To set the stage for the Eternals series we would have to go back to 1970, when Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics to work on several projects for DC Comics.

Those projects included the saga of the 'New Gods' which was a separate Comic Book Series.

The New Gods was an epic story that involved both mythological and science fiction concepts. Jack had planned to have a definite ending to this epic.

However, this saga and his other 'Fourth World' titles were left incomplete after their early cancellation.

Jack Kirby, with his recent work for DC still in mind, began T'he Eternals' when he returned to Marvel Comics.

The Eternals' saga was truly thematically similar to the New Gods' work, but once again early cancellation this time by Marvel Comics left the series hanging without resolving many of its continuing sub-plots, in particular The Celestials' judgment over humanity.

However, Marvel just like DC in the years that followed both cancellations re-thought their viewpoints on the cancelled series.

So it was writers Roy Thomas and Mark Gruenwald who brought the Eternals into the 'official' Marvel Universe continuity. It was in a then very long storyline in the Mighty Thor comic book series that resolved the earlier cancelled sub plots and plot lines. The Big Finale climaxed in Thor #300!

So to you bloggers just reading about this series for the first time.... Who Were The Eternals? 

They are a fictional race of 'superhumans' in the Marvel Comics Universe. They were an off-shoot of humanity that were created on the Earth by the alien Celestials. Of course in fiction there would have to be a race of counterparts, who are called the Deviants, and the two sides have waged war for centuries...

The Eternals made their first comic book appearance in The Eternals #1  published by Marvel Comics in July 1976. This is a small comic book series to collect. The original series numbered only 19 issues in the set.