Kirby's Eternals: worth $75?

[FenrisUlf]

Just recently saw a hardcover collection of the first Kirby Marvel ETERNALS series going for $75. It'd be a looooong time before I could even consider buying such a monster, but I'd like to ask all Kirby/Eternals fans: would it be worth it?

On one level, I'm a big fan of the CU Empyreans and their comics ancestors like the New Gods and the Eternals. I wish that Darren and Steve would do more with them, but with everything else they've got to handle, it probably isn't going to happen.

OTOH... it's seventy-five dollars for something I can't even examine to see just how good the stories are to me. And I found Mister Kirby's plotting to be a trifle preachy and overblown at times, even for superhero comics

[Lord Liaden]

My own answer would depend somewhat on how you feel about Kirby's work overall, particularly his "cosmic" stuff as appearing in Fantastic Four and Thor, as well as Eternals and the New Gods themselves.

I bought this collection years ago as a series of softcover graphic novels. Kirby had written and drawn a final chapter for that series which didn't follow later DC continuity, and which purported to finish the storyline as he would have wanted to. (It really didn't finish the story, leaving several elements dangling.) In any case, while New Gods did feature some of the elements that annoy me about Kirby's work - stilted dialogue, broadly-drawn characterizations, groan-inducing character names - IMHO his strengths as both a visual and verbal storyteller shone through here better than in almost all his other work: mind-blowing concepts, epic plots, passionate characters, explosive action, awesome good-vs-evil conflicts.

If you like those things about Jack Kirby's work, and would be willing to spend $75 on any graphic book, then I would say that this is the one.

[Blue]

I think I'd have to sit down and read one of the enclosed issues to decide, but my nostalgic tendancies, the ones that have lead me to buy reproductions of the Micronauts, Fantastic Four #174 (First comic I ever bought on my own when I was a wee lad), and pick up Brisco County Jr. DVDs tells me it's likely I'd buy it :D