What's green, immensely strong, leaps, and wears ripped purple pants? Don't ask the Eternals...

During his second and final stay at Marvel Comics from mid-1976 to early 1978, Jack Kirby took on a number of creative projects of which he assumed control as both artist and writer, while choosing to distance his work from any connection to Marvel's "universe" of characters--with the exception of assuming the reins of the existing Captain America book as well as beginning a new Black Panther series, while allowing the former to make use of the Falcon, Leila Taylor, Sharon Carter, Magneto, the Red Skull, and the trappings of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Yet though Cap readers might disagree with me, it may have been Kirby's work on The Eternals which garnered the most attention--an imaginative fresh take on human evolution, featuring a new race of super-powered immortals with names fashioned after the Olympians as well as an enigmatic race of space gods that left an indelible mark on ancient Earth.

Having still been involved in comics collecting at the time, I'd bitten the bullet and picked up Kirby's Cap and Black Panther books, knowing going in that both would be difficult reads due to Kirby's dated writing style that hearkened back to his own memories of what comics were like and what comics should always be like--but I steered clear of Machine Man and certainly Devil Dinosaur, while being content with the Eternals I remembered from the pages of Fantastic Four. Over time, however, thanks to their appearances in other books, I've become more familiar with the Eternals and the rich backstory which Kirby provided for them as they gradually became more integrated with Marvel's characters and continuity during the 1980s, now free from Kirby's segregation.

And so I can imagine how surprised readers of The Eternals in 1977 must have been to see one of Marvel's most visible headliners appear and be acknowledged in a book that would normally have kept him and others of his number at bay.

It's already apparent that something is up with "the Hulk" if he's indeed able to wield cosmic power; after all, the Hulk we're familiar with from the Marvel history that Kirby himself helped to chart is more than capable of giving Ikaris or any Eternal a fight all on his own. In this case, Kirby is able to circumvent his super-hero "blockade" with the aid of two Maryland engineering students out to build a mascot for a football game.

As to how this construct becomes so dangerous, much less cosmically powered, the "fallout" that Kirby mentions in his intro is attributed to the Eternals' Uni-Mind, returning to Earth from space and causing a number of disturbances as it descends--one of them notably being to turn this mascot into a raging, uncontrollable mass of destruction.

Admittedly, given that I never developed much of an interest in the Eternals, I've come to regard this story not as an Eternals story so much as an opportunity to see Kirby's last extensive work on the Hulk (however virtual) before his imminent departure from Marvel for good. In addition, as in the case of Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin, Frank Miller, John Byrne, et al. who have scripted their own artwork, there is also the incentive here to read a story exactly as the artist intended it to be interpreted, as opposed to a writer adapting his own interpretation of and dialog for the story to the pages of artwork that arrived on his or her desk. In that respect, it's a toss-up as to which scenes to appreciate in Kirby's treatment here, since the crisis at hand takes precedence; substitute the Avengers for the Eternals, and you might well have the same sort of patter taking place between characters.

With Ikaris out of the fight (at least for the time being), and Sersi having taken her best shot, it falls to the super-swift Makarri to deal with the construct. How strange that none of these Eternals, as informed as they seem to be on human history and events, have been able to make even a guess as to their foe's identity--stranger still that their human companions also seem to be clueless on the matter. (Though Ikaris has stumbled upon the same descriptive name coined by the army soldier in the Hulk's 1962 premiere story.) By contrast, Kirby, through narrative, isn't reticent about referring to the attacker as the Hulk, perhaps to add a further sense of drama to the savagery of its attack.

As for Makarri, his attack is dealt with all too handily, leaving the responsibility for halting or even slowing the creature's path of destruction to the National Guard--while spectators and reporters at the scene engage in a surprising bit of name-dropping under the circumstances.

It's 1977, and people are still wearing hats in Mr. Kirby's world.  What can I tell you.
(Though you may enjoy NPR's report on the subject.)

As Ikaris takes his leave and rejoins the fight, he finds Sersi doing an admirable job of keeping the Hulk busy ("the Hulk" handle now in use by those battling him)--which leads to two Kirby-packed pages of rampaging which lend credence to the story's title of "Disaster Area."

Finally, another Eternal steps in to deal with the threat, a figure known as the Prime Eternal--their ruler, Zuras, whose power gives him the means to remove the power that this construct was never meant to possess. Unfortunately, the Hulk's futile, panic-driven flight afterward will leave decimation in its wake.

We would see this construct walk again, however, when Dr. Doom has occasion to repair it and send it against the Thing, who unlike the Eternals recognized it on sight (or so he believed). Fortunately, Zuras knows his business when it comes to depowering mascots, and Doom's refitted Hulk went into battle this time without benefit of being cosmically powered.

BONUS!

Jack Kirby's covers for two of this story's issues.