Today’s post is a recap and review of some recent Eternals single-issue stories. I’m not sure why the ongoing series was paused for a bit after issue six in favor of these separate stories, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they are about, especially with the movie so close and the way issue six of the series ended. If you are curious about my thoughts on the first six issues of the current Eternals run, you can find them here.

Recap of Eternals: Thanos Rises (Spoiler Alert!)

The scene opens with the conclusion of a battle from 200,000 years ago. It then shifts to a flowchart showing a brief chronology of the Eternals’ history. The next scene shows A’Lars experimenting and attempting to work on creating a way for Eternals to procreate naturally, which was apparently enough to start an outbreak of war between two factions of Eternals. Sprite sneaks into the lab and invites A’Lars to a parlay meeting. There is another break in the story to give a brief introduction to the disagreement between the two groups regarding the procreation of Eternals that basically boils down to one side wanting to change things up and find a way to reproduce while the other side wants things to stay the same. The mother of A’Lars and his opponent broker a truce that leads to all the Eternals being reset with no memory of the conflict while A’Lars gets one lifetime in exile to complete his experiments. Upon exile, A’Lars travels to Titan to find Sui-San and changes his name to Mentor. He finds her, and they fall in love. With his father’s help, the two of them have a child, Thanos. Thanos then goes on to kill both of them, which causes them to be reborn back in the machine on Earth. Since the experiment failed, both A’Lars and Sui-San are excluded. A’Lars is locked for all eternity in a cage that counts how many people Thanos has killed.

Recap of Eternals: Celestia (Spoiler Alert!)

This comic starts out with Ajak sitting and contemplating her faith. The Celestials have stopped communicating with the Eternals and have left them to their own devices. This has caused Ajak and other priests of Celestia to have a crisis of faith. Makkari shows up and attempts to convince Ajak to leave the old ways behind and find a new path. Ajak decides instead to take a pilgrimage to the remains of the first Celestial to come to Earth, which reminds her of one of the first things she ever did. The story flashes back to one million years ago. At that time she was interpreter of the Celestials who were guarding the Earth. The guardian ordered her to find the Avengers of 1,000,000 BCE, and she did. The story flashes forward again to the present day to find Ajak and Makkari walking the pilgrimage together. They discuss how Makkari new god was destroyed by the X-Men’s antagonists after proclaiming a new age was coming for Eteranals, Deviants, Celestials, and man. This causes Ajak to reflect again on her meeting with the Avengers all those years ago that very quickly escalated to violence. Based on her interaction with them, she had decided to let them all live, though, since they could help keep the machine safe. When she and Makkari reach the first Celestial, she is abhorred to see the Avengers have defiled it and even heard from the Celestials themselves, all while she has been ignored by them. Makkari is able to keep her from attacking the Avengers, but Ajak comes to the conclusion she should never have let the Avengers live all those years ago…

My Review

I found both of these read a lot like history lessons. It took me a while to get through them because they felt a bit dense. I enjoyed some of the themes regarding the political debates from Thanos Rises. I also liked the philosophical discussion about god in Celestia. However, it all came across as a bit dull. I’m glad I read them, though, because I do feel like I have a better understanding of the background of the Eternals than before.

Have you read these issues? What did you think? Let me know in the comments.