American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: ‘When Gods Walk The Earth!’ – Complete Run (#1-19 + Annual) of Kirby’s Eternals
*Marvel: Following his 1976 return to Marvel, the legendary Jack Kirby was anxious not to get trapped in the cycle of just illustrating super-heroes again, and one of his conditions was that he would be allowed to write and draw his own concepts. How much of the Eternals concept was his is, politely, open to debate; heavily ‘influenced’ (ahem, ahem) by the popular Erich Von Daniken paperbacks, which postulated that mankind’s ancient ‘Gods’ were alien visitors, Kirby’s Eternals portrayed the return of ancient immortal extraterrestrials, and the cataclysmic repercussions for humanity. Originally intended to stand apart from the Marvel Universe, it was shoehorned in at editorial insistence, which resulted in Kirby eventually abandoning the strip mid-narrative. Because of this dissonance, the Eternals have been comparatively overlooked by all but the most diehard Kirby Kollectors, but with the confirmation of an Eternals movie franchise starring Richard Madden (Game of Thrones, The Bodyguard) as Ikaris, prices are spiralling. We have a complete run of all 19 issues of Eternals, plus the one and only Annual, newly in stock, averaging VF with many better. Issue #1 is VF/NM £115; prices and grades on all the others may be seen in our online catalogue.