Eternals: Thanos Rises delves into the civil war which split the Eternals and birthed their biggest regret

Eternals: Thanos Rises #1 excerpt (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Thanos has been revealed as the big bad killing his fellow Eternals in the current ongoing series by KIeron Gillen and Esad Ribic, and now Marvel is diving into just how Thanos's birth changed the Eternals forever in the one-shot Eternals: Thanos Rises #1.

Described in an evocatively dark way by Gillen as "the nativity of Thanos," Eternals: Thanos Rises is sets centuries ago - even before the stories of a young Thanos as seen in Thanos Rising. This is Thanos as one of the first children born of an Eternal, in violation of a law this superhuman race has against any kind of offspring.

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Eternals: Thanos Rises #1 preview

"One of the side effects of having that big vision of Eternals, with a timeline stretching across the million years they've been on Earth, is that we can always do an issue like this," Gillen said when Eternals: Thanos Rises #1 was announced. "Choose an interesting, near mythic point, and then just do it.

"Which one to start with? It clearly had to be basically the nativity of Thanos, the whole civil war in the Eternals which led to his birth and all of that, rendered in the joys of Dustin-Weaver-o-vision," Gillen continued. "This is one of the more epic, brutal, and gleefully bleak issues I think I’ve ever written, and with Thanos at its heart, would you expect anything else?"

This issue delves into the Eternals' civil war centuries ago, which led to the rift between the main Eternals we know of, and the offshoot community of Eternals known as the Titanians (named because they ended up moving to Saturn's moon, Titan after this civil war).

Eternals series artist Esad Ribic has drawn the primary cover for Eternals: Thanos Rises #1, and he's joined with variant covers by Ron Lim, Weaver, Iban Coello, and Todd Nauck. Check them out here:

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Eternals: Thanos Rises #1 covers

Eternals: Thanos Rises #1 goes on sale on September 15.

Learn more about the Eternals ahead of this comic book and the upcoming movie with our Eternals page.

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)