Noteworthy Issues: Eternals #6 (July, 2021)

Well…that was something.

Something good, but something.

Issue:  Eternals #6, July 2021

Writer:  Kieron Gillen

Artist:  Esad Ribic

The Plot:  The Eternals come together to defeat Thanos, or at least try really hard.

Commentary:  So, there’s this big reveal that this issue has been hinting at on how the Eternals’ immortality works.  Up until this point, the Eternals were supposedly resurrected after every death by the Great Machine.  The only way to permanently kill them in some incarnations is to completely obliterate them on a molecular level.  If there’s anything more involved, they will come back.  Well, this issue says there’s a price for each resurrection.

What is it?  Well, I won’t say for now.  Go read the comic.

The point is, Phastos found the flaw and tried to fix it.  He resurrected Thanos with some devices to keep the Mad Titan in check, and this issue opens with the other Eternals all ganging up on Thanos, the issue implying heavily that they could have prevailed had Phastos not summoned them all to fix the Great Machine, AKA the Earth itself, AKA the narrator of the series.

So, here’s the thing:  the secret is bad, but what I like best about this issue isn’t that the reveal is horrifying even though it is.  It’s that the main characters start to talk about what they’re going to do with this knowledge, suspecting that the rest of the Eternals, the hundreds who just hang around in the background, are not going to want to rock the boat.  Likewise, most interesting to me, is the characterization of Sersi.

See, Sersi talks like she was well aware of what was going on the whole time, and the reason she believes the other Eternals would not change anything is because, if I read the issue right, this is not the first time the Eternals have faced this knowledge and then opted to do absolutely nothing about it.  It’s why Sersi is the way she is, the one who lives life without a care and takes to lying so easily.

So, that’s just dark, and I can appreciate it for that alone.

Grade:  B+