, in the late 80s, I realized it was aimed at 2 distinct and very different audiences: little kids, and adults-- and NOBODY in between.
And when I re-read Kirby's late-70s CAPTAIN AMERICA run in the early 90s, I suddenly realized, from a more mature perspective, that he was doing the same thing.
And THAT explained to me WHY "Marvel" fans generally didn't like-- or even understand-- his work. He WASN'T WRITING FOR THEM.
Adolsecents or teenagers tend to think they "know it all" and want to put "kids stuff" behind them. But they're not really as mature in their thinking as they think they are.
A big problem I noticed in the industry, was people who became professionals TOO early in life. They hadn't really matured-- and once they became pros, they suddenly never had to. They (and their fans) grew to be in their 60s and beyond, many never having evolved past their teenage mentalities or attitudes.
It's no wonder JACK KIRBY comics totally baffle them.
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Post by berkley on Mar 5, 2021 19:52:32 GMT -5
I wouldn't want to paint everyone with too broad a brush. I think there is something to what you say in the limited sense of the attitude many readers bring to comics that they see as part of the superhero genre. In the case of creators like Gaiman and Gillen, who have demonstrated a high level of maturity and ability in their solo work, I think it's more a matter of them tailoring their work-for-hire to the demands of their employers, and yes, perhaps of their perceived audience.
So yes, I do think they have seriously mis-read Kirby's Eternals because they're looking at it from the perspective of Marvel, Inc rather than reading it on its own terms and trying to see what it was all about as an independent work.
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Post by Duragizer on Mar 5, 2021 21:47:09 GMT -5
In a related mindset, I'm reminded of how years back, in interviews, John Byrne seemed to think HE and HE ALONE was the "only one" who ever wrote any of JACK KIRBY's creations properly. That's Byrne on every character he's ever written.
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Post by berkley on Mar 6, 2021 23:26:50 GMT -5
BTW, I hope all this isn't coming across the wrong way, i.e. as a put-down of superhero comics and their fans. I'm a fan myself, I read superhero comics and enjoy them just fine. I'm just trying to make the case that reading Kirby's Eternals as a superhero comic is doing it a disservice because the series was operating under a whole different set of premises, so everything is going to be misunderstood if the reader interprets it according to the conventions of the superhero genre. If my language seems a little sarcastic at times, it's in response to some really awful things I've seen elsewhere online - not here - and to the various Eternals guest appearances or dedicated series since Kirby that IMO have pretty much without exception showed what seems to me a deplorable ignorance of and indifference to the original they claim to be inspired by.
Anyway, enough of that. I might take a bit of a side-track next and talk about one of the most important figures of the Kirby series, Thena, as I see that she makes an appearance in the previews for the next issue of the Gillen series. I think this is possibly the single most important individual character in terms of the underlying themes of the Eternals concept, though it's a little misleading to say that as it is through and through an ensemble piece, with no single hero or protagonist - Marvel's predeliction for Ikaris notwithstanding. And like so much else about the Eternals, I think this character has been seriously misunderstood and poorly written by later Eternals writers. From the preview and a brief comment Gillen made in a recent interview, it looks to me that his version will not be an exception, so I'd like to get into the details of what makes the Thena character so crucial to the Eternals concept before the new issue comes out.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 7, 2021 9:54:02 GMT -5
We get you berkley. Kirby had interests well beyond super heroes. Most of his post Marvel work was not super heroes. He was telling other stories. His decades long career was as varied as they com. Certainly he did not regard, New Gods, Forever People, Kamandi, The Demon, Eternals....as superhero books.
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 7, 2021 20:05:22 GMT -5
The " Peter Pan Syndrome" (as I like to call it) continues. When I watched the Mary Martin stage play for the first time in decades, in the late 80s, I realized it was aimed at 2 distinct and very different audiences: little kids, and adults-- and NOBODY in between. And when I re-read Kirby's late-70s CAPTAIN AMERICA run in the early 90s, I suddenly realized, from a more mature perspective, that he was doing the same thing. And THAT explained to me WHY "Marvel" fans generally didn't like-- or even understand-- his work. He WASN'T WRITING FOR THEM. Adolsecents or teenagers tend to think they "know it all" and want to put "kids stuff" behind them. But they're not really as mature in their thinking as they think they are. A big problem I noticed in the industry, was people who became professionals TOO early in life. They hadn't really matured-- and once they became pros, they suddenly never had to. They (and their fans) grew to be in their 60s and beyond, many never having evolved past their teenage mentalities or attitudes. It's no wonder JACK KIRBY comics totally baffle them. Good point. I'd have loved Devil Dinosaur if I'd first encountered it at 8 instead of 18. And despite following it at the time, I didn't come to fully appreciate The Eternals until I'd reached middle age.
Cei-U! I summon the perspective!
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 13, 2021 18:45:13 GMT -5
The Eternals is one of my great comic blind spots; though I've long been aware of them I've never read the actual book by Kirby...or any the subsequent tries to write them, but I really liked Esad Ribic's art and Gillen's written some good books in the past so I decided to pick it up this week and I've actually really enjoyed the story thus far. Maybe I would find it flawed if I read the original but as someone just coming in blind it's a well done book that has a great mix of science fiction and fantasy which I really enjoy.
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 13, 2021 22:06:36 GMT -5
I don't care much for "overdone coloring", which smothers the linework... but when Dean White, or, in this case, GIORGIO COMOLO repaints a comic-book panel from scratch while being absolutely faithful to the drawing... that's something else!
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Post by berkley on Mar 14, 2021 18:05:44 GMT -5
The Eternals is one of my great comic blind spots; though I've long been aware of them I've never read the actual book by Kirby...or any the subsequent tries to write them, but I really liked Esad Ribic's art and Gillen's written some good books in the past so I decided to pick it up this week and I've actually really enjoyed the story thus far. Maybe I would find it flawed if I read the original but as someone just coming in blind it's a well done book that has a great mix of science fiction and fantasy which I really enjoy. I can only judge it in terms of the original and from that perspective I think it's a complete disaster. As its own thing ... I think I still wouldn't like it much, but as I say, I find it nearly impossible to imagine how it would read to me if I had never seen the Kirby series. The latest issue, for example, writes Thena as a love-sick teenage girl whose number 1 concern is her latest boyfriend, whoever that happens to be. I think I would find this annoying even if it was an original creation of Gillen's but in comparison with Kirby's character it's an absolute mess.
As for Ribic's artwork, some beautiful backgrounds, settings, etc but the characters look terrible to me, with strangely ugly faces and weird expressions.
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 14, 2021 22:14:36 GMT -5
In a better world, creators would OWN and have COMPLETE control over series they created. NOBODY would follow them, unless THEY wanted them to.
Instead of generations doing BAD endless sequels and even worse "revisions" of Kirby series and characters, most of those lesser lights would be creating THEIR OWN characters... as Kirby repeatedly urged young fans at conventions to do.
Barring "the cosmic-powered Hulk" (mind, I DON'T LIKE the actual Hulk), THE ETERNALS was one of my favorite Kirby books from the late 70s.
The only real problem was... it ended too soon.
No way to be sure, but, I suspect, had it ZERO connection with "The Marvel Universe"... it might have lasted a lot longer.
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Post by Duragizer on Mar 14, 2021 23:21:48 GMT -5
In a better world, creators would OWN and have COMPLETE control over series they created. NOBODY would follow them, unless THEY wanted them to. I believe this, too. To an extent. I also believe in the public domain. Corporations certainly shouldn't have ownership over IPs.
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Post by berkley on Mar 15, 2021 14:50:58 GMT -5
In a better world, creators would OWN and have COMPLETE control over series they created. NOBODY would follow them, unless THEY wanted them to. I believe this, too. To an extent. I also believe in the public domain. Corporations certainly shouldn't have ownership over IPs.
This reminds me of an argument that's often made to the effect that, no matter what changes, re-inventions, retcons, etc are made to a character or story concept like the Eternals, it doesn't affect the original: we still have that first series that Kirby produced, it hasn't changed, anyone can read it now and see the same artwork and read the same words that were put on the page back then.
And that's true as far as it goes, but there is also a sense in which it is effectively not true - IOW, it doesn't produce the results one would expect . Because what actually happens - and we're seeing this right now in the new Eternals book - is that when people like Gillen go back to read the Kirby Eternals, it's very difficult for them to see it as its own thing. For them, it's just one of several different versions that have been done over the years and even if they make an effort to assess it on its own merits, they usually end up interpreting everything in terms of some or all of those later renditions.
The way Thena was written in the last issue is an illustration of this: the idea that this character is prone to petulant emotional outbursts and generally dominated by romantic feelings of love for whoever her current partner happens to be, all this is entirely absent from the Kirby book. So where does it come from? Probably the 80s miniseries in which she is written as an incompetent leader, besotted with Kro, and generally behaving erratically (later retconned as the effects of a brain-mine, which tells you how inexplicable all this was with respect to Kirby's character).
So there's a sense in which the Kirby Eternals no longer exists for modern readers such as Gillen: they can't see it, they can only see the Marvel Universe Eternals as a whole, and then pick and choose what they like or what they think they can use for their own agenda.
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Post by profh0011 on Mar 15, 2021 15:38:28 GMT -5
they usually end up interpreting everything in terms of some or all of those later renditions. I got this in reference to Mary Jane Watson.
I first saw her in a reprint of "Rhino On the Rampage", where Pete was having dinner with his Aunt May and her best friend and her niece. And Pete could not stop staring at this amazing girl his Aunt had been trying to get him to meet for months and months. I'd never seen 2 people in a comic-book series HIT IT OFF so completely, so fast. To me, if ever 2 people were "mean to be", it was them.
But then editorial interference crept in, and writer John Romita (YES, WRITER) was coerced by his boss to "have Pete & Gwen get serious", and from decades of studying the situation, it appears the reason was Gwen reminded said editor of his wife, who he-- HIS WORDS-- "enjoyed arguing with". Not talking with. ARGUING with.
Seems the moment the guy was no longer doing the dialogue on the book, Romita JUMPED at the chance to KILL Gwen off, so Pete & MJ could finally have their shot, as nature (and John Romita) intended.
To me, it just never made sense when long-long-term reraders insisted that Gwen was "the love of Pete's life". And if that were really true, HOW TRAGICALLY SAD, as she's been DEAD for decades, with no hope of his ever finding anyone better.
I was buying the 60s stuff in reprints, and picked up the new issues starting in 1973. What I didn't know was, the previous time Gil Kane was on the book (and, yes, HE was writing the stories, too), Kane did a story where MJ treated Harry so badly that he dropped LSD and had a bad trip, sending his already-insane father into a psychotic criminal fit... AGAIN. What I couldn't believe (as I didn't read that story until decades later) was when some readers were INSISTING that MJ was a "cold-hearted, selfless "B****". I mean... to ME... those words described GWEN... before Romita was ordered to make changes to her face and personality (it was like a TV show where somebody RECAST one of the lead actresses).
So, as Romita changed Gwen almost beyond recognition, so Kane did the same with MJ. And this was going on WAYYYYYY back. Geez.
On a more personal level, I still recall when I went to art school in te late 80s, and 2 of the girls in my class-- I SWEAR!-- reminded me of Gwen and MJ. Once "MJ" entered the picture, "Gwen" no longer mattered. I'm telling you, that was spooky.
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