ETERNALS versus SILVER SURFER & SUPER-SKRULL

Adam (Marvel)
Where: Silver Surfer Annual #1 When: 1988
Why: Steve Englehart How: Joe Staton

The Story So Far...
Parting ways with Nova, the Silver Surfer returns to Earth on a mission of mercy -- only to inadvertently happen upon the re-manifestation of the Super-Skrull in outer space!

Intent on keeping his presence hidden, the Super-Skrull engages The Surfer in battle, but their conflict is soon ended by the intervention of another unexpected party.

The Eternals have agreed to capture the Silver Surfer and map his unique genetic code so that The High Evolutionary might use its information to advance the human race to its next phase of existence. Neither Surfer nor Skrull is a willing participant, making fighting allies of the pair held captive in the Greek mountains!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Super-Skrull 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Thena 5 (Professor)
Speed: Makkari 7 (Lightspeed)
Stamina: Karkas 6 (Generator)
Agility: Super-Skrull 6 (Rubber)
Fighting: Ikaris 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Silver Surfer 7 (Cosmic Power)
Total: Silver Surfer 37 (Cosmic)

The Eternals are: Ikaris, Makkari, Thena, and Sersi, with Karkas.

At the dawn of humanity esoteric space gods known as Celestials visited upon the Earth an evolutionary nudge that spawned two genome variants: homo-immortalis and homo-descendus -- better known as Eternals, and their grotesque subterranean shadows, The Deviants.

The Eternals chose to sequester themselves, eventually settling in the mountains of Greece in a secluded, highly advanced city called Olympia. From there they served as secret guardians to Earth, in a pact with their counterpart Greek gods, using innate cosmic powers to suppress the Deviants and shepherd humanity.

Although Eternals draw from a mutual source of ability, each specializes in using their natural gifts in unique ways: Ikaris is strong and projects powerful energy, often from his eyes. Makkari has mastered moving at phenomenal speed. Thena is a study of ancient knowledge and fighting techniques, wielding energy & weapons. Sersi is an expert of transmutation and psionic projection.

Silver Surfer received similar gifts when Galactus bestowed upon him the power cosmic. The erstwhile Norrin Radd is no stranger to battling other god-like beings, as we saw when he clashed with Norse powered Beta Ray Bill in Godhunter #2, and Thor himself in the alternate reality of What If...? #70.

Although the Silver Surfer has defeated Ronan The Accuser on multiple occasions, such as Silver Surfer #13, he was overwhelmed when attempting to siphon the augmenting energies of the Kree Empire and Ego during Maximum Security #3.

This might suggest the Eternals' ability to pool their respective power into a single Uni-Mind might cause The Surfer some trouble. Fortunately for him, he has the one-man army of sometimes enemy turned ally Super-Skrull by his side!

Super-Skrull succumbed to Thor's lightning in Thor #465, but displayed a portion of his multi-faceted might while over-powering Ms Marvel in Marvel Team-Up #62.

With the combined powers of the Fantastic Four, Kl'rt commands super-strength, rubber malleability, scorching flame, invisibility, and force-fields to devastating effect. If he stays on the same page as Silver Surfer they should be able to match the Eternals and their Deviant powerhouse Karkas. Let's see if they did...

The Tape: The Eternals Ranking: Silver Surfer (#31)

What Went Down...

Held captive in separate translucent cells: Silver Surfer compels Super-Skrull to renew efforts to escape, while he does the same. Their simultaneous assault on the "Sunset" and "Sunrise" Pyramids will cause their linked fates to be freed.

Super-Skrull wields the outward pressure of invisible projected forcefields, red hot flames, and monstrous strength, while Silver Surfer radiates with awesome power cosmic. All at once their prisons are shattered as The Surfer makes the difference!

The Eternals are awestruck by their gleaming guest's power, but not all are as reluctant as Karkas to engage him.

Ikaris vows to complete their sworn task of mapping The Surfer's genome, raising a hand to demonstrate his own cosmic power with a blast of energy.

Silver Surfer blocks the attack with an extended hand, while summoning Super-Skrull to his side.

The Skrull is surprised to find his erstwhile adversary seeking to help him despite an earlier attack. Their alliance of convenience is of obvious appeal as the Eternals mobilize for a coordinated strike.

Thena surrounds the Silver Surfer in a smoldering projection from her eyes, while the fast-moving Makkari staggers Super-Skrull with a flying kick to the face!

Super-Skrull keeps his footing and immediately returns fire with an uppercut that channels the augmented strength of The Thing into knocking Makkari into the air!

The Surfer launches a counter-attack of his own -- forcing Thena to leap nimbly clear of a burst of cosmic energy that crashes into the ground.

Karkas charges in to intervene, heeding Ikaris' order to be on guard with eyes on a strong offense. He wraps his hulking arms around the Silver Surfer, overwhelming the space-faring hero with the powerful grapple.

Makkari demonstrates his incredible speed -- literally running rings around the Super-Skrull while effortlessly avoiding jets of flame. Sersi takes advantage of the distraction, introducing the Skrull to the agony of her own energy projection!

The Surfer erupts with cosmic power as well, freeing himself from the oppressive grip of Karkas -- only to turn into the direct path of Ikaris' eye beams!

Meanwhile, Kl'rt channels more of The Thing's strength -- transforming his legs into powerful rocky piledrivers. He slams his foot to the ground, sending a devastating localized shockwave that topples Sersi and Makkari!

Seeing the rest of the Eternals focused on his teammate, Super-Skrull surrounds himself in fire and takes flight in an effort to seize his opportunity for escape.

The Surfer can only shout at the treachery, held unerringly by mighty Karkas in the point blank gaze of Ikaris' devastating eye blasts!

An opportunity presents itself as Ikaris responds to the Skrulls' escape,  commanding Thena and Makkari to use their speed to take chase. The Surfer takes advantage of the distraction, summoning his board to carry him out of Karkas' arms and crashing straight through Ikaris!

In the skies above Olympus, Super-Skrull channels the fire of the Human Torch with urgency, but he knows he cannot match the speed of his pursuers. Makkari and Thena rapidly close in -- when suddenly a silver streak divides them!

The cosmic rider stands stridently on his board with the gathered Eternals at his face, and the Super-Skrull at his back.

The Surfer confounds Kl'rt once more with another unexpected effort to help. He compels the Super-Skrull to complete his escape, reminding him that the entire Skrull race was robbed of their natural shape-shifting abilities while he was lost in a swirl of deconstructed atoms in Earth's Van Allen radiation belt.

With the responsibility of his species' "prime-heritage", Super-Skrull accepts Silver Surfer's gift of hope and gesture towards justice, uncertain that he or his Empire will ever be able to repay the act. The Surfer accepts this, hoping that the restoration of Skrull power will at least end their renewed war with the Kree.

Uncertain of Earth's future, and the true nature of the Eternals' seemingly impossible history, Silver Surfer and his would-be captors reach a mutual respect and understanding. Ikaris bids him godspeed, accepting that The Surfer will not assist the High Evolutionary in tampering with the advancement of nature.

The Hammer...

This strikes me as a fairly honest way to induct the Eternals into our combative corner of the web. Their Marvel Studios debut has brought newfound attention, but like a lot of folks, I've mostly experienced them as obscure guest characters in preferred series, or occasionally glanced back issues that never quite made it into the collection.

Ikaris had the bearing of an adventuring front-man for a Marvel super-group, but his basic design was also dangerously underwhelming. Kind of like one of those knock-off He-Man toylines, or a cartoon from anywhere in the sixties to the eighties that just wasn't as legit as the hits. The set-up of the dichotomous Deviants as their all encompassing, monstrous villains didn't help.

The high-concept premise is actually the kind of straight forward that works, but The Eternals lacked the immediate visual appeal, or otherworldliness, of other Jack Kirby creations. Accessibility almost worked against them, in an ironic sort of way.

The New Gods are famously a similarly difficult rite of passage for uninitiated readers, but once that threshold of Kirby appreciation is crossed, the barrier to entry unfolds into a far more indulgent and vivid experience than The Eternals. Its higher degree of difficulty is in some small way part of the reward.

The Eternals may be simpler than the New Gods, but in that regard they also overlap with the niche of a super-powered secret society living in seclusion already occupied by The Inhumans. The latter is couched in its own difficulties of grandiose royal family, but benefits from deeper ties with a popular mainstream gateway series like Fantastic Four.

It's easy to see how Eternals could be overlooked by the publisher, and passed up by readers, but that's not to say they're without their charms.

With just a little bit of effort comes the reward of something interesting, and if you took a chance on an issue like Silver Surfer Annual #1, you got a gentle, action-packed introduction to a classic quartet who've watched the world for a million years, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Greek gods like Hercules.

The scope of their history and lifespan, and weight of purpose on their potential, is something that sets the Eternals apart from the grounded genetic discourse of the X-Men. Rather than dwell analogously on the contemporary concerns of racial politics or personal identity, The Eternals flirt with grand existential concepts of the meaning of life itself, and the fantasy of classical ascended super-humans.

This cosmic philosophizing meshes well with Silver Surfer, who's always at his best contemplating the vastness of space with a soulful, almost zen sense of perspective on life.

He plays an interesting role in the conflict with the Eternals, assuming a position of extreme advocacy for the individual, which almost defies his more familiar sense of altruism. Here he not only fights to deny humanity its potential for ascension through the mapping of his chrome-tinged cosmically altered genome, but also does everything he can to secure Super-Skrull's freedom for the sake of restoring the Skrull species to their natural state of deceptive shape-shifting.

It's all a little bit Star Trek Prime Directive, essentially boiling down to superior beings allowing nature to take its course, rather than endorsing the eugenic experiments of the High Evolutionary, who sets the entire plot into motion as part of the banner event for 1988 Annuals, The Evolutionary War.

The second volume of What If? begins with a pretty wild story that explores a reality where the High Evolutionary "won", and The Eternals ultimately merge with Inhumans, and evolved mutants, to take on the cosmic entities that define the universe, after killing Galactus. Humanity uniformly develops big heads, and Daredevil becomes one of the last men on Earth, forging a friendship with Vision.

It might not be as strange as it sounds, but it's a typical dark fate for a What If? story. Something we might look at some time in the future. I'd also like to return to more of the Eternals, having enjoyed today's featured battle, and more of the Evolutionary War, which has an interesting appearance by an adversary who share centuries with the Eternals - Apocalypse.

If you'd like to see that sooner than later you can become a backer on Patreon to sponsor your choice of future feature. As a thank you for supporting the project you'll unlock additional updates, polls, and options for customized articles.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured well over 600 battles and ranked more than 1000 characters! You can discover them all by following links throughout this post, or by diving into the Secret Archive for a free and complete index of featured fights in order of publisher, series, and issue number!

You can find today's featured fight by checking out collected editions of Essential Silver Surfer Vol. 2 or The Evolutionary War. Use the Amazon purchase links for any of your shopping and you'll not only discover a great deal -- you'll also help Amazon support the site at no extra cost to you!

Get free daily links to smackdown inspired by the topics of the day by subscribing on Twitter and Facebook. Don't forget to like, fave, and share posts, and keep your eyes peeled for the week's top trending battles every Sunday!

Winner: Inconclusive (Draw)
#31 (--) Silver Surfer
#145 (+4) Super-Skrull
#445 (+152) Sersi
#475 (new) Ikaris
#476 (new) Karkas
#477 (new) Makkari
#478 (new) Thena

AVENGERS versus NEBULA

Doomsday Plus One! (Marvel)
Where: Avengers #315 When: March 1990
Why: John Byrne How: Paul Ryan & Tom Palmer

The Story So Far...
As strange energy fluxes begin to hit the Avengers; an emergency distress call from Starfox draws Iron Man and Vision to investigate in space. Their fate is unknown when the remaining heroes of Avengers Mansion are pummeled with an energy wave that eradicates existence!

Safely sealed inside a section of the rebuilt mansion thanks to Sersi; Captain America, Thor, Jarvis, and Spider-Man desperately scramble for answers, and a means to survive the infinite vacuum of nothingness!

Recalibrating their limited hardware, Spider-Man discovers another structure floating in the void! When Sersi attempts to make telepathic contact with the PolyDyne Industries survivors -- she's rocked by pure evil! Bridging the gulf with Thor's hammer, the Avengers discover the culprit: the space pirate - Nebula!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Thor 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Spider-Man 5 (Professor)
Speed: Spider-Man 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Thor 6 (Generator)
Agility: Spider-Man 5 (Cat-Like)
Fighting: Captain America 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Thor 5 (Lasers)
Total: Thor 32 (Super)

The Avengers are: Captain America and Thor, with Spider-Man.

The Avengers have effectively been reduced to a two-man team-up, relying on visiting reservist Spider-Man, and faithful butler Jarvis. The Eternal Sersi was instrumental in protecting the team, but incapacitated by a telepathic episode. Iron Man and Vision were already deployed elsewhere in space at the time.

They face notorious space-pirate Nebula who's known to the Avengers as the alleged grand-daughter of Thanos. Whether her lineage is true blue or not, she's certainly shown a similar penchant for sadism, destruction, and survival.

She possesses incredible natural strength, endurance, and energy powers, as well as frequently acquiring advanced alien weaponry, with the mastery to make the most of it. She also has a merry band of scum and villainy to call upon, once used to subdue Silver Sufer! Of course, as we saw in Secret Defenders #10, she was also swiftly defeated once the Surfer was free to seek her out.

In theory, Thor has the brute strength and firepower to be more than a match for Nebula. He's bested Super-Skrull in Thor #464, suckered DC's Superman in JLA/Avengers #1, and fought Drax The Destroyer to a brawny standstill in Warlock and The Infinity Watch #21. Each is an equivalent cosmic adversary.

Where things sometimes fall apart for Thor is in his tendency to rely on godly might, and a hubris that fails to consider the possibility of defeat. Case in point, he was simply overruled by the Elder, Champion of the Universe, in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7. Likewise, the innate worthiness and tenacity of Beta Ray Bill allowed Thor to be caught vulnerable and unprepared in Thor #337.

Nebula will never be worthy enough to steal Mjolnir away from Thor, but if she has a powerful enough weapon, she could certainly exploit it tactically.

Captain America and Spider-Man are a little out of their comfort zone, but can be counted on to run interference. As well as directing traffic, Cap famously stared down the overwhelming odds of Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet #4. Spidey took a run at him with a stand-in Thor earlier in that same issue.

On face value Nebula is an underdog against the combined tactical and physical powers of these three heroes. The only real way to know how she'll fare is by diving in to the action! Let's take a look...

The Tape: Avengers Ranking: Spider-Man (#2)

What Went Down...
Adrift in a void of infinite nothingness: Thor uses his enchanted hammer to draw the surviving Avengers to their destination with a magnetic field -- and smashes their way in! Inside: Nebula is there to deliver a hostile greeting!

Spidey and Cap narrowly avoid Nebula's wrist blaster as the webslinger mistakes her for a blue-skinned Atlantean. They leap clear, but remain under heavy fire as the villainess opens up both barrels with a wild spray!

Cap's shield and Thor's hammer hold strong against the intense energy blasts, but Spider-man is forced to take evasive action, employing the speed and agility of a spider to leap and wall crawl through a lethal blanket of fire!

Spidey tries to take control of his destiny with a stream of webbing, but the absence of gravity throws his aim off. Nebula easily dives over the adhesive and returns fire in a single graceful arc!

Cap and Thor do their best to come to their vulnerable ally's aid! Cap calls for Nebula's attention and throws his mighty shield into the path of her blasts, but she derisively shoots it out of the air -- and out of reach of the Captain!

Fortunately, the gambit was merely to create a distraction so Thor could unleash a powerful wind with the swing of Mjolnir! its gusting gale picks Nebula off her feet -- hurling her across the laboratory to the opposing wall!

Nebula is pinned to the wall by the mighty wind. Made of tough stuff, she chides herself for the error and endures the pressure long enough to sense an ebb in the wind's waves. She pushes against the wall with perfect timing, airborne long enough to twirl around and fire a concussive blast at the heroes!

Her renewed laser assault is cut short by two precision bursts of webbing that plug the gauntlet blasters! Spidey leaps at Nebula to press the advantage, but grossly under estimates her strength and combat prowess! She easily catches the web-slinger in mid-flight and turns his momentum into a throw!

Nebula searches for Captain America, but the super-soldier has made a dash for the central machine that's uncontrollably spewing energy. Cap recruits Thor to temper the mysterious forces, but the thunder god can only hold it back so long!

The scientist responsible for building the machine attempts to guide the heroes to a solution before its Genesis Pulse reaches maximum, but Nebula intervenes to incinerate him with a full power blast of her gauntlet!

Thor leaps forth to avenge the old man, but Nebula catches the enraged god with a direct shot to the gut!

Focused on the task at hand, Captain America recruits another of the surviving staff to learn the secret to stopping the machine. It seems it may be as simple as disrupting the flow of power from subbasement generators -- but breaking through the electromagnetic field surrounding the inductor seems impossible!

The super-soldier steels himself to fight against the awesome forces, accepting that even he may risk serious internal injury. His hand shakes as he strains to reach for the giant power coil that will end the madness. Spider-Man interrupts his struggle to lend the helping hand they need!

Years of fighting Electro have ensured Spidey's web formula is non-organic and non-conductive, allowing him to pierce the energy field with a line and begin the awesome feat of pulling the inductor loose! Nebula may have escaped in the chaos, but reality is once again restored.

The Hammer...
The Avengers may have saved the day with Spider-Man's help, but Nebula's escape clearly leaves us with an inconclusive outcome! You can chalk this one up as a draw when you check out rankings updates at the bottom of this entry.

I must say, it's nice to be back in 1990. I've generally romanticized the year in other recent featured fights. This time we're in the sweet spot of a couple of issues I've wanted to get to for quite some time.

Spider-Man's guest spot in an unlikely cosmic adventure made the team's re-assembling in Avengers #316 an action-packed episode I revisited many times over the years. There was just something right about all those elements together -- particularly with Iron Man and Vision joining back in!

Captain America is clearly out of his element, but exhibits all the determination and heroism necessary to challenge the odds throughout. Avengers #315 is at both times a small and cosmic story. The stakes are high, but the quarters are close, allowing Cap and Spider-Man to own the focus of a hero's journey.

It's getting easy to forget there was a time when Spider-Man didn't have charter membership with the Avengers. I've never been overly opposed to the idea, but there's just something that feels right about Spider-Man remaining slightly on the outside. You couldn't honestly call him a loner -- he was the star of Marvel Team-Up, and untold crossover appearances in his own, and other series. I guess it just makes sense that he ultimately swings his own way in the end.

As much as I'm a little nostalgic for a time when Marvel's brands were more strongly defined, there are things I appreciate have changed.

It's fun to revisit Nebula's early days as a slightly unremarkable space pirate who caused trouble for the Avengers. She feels a little bit classic Star Trek in look and intent here. Her design worked well enough, but the bald cyborg she became soon after feels like a strong, well conceived improvement.

Take nothing away from the images in this issue, though. Between this and the following issue: a lot of credit goes to the collaborating team of late great artist Paul Ryan, and Tom Palmer.

Ryan's renderings of the Avengers and Fantastic Four were staple references throughout the early nineties. As a penciller, he was a tremendous all-rounder, capable of consistently representing Marvel's biggest heroes with modern-classic definition. They were iconic, but identifiably contemporary.

The contrast balance I've been using for image scans really doesn't do the finished work justice. I would also argue the storytelling is better appreciated when the composition of complete pages is seen in their entirety. Ryan wasn't a heavily stylized pin-up artist and that's probably why his work can be taken for granted at times, and sorely underrated. If you get a chance to pick up this issue, or a collection, you'll see what I mean. You can check out more of the issues I remembered via this 2016 tribute.

If you want to see more of today's fight and Spidey's team-up with the Avengers you can check it out in a few different collected editions, including Avengers by John Byrne and Spider-Man: Am I An Avenger?

Use the purchase links provided to do your online shopping and Amazon will support the site at no extra cost to you!

Discover more by following links throughout this post, or by diving into the Secret Archive for a complete index of featured battles. You can also get daily links inspired by the topics of the day by following Secret Wars on Infinite Earths on Twitter and Facebook! Be sure to share and like your faves!

Winner: Draw
#2 (--) Spider-Man
#7 (--) Captain America
#29 (--) Thor
#571 (+297) Nebula
#563 (new) Sersi [+1 assist]