Eternals: Thanos Rises
The story leading up to Thanos’s birth is finally told in Eternals: Thanos Rises #1, by writer Kieron Gillen, artist Dustin Weaver, colorist Matthew Wilson, and letterer Clayton Cowles. Gillen proves once again why he’s the perfect writer for the Eternals.
This issue is all about the war between A’Lar, later known as Mentor, and Zuras. The war is over, something simple, procreation. Zuras thought Eternals shouldn’t breed, instead going by the familial system the Eternals already used given to them by the Machine. A’Lar believed that more Eternals would only help the Machine in the future. Eventually, due to the intercession of their “mother” Daina, the two factions separated. From there, the story is familiar to fans, as Thanos’s birth leads to untold suffering for Mentor and the universe. Mentor and Sui-San, Thanos’s mother, awaken after their deaths and are Excluded by Zuras.
The Eternals is historically a complex concept to get right, and Gillen is precisely the right person for the job, and this issue, as well as the first six issues of Eternals, proves exactly why. Everything about this issue is excellent, as Gillen fills in the blanks that have confounded readers about Thanos for a long time. For example, how did Mentor and Sui-San have children if Eternals can’t breed? Why exactly did the Titanian Eternals leave the Earth? Gillen does a great job of laying everything out and doing it entertainingly. This isn’t some big fight issue; the war between the Eternals faction is only set dressing. The important part is both the info dump this issue represents, and the way despair starts to set in as readers get closer and closer to the inevitable, which is Thanos.
Gillen’s previous works have proven that he’s adroit at entertainingly doing info dumps. Exposition can be bad in comics, killing any momentum that the issue has. Gillen, though, has learned to expertly sidestep this. When he does an info dump, it’s not only interesting but supremely entertaining in a way that exposition isn’t usually. There are so many little things in this issue that make it extraordinary, from the way it shows how Gillen sees Zuras and how he’s going to portray the character in his run to the origin of the Quantum Bands and why their users always fight Thanos. It all serves the plot, making the exposition so much better than it would be if another writer did it.
Weaver’s art is terrific. A great double-page splash in the first few pages illustrates the war between the A’Larsians and the Zurasians and its bananas. It takes the legacy of Kirby and builds on it but is still recognizably Weaver’s style. He just keeps impressing throughout the issue, taking Gillen’s script and making it sing.
Eternals: Thanos Rising #1 is an excellent comic. Gillen works his magic, proving why he is perfect for Eternals comics. Weaver’s art takes all of the brilliance of Gillen’s script and brings it to life. There are not enough good things that can be said about this comic.