Hello - didn't know exactly where I should post this, but it is mostly directed to Mr. Gaiman.

Wanted to say that I've been a fan since the Sandman comics, it was the first I ever owned. Went to see MirrorMask last week, and it was so magical to watch. Congrats on the movie and new book (reading now). Enjoy the tour and thanks.

Emily

Neil doesn't read the boards. You can contact him here.

now, I wish I'd thought of that, much simpler than my normal ramblings!

Well it looks like Neil will be writing the Eternals in 2006.

I think that making the Eternals part of the Marvel Universe was not fitting. I think it weakened the Eternals concept by sticking it into a context that already had plenty of hidden races and evolutionary oddities, and it hurt the Marvel Universe by imposing a cosmology on it that didn’t fit terribly well. I still don’t think it fits all that well in a number of instances.

Firstly, when the Starlin origins of Chronos being the father of Alars and Zeus and the place he exploded being Olympus were changed into the Olympia Eternals and Zuras.

Secondly, there is a theory that the Celestials seeded humans with the “x-factor.” Ironically in a back-up tale in one of those 90's annual crossovers (i.e. X-men Annual 13) it’s stated flatly that the Celestial Oneg the Prober implanted the dormant x-factor genes into those early proto humans that would one day result in ‘Mutants’... personally I really don’t care for the idea myself, and I’d go so far as to campaign for its retconning, since the idea of Celestial meddling being responsible for mutants just pisses fire on that concept.

If they’d wanted to connect the concept of mutant to some cosmic entity, why not the Stranger – he at least had been connected with the initial Lee-Kirby run (and should have been left as a collector of mutants). The Stranger even had an interesting symbol on his costume that could have signified the Phoenix, what with the colouring of his costume being similar to Jean’s initial one (and he was able to manipulate cosmic and psionic forces for a variety of effects).

In addition, the Skrulls have been established to be the Deviants of their planet. I’d have thought it more convincing if there were no Skrulls? By which I mean, what if the ‘Skrulls’, those devious shapeshifters, are simply a form taken by the original serpentmen servants of the Elder Gods? Evidence for this is suggested by the Super-Skrull back-up story in Fantastic Four Annual#24, whereby the Skrull god of war depicted as a statue is referred to as S’lgurt, which could be another name for Sligguth. It would seem a much better fit that them being tied into the Deviant mythology.

So much of 70’s Marvel Universe was interwoven with Robert E. Howard mythology, which was a much better fit than Eternals cosmology. For instance, you could explain Toad City as being established by Tsathoggua, after he found the surface of the planet not to his liking, and instead moved to the caverns of the subterranean world beneath Earth. Remember, it has previously been speculated that the Serpent-Men and Lemurian alchemists formed their alliance and created the Serpent Crown in a joint effort to overthrow the Deviants’ rule of most of the known Earth, and the Serpent-Men had numerous clashes with Tsathoggua’s worshippers (as described in several Cthulhu Mythos tales by Lin Carter).

Any attempts to reconcile the fact that the Howard mythos was not partly responsible for the creation of the Serpent Crown, just sound hollow and stupid.

Then there is the Hyborian Age connection to Thor. I’m sure the Gods of Asgard are in some way descendants of the blond arctic savages who drove the remaining Hyborian tribes out of the snow countries in the north, except for the ancient kingdom of Hyperborea. These golden-haired, blue-eyed barbarians divided into the red-haired Vanir of Vanaheim and the yellow-haired Aesir of Asgard. Nowhere else in the myths surrounding the Norse gods are the Aesir yellow-haired other than in the Howard’s Hyborian Era. Thor was always described as being red-haired, never blond, so the Asgardian pantheon have to be in some way connected to Ymir, his daughter Atali and Ymir’s Valhalla.

The additional linking of Marvel’s classic monsters to Deviant experimentation weakens that aspect of the Marvel Universe also, in my opinion. The artificially created dinosaurs and other unusual giant creatures, such as the denizens of Monster Isle, should be the offspring of Elder Gods, a direct follow-up to H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Either that or they were artificially created by the Lemurians for use as formidable bio-weapons against the Atlanteans, whom they often vied with for control over the world many millennia ago, as well as pure exercises in learning to control and manipulate biological evolution. Perhaps these creatures were created by Lemurian science for the purpose of being used as mighty beasts of burden, which may indeed have been true in some cases, but I doubt this can serve as an explanation for every, or even the majority, of instances behind these genetically engineered animals from being created, because the many dinosaur and other gigantic life forms produced by Lemurian science were just too diverse for such a simple purpose IMO, and their often inherently aggressive nature. Also, certain creations of Lemurian science were clearly designed to be a powerful bio-weapon for the purpose of warfare. I also have my own related theories regarding the scientifically inexplicable occurrences of giant insects, arachnids, and crustaceans often seen in the Marvel Universe, and how such creatures can exist when science says they can’t for several reasons related to arthropod physiology, without having to rely entirely upon the simple explanation that asserts “the laws of physics are different in those universes” (even though this is certainly the case).

Certainly, the sudden imposition of the Eternals mythology over the Marvel Universe doesn’t sit comfortably either.

I do, however, like the idea that they’re literally a huge bit of retrospective continuity – that until a few years ago there were no Eternals, and suddenly they’ve been carved into history, changing everything.

In issue #5 of Steve Englehart’s run on Silver Surfer, Eternity mentioned how his desire to manipulate the events leading to the 2nd Kree-Skrull War led to the manifestation of the Celestials.

If this is the case, it would unravel the whole Celestials cosmology and their apparent
tampering with the human race millions of years ago.

In addition to this, in Silver Surfer Annual #1 (also written by Englehart), Norrin recalls to the Eternals how when he was trapped on Earth by Galactus, he meditated once on the peak their city Olympia occupies, and it wasn’t there, let alone for the millennia they claim. This would seem to imply that another origin for the Eternals was in the offing.

I would love to see Neil cover this in his series, and tackle such questions as where they came from, and why. Even they believe their long past, but other evidence suggests differently.

Perhaps there could be some revelation that some antagonist dragged the Eternals and Celestials across dimensions. I’m sure Neil could have fun with whom that might be (perhaps an incarnation of Immortus), and the reasoning behind this action.

The Seven are known as the Endless, not Eternals. And they wouldn't fit with the Marvel universe at all since Marvel is science based. So either someone's telling porkies or Marvel has beings called the Eternals that have nothing to do with the Endless.

quote:

Originally posted by Weaver:
So either someone's telling porkies or Marvel has beings called the Eternals that have nothing to do with the Endless.

the latter option

quote:

Originally posted by jrnewto:
Well it looks like Neil will be writing the Eternals in 2006.

Well.. you must be feeling like a nitwit?

Sorry, I just had to say that. Have watched Rowan Atkinson live one too many times...

jrnewto, please accept this allotment of vowels to help you get a handle I can actually pronounce:

a a e i o o u

And, moving on.

The whole problem with stealing from Howard's and Lovecraft's worlds as thoroughly as you recommend is that, well, it's stealing. There's legal issues involved. Tales of Mystery and Strange Tales both dabbled in the Lovecraftian and came close to lawsuit a few times.

That said, The Eternals probably would serve better as a separate mythology, as would the idea that mutants arise from the Celestials, but then you end up in DC-style multiverse, prone to its own problems.