On Sersi the Eternal

I'm not sure who my favourite character is, as it tends to vary with my mood, although I’d certainly rate Cap, Hawkeye, Jan, Iron Man, and Jarvis in the running. However, I do want to take the opportunity to talk about a heroine who I am rather fond of, inspired as I have been by the originator of this question of the week, her namesake.

Lots of people have tended to dismiss Sersi as an Avenger, and I believe that to be unfair. Not only is Sersi the most interesting of the later Kirby creations and certainly the most interesting of the Eternals, she has unique powers (even for an Eternal) and a well defined personality which always adds sparkle to the group dynamic.

The characteristics for me of a great Avenger are: the best at what they do (Sersi: check – she manipulates matter like no other Eternal and is certainly one of the greatest amongst them); they have a sense of team identity and spirit (Sersi: check – she came along for a laugh and found herself infected with the “Avengers spirit”, she found herself supporting them in spite of herself, and she even made them those uniform jackets); they have a greatness about them (Sersi – check – she has as much history behind her as Thor and Herc, and at least as much style); and they have something unique to offer the team (Sersi: check again – she not only adds massive power to the team but she contributes to its dynamic, bringing both levity, sophistication, and attitude in equal measure; nor is she inexperienced in dealing with adventurers).

Sersi is even more hedonistic than Tigra without the same sometimes two-dimensional promiscuity, and more society-loving than the Wasp. She has a quite unique relationship with Captain America (pointing out to his girlfriend that neither Sersi or Cap age, so Sersi can still be pursuing Cap when Diamondback is in the old folks home) as well as her romantic relationships and rivalries with the Black Knight, Crystal etc. There is never any problem writing character interplay when Sersi is present.

In addition to all this there is a wealth of unexplained backstory still to explore. We have glimpsed a previous Sersi/Gilgamesh episode. In some alternate(?) history she has birthed a son who went on to be one of Kang’s Anachronauts. She has potentially been married in the distant past, and if she followed the example of her mythical namesake Circe she murdered her husband. She is the bad seed of the Eternals.

And she has a huge affection for the Avengers, whom she respects so much as to want to be with them even if she has to affect an air of detached amusement about what they do.

So I hope to see Sersi back in the ranks someday, and I appeal to Avengers readers not to write her off as a mistake best left forgotten.

IW
 

My Take on Sersi

Thanks for the kind words, Sersi (Ian is replying to a fellow AMB Poster of the name Sersi). However I didn’t set out to do a character study of the Eternal Avenger. If I had, it would go something like this:

One of Sersi’s defining characteristics is that she is old. Older than Hercules by well over a thousand years, maybe older then Thor. And while deities in the Marvel Universe tend not to change with their experience of the aeons, Eternals obviously do.

Because Sersi has been around so long she really has pretty much seen it all. Unlike her fellow Eternals she has chosen consistently to live amongst humans. Where others like Ikkaris or even Gilgamesh have dabbled in mortal affairs in legendary times, Sersi has apparently chosen to live more or less continuously with mankind. So she has experienced more joy, sorrow, life, death, trust, betrayal, nobility and cravenness than we can possibly imagine. And that makes her sophisticated in the true sense of the word.

Now we have some evidence to suggest that Eternal memories get a bit hazy about ancient events, but even so its clear that Sersi has a lot of experience and has been shaped by it. At her core she is a very caring, compassionate person, and just occasionally that comes out despite her attempts to mask it with a casual arrogance. Think of her outrage at the dilemma of that girl from Aarkon’s world who was sacrificed to make the power-rings glow again, or her protectiveness of her teammates when they were threatened by Exodus. Think of her kindness to Ikaris’ human love interest (was it Marla?) back in the original Eternals series. It is perhaps unsurprising that over the millennia she has evolved a mask of detached amusement to hide the feelings she has; every mortal she ever cares for dies eventually. No wonder she spends so much time living for the moment.

Sersi’s long history also explains much of her attitude to the Avengers. She has already adventured with legends. Why should she be in awe of Captain America when she wasn’t impressed with Odysseus? Why should she be intimidated by teaming up with Thor when she has similar levels of power and as long and distinguished a record? So Sersi immediately established a casual, cordial relationship with the team. And to date she is the only Avenger to ever seriously flirt with Cap, which says much about her self-confidence.

Sersi’s choice to stay away from Eternal affairs as much as possible, even down to ignoring the call to join the Uni-Mind on occasion, is also telling. Sersi has declared an impatience with the interminable philosophical ramblings of her kin, and their lengthy power-struggles with the Deviants. She prefers the rapidly-changing human world. She is given to impulsive reactions, quick to anger and quick to aid, which are human rather than Eternal qualities. One wonders how much the unwritten chapter of her life as a juvenile glimpsed in the Citizen Kang storyline has to do with her subsequent preferences for humans.

In a pointless aside: the nearest character to Sersi I can think of in fantasy fiction is probably Polgara the Sorceress in the Belgariad series.

Sersi changed over her time with the Avengers. She came to value the membership which she once held so lightly. She found in them the family that her own people failed to provide. It was to them she turned when she was in trouble, and them she tried to protect from the consequences of the troubles she brought on them. It is therefore logical that she would elect one of the Avengers to be her mainstay during her period of mental imbalance due to Proctor’s secret manipulations. Hence the sudden attraction and subsequent Gann Josin bonding with Dane.

Even that turned sour, of course. Perhaps that is why, with the shattering of that bond, Sersi has chosen to distance herself from the team she was once so committed to. But I hope that the final chapter of Sersi’s association with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is far from written.

Yeah, I’d have said something like that.

IW