How might you react if a stranger with gold-colored eyes showed up and told you of an immortal life you'd forgotten?

That's the question posed at the beginning of Eternals, a newly collected miniseries written by Neil Gaiman.

Gaiman, who took a mothballed and gimmicky character from the DC Comics warehouse and created the Endless phenomenon, does similar service for Marvel here by revisiting the late Jack Kirby's extraterrestial immortals. Kirby, who co-created Captain America for Marvel and devised the New Gods for DC, crafted the Eternals (nee Celestials) as a graphic response to Chariots of the Gods? and other ancient ET theories.

The fruit died on the vine back in the 1970s, but Gaiman has given new life to the concept.

Let me be frank: I've never been a fan of Kirby's inventions that, for all their purported godly origins, were just your average, oddly costumed superheroes. Orion, one of the New Gods, rides around on a scooter, for goodness' sake! And can you really tell me Mister Miracle, whose great gift is escaping from boxes, is more godlike than Superman?

But, while DC inserts the New Gods into countless storylines, making them hard to ignore, the Eternals had fallen entirely off my radar over at Marvel. Until now. Gaiman's involvement was enough for me to give them a chance.

And he does it. He successfully remakes the Eternals in a way that honors Kirby's source material while shoehorning them into the Marvel Universe in a way that makes sense -- something Kirby himself was unable to do. And, while he hasn't created a sensation like the Endless, Gaiman has put some interesting concepts on the table; it remains to see what Marvel does with them next. (Let's just hope we don't see the Eternals duking it out with the Mole Men or joining the Avengers any time soon.)

Meanwhile, I can't wait to see what Gaiman tackles next.