Eternity #1
Writer: Matt Kindt
Penciler: Trevor Hairsine
Inker: Ryan Winn
Colorist: David Baron
Letterer: Dave Lanphear
Cover: Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic
Publisher: Valiant Comics
A review by Nico Sprezzatura
This week’s Eternity #1 is the latest chapter in writer Matt Kindt’s Divinity saga. I haven’t actually read a single page of the thing until now, so how does it stack up for someone who’s completely out of the loop? I still haven’t decided, but Eternity #1 isn’t exactly bereft of merit.
One of Valiant’s stronger suits as a publisher of interconnected superhero comics is their sense of brevity. While diving into the Marvel or DC universes can be daunting for a newbie, it’s been pretty easy to follow the Valiant Universe since their 2012 reboot. With only a handful or two of comics published monthly, most (if not all) of them are short-run by design, and even their ongoing titles seem to have planned endpoints.
The recently concluded Secret Weapons, for example, was a fantastic little superhero comic that didn’t require much prior-knowledge of the universe it inhabits. Faith has been a runaway success featuring a character who doesn’t fit the prototypical mold of what a superhero “should” be. Jeff Lemire’s Bloodshot, published under various titles since 2015, is a consistently good interpretation of an otherwise dated product of the 1990s comic book industry. If the Big Two are leaving you with “superhero fatigue,” you should consider giving Valiant a try.
As far as Eternity #1 is concerned, I can’t say I completely understood what I was seeing. I know it involved the established superhero Divinity, a stolen baby, and cosmic shenanigans. Whether or not I had the necessary context going in, Kindt’s script successfully establishes the story’s plot by its final page, leaving me with a pretty good idea of what to expect moving forward.
The real star for me, though, is the art of penciller Trevor Hairsine, inker Ryan Winn, and colorist David Baron. I’ve seen the look of Eternity compared to the likes of comics legend Jack Kirby’s weirder work, and I have to agree. Opening with a scene set on Earth, the art doesn’t seem like much at first glance, but then we get to the cosmic stuff shortly after and wowza. Within pages, we proceed from a grounded rendering of rural Russia to a bonkers world of blue aliens and flying eye-people, slathered in bright technicolor. If the story of Eternity #1 didn’t totally hook me, the art certainly did.
The Verdict:
Wait and see. Even without having read the previous chapters, Eternity #1 is an intriguing opener for what seems to be a cosmic dream — one that might be worth delaying.
