With the latest edition of Jack Kirby’s The Fourth World Omnibus now safely in my clutches, I thought I’d compare it to the recent The Eternals: The Complete Saga Omnibus.
The latter was published by Marvel towards the end of 2020 and not only collects all of Jack Kirby’s original run on the title, but also the twelve issue mini series from 1985 by Peter B. Gillis and Sal Buscema along with a couple of one-shots.
In fact lets just look at the contents: Eternals (1976) #1-19, Annual #1; Eternals (1985) #1-12; Eternals: The Herod Factor (1991) #1; New Eternals: Apocalypse Now (2000) #1; Iron Man Annual (1971) #6; Avengers (1963) #246-248; material from What If? (1977) #23-30.
That all clocks in at 1120 pages. A mighty tome but not as big as the Fourth World Omnibus.
This omnibus however, goes beyond Kirby’s initial work and includes everything up to Neil Gaiman’s and John Romita Jr.’s Eternals miniseries from 2006!
Anyway, that’s enough background! Let’s compare the books!
The Eternals Omnibus also features the 12-issue miniseries from the 1980s. I know absolutely nothing about it so it’ll be a bit of unknown territory for me when I get to reading it.
Out of the two books, I’d actually rate the Fourth World as the better overall package for pure Kirby goodness! However, the Eternals Omnibus is perfect for completionists like me.
That’s All Very Good, but Where Can I Buy Them?
Here in the UK, it looks like the Eternals Omnibus is the easier of the two to get. The Fourth World Omnibus seems to be getting scarce but is still (at the time of writing) in stock at Speedyhen:
