So, we mentioned a couple weeks ago, Kurt Busiek's thought that Jack Kirby's Eternals would probably have been better off in their own earth, rather than folded into the Marvel Universe. And maybe, since the 616-earth already had superheroes, mutants, Inhumans, and more; which didn't give the Eternals a lot of ground to get traction. And I wondered: maybe all of Kirby's Marvel creations should've been on the same earth. The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man...I don't know, some of his stuff from Black Panther or Captain America.
But then, Kirby-Earth wouldn't have been Counter-Earth, as it wasn't messed with by the Celestials, and wouldn't have Eternals. (Or Deviants and whatnot.) C-E didn't have Inhumans, since the Kree didn't experiment on it either. I'm not positive, in proper continuity, that it even had mutants; if it didn't, it would be a better 'control' than regular Marvel earth, which had tons of variables added. (Of course other variables like the New Men and Warlock were added later.) And I had thought Marvel felt multiple earths was more of a DC thing, and even Counter-Earth was one too many...
And I just had to re-do a panel, where I tried to use the word "upducted." May need to take a nap...
Oh, philosophy discussions! And people say there is no culture in Comics.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff in this one, ripe for debate.
ReplyDeleteYes you could argue Kirby's stuff created during his return were and should've been their own thing. That's how a good bit of the Marvel staff felt back then despite Kirby being in large part responsible for them having a place to work. Anyhoo, yes the Eternals should've been kept separate from the main MU for all the reasons you pointed out, especially their redundancy. You didn't really need them when you already had the Inhumans, Asgardians, etc. So yeah, Machine Man, Devil Dinosaur and the whole lot, could and probably should've been their own thing. Not that Marvel wouldn't have eventually folded them into the proper MU at some future date. Hell Arron himself is a weird spin-off 2001 Space Oddessy. He didn't even remotely fit within the overall narrative or characters. I think maybe that was Kirby's attempt to continue the OMAC and Kamandi stories he wrote at DC. Idk.
Very curious to see where you go with this from here