#1: What do you think of Jack Kirby's Eternals series as a whole?

I loved it the first time I saw it.  In fact, proofread the first issue.

#2: Why did you decide to have Eros join the Avengers?

As I recall, that was Mark Gruenwald's suggestion.

#3: When Eros first appeared, he told Rick Jones that he was well-known as a hero in earthly legends. Yet when he visited earth as an Avenger, he seemed very foreign to its culture, even to the use of names, and had never even swam in water before. Why was this?

Because he hadn't been here in a while.

#4: Considering that Mark Gruenwald created Maelstrom in Marvel Two-In-One, edited your run on Avengers, and made Maelstrom the prime foe of Quasar, would I be correct in assuming he had something to do with the use of Maelstrom in Avengers#247-250?

He might have suggested it ... or Maelstrom might have just been available as a fairly cosmic villain who hadn't been as overexposed as some.  I don't remember, sorry.

#5: When you had most of the Eternals depart from earth in Avengers#248, were you intentionally tying into Peter B. Gillis' limited series?

I was helping set it up.  The limited series was in the works at the time, and Mark asked me to send most of the Eternals away.

#6: Of the Eternals, Avengers#248 depicted Aginar, Ajak, Valkin & Zarin- all Polar Eternals- leaving earth. Why did you select these characters in particular? And while Peter B. Gillis established that Domo & Sigmar also left, had you intended for any other Eternals to be gone (ie, Sprite, Forgotten One)?

I don't recall.

#7: In #2 of the Eternals limited series, Peter B. Gillis wrote something of a retraction on the statement in Avengers#247 regarding the disposal of the Deviants. Ikaris says that only the ruling classes of the Deviants had been forged into the stone block, with most of the Deviant population still out there. Did you intend for almost all of the Deviants to have been re-cast into the stone block, or did Gillis mis-read you?

It was intentionally left nebulous for Peter to handle as he saw fit.

#8: In Fantastic Four#349, as the Fantastic Four fought the Mole Man on Monster Isle, Art Adams drew several familiar faces among the monsters- including Van Doom's Monster (though it couldn't possibly be the same living statue from Tales to Astonish#17) and Gigantus. Then, in Marvel Universe#7, you firmly established Gigantus as one of the monsters of Monster Isle. Were you intentionally picking up on his cameo in FF#349? (Walt Simonson, by the way, tells me he had no idea Adams had inserted the character there)

No.

#9: Thanks to Marvel Universe#4-7, we now know that the classic Marvel monsters Gorgilla, Grottu, the Molten Man-Thing, Gigantus, and the Lizard Men- along with Giganto, Tricephalous & the Wakandan Dinosaurs- are Deviant Mutates. Are there any other Marvel monsters you think are likely of Deviant stock? (for example, in Fantastic Four Index#1, George Olshevsky postulated that the Cyclops Mr. Fantastic fought in FF#9 was actually a Deviant, not the Olympian creature.)

Maybe.  We won't know until someone does something more with them.

#10: In Marvel Universe#6, Makkari meets with a Colonel Vulcanin. The letters page refuses to give away his identity, as it ties into the Hurricane/Makkari mystery. But in Marvel Universe#7, there was no foot-note to explain to readers that Vulcanin was really Valkin. Considering the low profile of most Eternals comics, shouldn't there have been a follow-up?

There was supposed to be a mention of Valkin in the letters page of issue #7.  It was inadvertently left out.

#11: Why did you decide to make the Golden Age hero Hurricane into Makkari? Does this revelation mean that the other "gods" seen in Red Raven Comics#1 (Zeus, Minerva, Vulcan, Apollo, etc.) were actually their Eternals counterparts?

Perhaps.  It just made sense that all these various incarnations of Kirby "speed-gods" were one and the same.

#12: Now that Hurricane has been tied into the Eternals, is there room for other Golden Age heroes to be established in a similar manner? (for example, there are some wild fan theories about Golden Girl- the lost Captain America side-kick- being Sersi)

If there's no Kirby connection, I wouldn't go there.

#13: Still on Hurricane- Although Marvel has been reprinting his appearances lately (Golden Age of Marvel, Marvel Mystery Comics), most of them are still unavailable. Do you think Hurricane should be collected into a single trade paperback?

No.  The only stories were having are the ones that Jack drew. Trust me, I've seen the others.

#14: Although you haven't written the Eternals extensively, do you have any favorite Eternals or Deviants? Do you enjoy using them in your stories?

Aside from Makkari and Sersi ... probably Kro.  The problem is that you really need Jack Kirby to do any of them justice.

#15: As a sidebar, I loved the use of Kro's old flagship from Eternals#3 in Marvel Universe#6. You rarely see such attention to forgotten details!

Thanks.  I have all those old issues, and I supplied Jason Armstrong with the reference.

#16: In The Lost Generation, Oxbow has been referred to as a "half-breed". Is this a "half-breed" in the traditional sense (half-white, half-Native), or in the "Marvel" sense? It seems that he inherited his powers from his father...was his father an alien, or, say, an Eternal?

That wasn't the plan.

#17: I've found what appears to be an interesting coincidence that I thought I'd share, in case you aren't aware. In the 1994 series "Blackwulf" by Glenn Herdling- a book that featured Deviants as the central cast- revealed that two alien saucers crashed in Roswell in 1947. One was piloted by the last surviving non-Deviant Skrull. The other, by two Skrulls in pursuit of him. Eventually, this non-Deviant Skrull was found to have survived.

So, is it nothing more than an interesting coincidence that you and Herdling both made the Skrulls out to be the Roswell aliens? And can we presume that Velmax & Zuhn were accompanying the crashed saucer in pursuing the non-Deviant?

No.   I've never even heard of Blackwulf.

#18: Although I recognize that we still have one more issue of Lost Generation to go, will we be seeing Pixie again in other comics?

John had planned to have a cameo of her in HIDDEN YEARS, but I don't know if that's going to happen now.

#19: Lastly, completely off-topic, there's a question I simply *must* ask: in the past 5 years since his death, Dr. Druid has appeared in 7 different comics, 5 of which were written by you; clearly, we are on the verge of a full-fledged Dr. Druid revival! When can I expect to see him again? :-)

Probably when Hell freezes over.

You can't blame a devoted Dr. Druid fan for trying! The legions of Eternals fans salute you, Mr. Stern, for taking your time to answer our questions, and for providing some of the most memorable Eternals appearances in the past two decades!