This is now Day 28 of this year’s Jack Kirby tribute Month, curated by Howard Simpson. Today’s prompt is Sersi, of The Eternals.
The Eternals was one of the new titles Jack came up with when he returned to Marvel in the mid-’70s. The inspiration for this one seemed rooted in the earlier best-selling book, Chariots of the Gods?, by Erich Von Däniken. The book theorized all kinds of direct influence on our ancient human cultures from alien visitors to our planet centuries ago. It was definitely ripe material to inspire the imagination of a storyteller like Jack Kirby.
The Eternals in the comic were actually just a more developed and longer-lived race than humans, and had often been mistaken for gods by ancient man because of their advanced sciences and amazing abilities.
We first meet Sersi in The Eternals #3. In #4, she tells about being visited by Ulysses and his crew, being offended by their lack of manners and turning them into pigs. Meaning she was the Circe of legend.
Sersi is a fun character. She’s strong (like a lot of Kirby’s women), has a sense of humor, but doesn’t take any nonsense off of anyone. I inked a drawing of Sersi by Kirby awhile back, which you can see here.
If your only awareness of The Eternals is via the MCU film of that name, you are seriously missing out. Any resemblance between the comic and that film is purely coincidental. That’s all I’ll say about that, because I prefer to try to keep things as positive as I can here. I highly recommend reading Jack’s Eternals, if you get the chance. There are some stories he did there that I believe are just as good as anything else Jack ever did!
Hope you like my Sersi. Tune in again tomorrow to see who’s up next, if you like.
Haha. Another series with a lot of missing titles. Your pigs are much meaner and seemingly single-minded that Jack’s. I cannot imagine the reason. And Eternals live action was cobbled together. Once Jack and company lay the art down, the imagination rules. With The Odyssey out there now, it was a good pick on your part to touch the legends of part of early history. I am reading the Emily Wilson book, should I choose to see the movie. Your Sersi is mischievous for sure. And I will have to find Vol 1 of The Eternals. Thanks Mark.
I figure if someone turns you into a pig, you’re not exactly going to be in the best of moods. Jack seemed to like that moment, because he touched on it in the sketchbook drawing he did of Sersi (This was that sketchbook he filled with drawings for his wife Roz).
If my Sersi looks a bit mischievous, then I’ve done my job well! That was definitely a part of her personality as depicted by Jack. She wouldn’t put up with nonsense from anyone!
And yeah, if you haven’t read Jack’s Eternals run, it’s worth checking out. Like I said above, there are some of those stories that I think stand alongside Jack’s best.
Thanks Mark. I ordered both of Jack’s volumes of The Eternals. And once again, his creation of material is astounding. Was he a mutant telling us the inside story?
I couldn’t say. I’ve seen Mark Evanier occasionally observe that there were conversations he had years ago with Jack where he wasn’t entirely clear what Jack was talking about. Then all these years later, he’d remember a conversation and go, “Oh! That’s what he was talking about!” Jack was definitely ahead of his time in a lot of ways.