Eternals #3: The Gold Dust Woman is Never Going Back Again

We begin the story with Thena in Lemuria and her new Deviant lover where she’s confronted by Sersi, Sprite, and Kingo in search of Zuras’ murderer. The Machine plays a recording of Thena and Zuras’ last meeting, where things didn’t go swimmingly because Zuras disapproves of Thena’s choice in men. Billions of years, and she’s still drawn to men her father will never approve of.

We also touch back with Ikaris and Toby Robson, where Ike saves the Robson’s from killer hale from outer space. Ikaris gets to know Toby’s parents a bit over coffee, and informs him he’s going to Terminator 2 Toby from an unknown calamity. I’m unsure exactly what Gillen is up to here, but I’m officially invested in this schlub and his schlubby family.
We return to Thena, Sersi, and the others where we’re treated to a story 100,000 years in the making, with Sersi and Thena having a heart to heart about Thena’s sexual preferences, and how sometimes our heart doesn’t always coincide with what our head tells us.

At the end Sersi gets a message from Druig, and we see a crime that does nothing but the mystery deepens… *cue foreboding music*

Who killed Zuras? What is the mystery surrounding the Machine? Who broke it? Is the Machine going to be the Terran version of Titan’s Isaac? Each issue is like Matryoshka doll, just more and more layers to this mystery of who the Eternals are, and what their role is now that what they thought it was is no longer the truth.

The world-building here is on a whole other level. The information pages we keep getting add more levels and depth than they are distractions. Unfortunately not every book that utilizes them are as useful as those in each chapter.

To complement Gillen’s words is the art of modern master, Esad Ribic and colorist Matthew Wilson. The thin lines and muted palette is a breath of fresh air in a world where style is often equated to substance. They immerse us into a world that feels like a Star Wars film on the printed page.  The two together have a unique synergy, where they give us a world of both fantasy, sci-fi, and mixed with just enough realism to still keep it grounded in the 616.

This issue isn’t without its negatives, though. It’s slow. Really slow, but this type of story requires this kind of pace. There’s not enough action these last three issues, which tends to make it drag in certain areas. Ribic’s art, while quite beautiful, draws some very unattractive faces on the cast of characters. And that aforementioned muted color palette, while glorious, can sometimes be detrimental to some of the background cast and environment. If you’re looking for bright splash pages, loud, caustic drama, this might not be the book for you.

My final analysis is this book might just become Marvel’s best title since Jonathan Hickman’s Ultimates (which coincidentally also had Ribic on art chores) which should tell you that if you’re not buying it, start.