Sersi

The beautiful and godlike Sersi was, in my opinion, one of the more surprising omissions from the original Classic Marvel Figurine Collection. As an Eternal and a former Avenger, she definitely deserves a place in any customized Eaglemoss collection.

Sersi and the other Eternals were created by the legendary Jack Kirby in 1976 (she first appeared in Eternals #3, cover-dated September 1976). Loosely inspired by Erich von Däniken’s theories about the extraterrestrial origins of mankind, the Eternals are a race of idealized super-beings created millennia ago by a squad of enormous, intergalactic space gods called Celestials.

Sersi and her fellow Eternals

Sersi the Terrible earns her name

All Eternals are superhumanly strong and fast, capable of flight and teleportation, able to shoot lasers from their eyes, and, as if all that wasn't enough, they are absolutely indestructible. Even if they are disintegrated down to a molecular level, their bodies will eventually regenerate. Garbed in brightly colored costumes and waging a bombastic war with the monstrous Deviants, the Eternals were pretty much Jack Kirby's attempt to out-comic-book every other comic book ever published.

Besides this basic power set, Sersi has also mastered the art of transmutation of matter; in other words, she can actually reshape physical objects however she wishes to. (Some writers over the years have tried to claim that her powers are merely illusory, but Kirby was very clear on the matter: Sersi’s transformations are real.) Sersi is without question one of the most powerful beings in the entire Marvel Universe.

Pictured: Not an illusion.

Unlike most of her race, who sequestered themselves away from the common run of humanity, Sersi chose to live among ordinary people, drifting over the centuries through Greece, Mesopotamia, Europe, and eventually America. In the Marvel universe, Sersi is the same woman who appears in Homer’s writings as Circe, the sorceress who transformed Odysseus’s men into pigs. She also knew the Roman Emperor Nero, King Arthur, and Attila the Hun.

Sersi: Never afraid to get physical!

This panel gives us Sersi in a nutshell.

Seemingly based on the fashion-plate movie stars of the 1950s, Sersi is elegant, haughty, hedonistic, fiercely independent, and insatiably flirtatious (she has been known to keep one or two starry-eyed paramours around as pet lovers). But Jack Kirby also presented her as a cunning, unyielding, and ferocious fighter—there was a reason he dubbed her Sersi the Terrible.

After a string of adventures with her fellow Eternals, Sersi joined the Avengers for several years in the early 1990s, forming a particularly close bond with the Black Knight. Her career ended in personal tragedy when Proctor, an alternate-reality version of the Black Knight who was spurned by his reality's Sersi, went on an inter-dimensional killing spree, in a quest to kill every Sersi across the multiverse. After his defeat, an emotionally exhausted Sersi retired from heroics, re-emerging only rarely in times of dire need (such as in the excellent Chaos War event of 2010-2011).

A somewhat more subdued Sersi helped save the universe in 2011's Chaos War.

To make Sersi I used the Donna Troy figurine from the DC collection, because its pose, with its combination of playfulness, sexiness, and confidence, suits Sersi perfectly. Deciding which costume to feature was the next step. I immediately rejected the ugly 1990s brown-jacket look and also the sleeker, more modern look featured in her recent appearances (though I chose this look for the cover mockup, since it’s such a breathtaking image). I chose instead her Avengers costume from the early 1990s, which is very close to Jack Kirby’s original design for her but with slightly more detailing.

Sersi over the years. Something weird definitely happened in the mid-1990s, but thankfully it didn't last long. 

Another advantage of the Donna Troy figurine is that there is very little excess material to remove or file away (this makes it very popular among customizers). Essentially I needed only to strip the original paint away, add a few minor details such as her arm-gloves and boots, and re-paint.

Overall I was fairly happy with how she turned out, though of course there are always minor mistakes when you look closely. Finally I glued her onto a Marvel base, and Sersi was ready to take her place among the Avengers in my Eaglemoss collection.

Sersi alongside the Avengers of the early 1990s, circa Operation Galactic Storm

For the Eaglemoss-style cover mockup, I chose artwork from the variant cover of Eternals #1 (August 2006) by Olivier Coipel.

*ESSENTIAL READING * 

1. Eternals #6 (Mar. 1986). Though she first appeared in the 1977-76 run of Eternals, this issue from the 1985-86 series contains one of the best early Sersi stories, as she tries to maintain control of a dinner party which is gradually crowded with super-heroes, Eternals and Deviants.

2. Avengers #314 (Feb. 1990). Sersi joins the Avengers just in time to save their lives, as a secret doomsday machine blips the entire universe out of existence except those whose molecules she is able to hold together.

3. Eternals #2 (Sep. 2006). After the mischievous Sprite makes her and all other Eternals forget their real identities, Sersi gradually re-discovers her powers and memories.  

Ta-ta for now! See you at the party!

Next up: The Hell Lord, Satannish the Supreme!