Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

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Genderfluid Characters in Marvel Comics: Xavin, Loki, Sprite & the Eternals

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Genderfluidity in Marvel Comics is a complicated subject. Historically, it constitutes most of, if not all, non-binary representation in Marvel’s comics. Yet all of Marvel’s genderfluid characters seem to have similar characteristics that have become clichés on the way genderfluidity is portrayed in superhero fiction. These characteristics are :

  • Shape-shifting, or at the very least a physical and/or biological change to express the change in gender
  • Some kind of story reason to explain why their gender changed
  • Portrayals where characters have one “main” gender, and another gender they only take on rarer, more specific occasions (whereas real-life genderfluid people often oscillate between more than the binary male/female genders)

Some characters like Mystique or Jacob Gavin have also been described as genderfluid by fans, and while I do not want to invalidate the way these characters have been interpreted by fans, their actual portrayal in-universe doesn’t match the definition of genderfluidity. Despite the changes their bodies go through, they seem to identify to one specific gender (Mystique only taking on other gender identities as a disguise, and Jacob Gavin actively seeking to go back to their initial body and the gender they were assigned at birth).

Check out Part 1 of Trans Representation in Marvel here: https://www.comicbookherald.com/a-guide-to-trans-representation-in-marvel-comics/

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Thor and the Eternals: The Celestials Saga Review!

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Roy Thomas’ run on Thor isn’t generally considered one of the all-time greats, but it sure is long, and this is where we start to see it all wrap up. Ending with #297, it goes out on a suitably bizarre note, with countless unresolved plot threads and more questions than when we first started reading.

Jack Kirby’s Eternals series ended only a year and change before this arc began, but it wasn’t the first time the Eternals made an appearance in the pages of Thor. In fact, the Eternals and the Celestials played a fairly large role in Roy Thomas’ run, and this edition recaps recent events involving our beloved demigods. The long and the short of it is that the Celestial Arishem has begun a fifty-year-long judgement of humanity that will wrap up sometime in the far-flung future of 2026. Considering how the last forty-five years have gone, the idea of a cosmic judge overseeing and evaluating us based on their merits sounds a bit horrifying, but we’ll see how the next five years go. Go easy on us, Celestials. [Read more…] about Thor and the Eternals: The Celestials Saga Review!

Eternals: To Defy the Apocalypse

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The Eternals is easily one of Marvel’s most neglected properties, which is why when announcements for a film version of the comic began circulating, they were usually accompanied by comments like “who the heck are they?” Yet there’s no denying that many of the biggest names in the industry have worked on Eternals stories, from Jack Kirby all the way to Neil Gaiman and beyond. In fact, Kirby created the Eternals after his Fourth World properties were prematurely canceled due to poor sales, which left countless unresolved plotlines for future writers to go wild with. Sadly, this formula was repeated almost to the letter with the likewise canceled Eternals, but, as with Fourth World, the legacy continues on. [Read more…] about Eternals: To Defy the Apocalypse

ETERNALS (2006) by Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr Review!

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In 2006, Marvel tapped Neil Gaiman (of Sandman and American Gods fame) to resuscitate their long-dormant Eternals line. Gaiman joined heavy-weight penciller John Romita Jr. to create an ambitious, quasi-magical mythology, not unlike American Gods, that tapped into the then-ongoing conversations about intelligent design. Their Eternals miniseries plays off of the property’s own obscurity, priming it to be the definitive introduction for readers of the mid-aughts and beyond. It is gorgeous, cinematic, and so stuffed with fresh ideas that it can lose track of its own plot. Now, with a major motion picture on the way and a new, similarly ambitious relaunch around the corner, let’s take a moment to look back at this now-evergreen, contemporary introduction to… the Eternals.

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Should You Read Jack Kirby’s Eternals Before The MCU Movie?

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The Eternals – written, drawn, and edited by Jack Kirby beginning in 1976 – is visually stunning, a bombastic treat loaded up with the King’s singular creativity. For 20 issues (including one Annual), Kirby and his collaborators – John Verpoorten on inks and letterers Gaspar Saladino, John Costanza, and Irv Watanabe handling the first four issues, Mike Royer taking over both for the rest of the series, and Glynis Wein neé Oliver supplying colors throughout – have assembled a fun, if inconsistent, comic book epic that practically rattles with potential. The new Eternals: Complete Collection is worth a read, though best when taken on its own terms. [Read more…] about Should You Read Jack Kirby’s Eternals Before The MCU Movie?