It seems likely Devall meant to make the character seem detached and aloof, but instead he just seems bored. Films are, also, at the mercy of their cast to really execute and while most of the voice actors in this are great, Trevor Devall doesn't nail Ikaris, and since he's key to the success of the project the whole thing can sometimes be wonky.ĭevall does a great job with some other voices in the project, including The Avengers' butler Jarvis, and so it seems his work on Ikaris is a creative choice. The Eternals was drawn with no idea that it would ever be animated, and many of the effects that look great as a static image are far less effective when the camera has to 'hold' on them for 10 seconds while the effect plays itself out. Where it fails is that it falls into many of the same tropes as other Marvel Knights Animation projects. Gaiman gets away with what he does here, in part, because stylistically you cannot mistake Gaiman for anybody else and the execution works. Morrison could have done a similar thing, but likely would have drained it of most of its humor and been accused of being too weirdly meta.

Where it succeeds is everything listed above Gaiman's dialogue crackles and it's always seemed that this story was a particularly good one, and well-suited to his talents. The movie itself will likely be a sales success, and a 'critical' success with buyers, mostly for the same reason the Joss Whedon Astonishing X-Men discs were. Their names have cache and Gaiman's has been proven time and again (including with The Eternals hardcover) to drive readers to the comic shops who wouldn't ordinarily be there. In all likelihood this will do better than most of the Marvel Knights Animation DVDs, in part because of Gaiman and Romita. So what's the verdict on The Eternals? It's really difficult to imagine how an audience will respond to it. None of those others felt nearly as natural paired with the rudimentary animation of Marvel Knights as the Kirby-derived titles did. The Hulk and Wolverine: Weapon X - sandwiched in between. And the two, weirdly, bookend the second 'season' of Marvel Knights Animation, with a bunch of Wolverine material - Wolverine: Origin, Wolverine vs. Like The Inhumans, The Eternals is a Jack Kirby property full of huge ideas, big mythology and strange-looking characters and concepts.

Eternals by neil gaiman