The first ever Avengers vs. Eternals battle in Celestia #1 preview

Eternals: Celestia #1 excerpt (Image credit: Kei Zama/John Livesay/Matthew Wilson/Clayton Cowles (Marvel Comics))

Marvel's Eternals have been around for a while - their name kind of hints at that. Although active in contemporary times, their history goes back hundreds of thousands of years - even back to 1,000,000 BCE during the recently-revealed prehistoric Avengers, as Marvel is about to reveal.

In the upcoming one-shot Eternals: Celestia, Eternals series writer Kieron Gillen partners with artist Kei Zama to tell that proverbial 'untold tale' of the Eternals - specifically the Eternals Ajak and Makkari - against the Avengers of 1,000,000 BCE.

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Eternals: Celestia #1 preview

"When developing Eternals, Ajak and Makkari were two of the characters I was most excited about," Gillen said in the book's announcement. "I had so many ideas. The problem was trying to find a place to introduce them in a way which gives enough space to show what a fascinating, funny, and genuinely heartbreaking odd-couple they are."

Speaking of odd, those prehistoric Avengers they'll be facing off with are a hereto unknown version of the team introduced in 2017's Marvel Legacy #1 that appears in the current Avengers run. This pre-Avengers squad is made up of new versions of what's become classic archetypes in team lore: Odin, the first Black Panther, the first Iron Fist, the first Sorcerer Supreme (Agomotto), the first Earth being with the Phoenix Force (Firehair), the first Ghost Rider, and a Starbrand (not the first, but the second).

"I'll be honest - the first time I saw Ghost Rider on the back of a Mammoth, I did think ‘I'll be having some of that, thank you very much,'" Gillen said.

In addition to Eternals: Celestia's main cover by Eternals series artist Esad Ribic, there are variant covers from Nelson Blake II and Rob Liefeld. Check them out here:

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Eternals: Celestia #1 covers

Eternals: Celestia #1 goes on sale on October 6.

Get ready for the upcoming movie with our Eternals guide.

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)