American Update: Slab Happy/Mighty Marvel Firsts – ‘When Gods Walk the Earth!’ – Eternals #1 by Jack Kirby
*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; reminiscent of the then-popular Erich Von Daniken paperbacks, which asserted that mankind’s historical ‘Gods’ were alien visitors, Kirby’s Eternals postulated 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-story, but with the confirmation of an Eternals movie – with Angelina Jolie, Selma Hayek and ‘Game of Thrones’ star Richard Madden, among others – this series is heating up! Our latest copy of Eternals #1 is a PGX slabbed 9.0 (VF/NM equivalent), and is on sale at £135. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD