Marvel’s Eternals Fought the Weirdest Version of the Hulk
The Eternals rarely interacted with the larger Marvel Universe at first, except for one time when they met the weirdest version of the Hulk!
The Eternals rarely interacted with the rest of the Marvel Universe for the first few years of their existence, and one of their first meetings involved the weirdest version of The Hulk. In The Eternals #14-16, the ancient heroes fought a robotic version of the Hulk.
Jack Kirby, along with Stan Lee and others, helped create the Marvel Universe as fans know it today through the 1960s. Dissatisfied with the direction Marvel was taking, Kirby left for a brief stint at DC before returning to Marvel in the mid-70s. One of his first creations upon his return was The Eternals, a race of super-beings created by the Celestials who had secretly co-existed with humanity for thousands of years, and inspired many of Earth’s legends and myths. Kirby initially did not want Ikaris, Sersi, and the rest to crossover with the regular Marvel Universe, but editorial insisted, and in issue six, the Eternals ran across than less than savory SHIELD agents. Marvel continued to pressure Kirby to incorporate outside characters, and he relented, bringing the Hulk into the picture... sort of.
The Eternals have many unique rituals and traditions, and one of them is the Uni-Mind, in which all Eternals merge their consciousness into one entity - which they did to study the Celestials, who had returned to Earth. After the job was done, the Uni-Mind dispersed, but some of its cosmic energy entered the body of a robotic duplicate of the Hulk built by college engineering students. The robot, now empowered by the radiation, goes on a destructive rampage, and it falls on Ikaris and the rest to stop the behemoth; the fight finally ends when Zuras, the leader of the Eternals, comes to Earth and takes the energy back into himself.
Kirby originally was against the idea of the Hulk, or Captain America appearing in the book, and the concept as he initially envisioned it would make it difficult. The three agents of SHIELD the Eternals met early on had less than noble aims for them and were never seen again after one issue. When it came time to introduce another Marvel character into the book, Kirby used the Hulk, one of the most recognizable characters in the Marvel Universe. He gave editorial what they wanted—just not how they expected it.
The Eternals ran for three years and ended with issue 19. After the conclusion of the series, they would be incorporated fully into the Marvel Universe with two Eternals: Sersi and the Forgotten One, even joining the Avengers. However, meetings were few and far between, except for the weirdest version of the Hulk.