Review: Eternity Girl
Quick Summary
Pros: The main narrative does an excellent job of incorporating philosophy, meaning, and emotion. The main narrative is also compelling and has a nice level of suspense to it. The way the story is structured is impressive and makes the entire work feel unique. The artwork looks good and is a great match for this type of story.
Cons: Nothing significant.
Overall: This is an incredibly unique comic that has a lot going for it. The storytelling is meaningful, thought-provoking, interesting, and generally impressively designed. The artwork is also great and helps enhance many aspects within the storytelling. Overall, readers who are looking for a book that questions existence and ponders philosophy without sacrificing excitement and intrigue should definitely check out this comic.
Story
Eternity Girl, by Magdalene Visaggio, is a wild, high-stakes, and fundamentally cosmic comic that also manages to be deeply personal and thought-provoking. It layers in two separate storylines. One is about a woman struggling with the concept of her own existence. The other is about the potential collapse of all reality. These seemingly separate narratives come together beautifully and create a comic that ponders philosophy and emotion while also remaining interesting and exciting. There is even some meta-commentary on the comic book industry that mainstream comic fans are sure to find intriguing. All together, these elements make for a fantastic book.
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At the heart of Eternity Girl is Caroline’s struggle. She is an immortal, unkillable being who is destined to survive the collapse and rebirth of the multiverse over and over again. Realizing this has led to her wanting to kill herself, which she can only do by destroying all of reality.
Despite the grandiose nature of this problem, Caroline’s problem is human and relatable. Caroline asks why she should continue living if she believes her life to be suffering. She finally reaches an answer as she takes in elements of stoic philosophy and decides to give her seemingly random and purposeless life meaning.
The way the cosmic and human elements of this story meet is expertly managed. Visaggio interweaves these narratives together, sometimes defining them in direct ways while, at other times, stacking them right on top of each other. It never feels like the high-stakes story about a multiversal collapse is that different from a story about a woman finding purpose for her life. However, they both lend certain positives to each other, with excitement and suspense coming from the cosmic narrative while emotion and meaning come from the human narrative. Ultimately, this is where the book defines itself as something incredibly unique and definitely worthwhile.
Another subplot running through Eternity Girl is a bit of meta-commentary on the comic book industry. Caroline is similar to most mainstream DC Comics characters in that she is destined to live on and on through generation and generation of continuity resets and universal rebirths. This subplot asks how a self-aware character would act if they were aware of all of this.
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Art
The artwork in Eternity Girl looks great and perfectly matches the story. Sonny Liew’s visuals look nice and have a unique style to them. However, they really stand out in the way they enhance many elements of the storytelling. The artwork is able to easily jump from mundane events to complex, cosmic happenings. The entire book is also laid out well, which is important because these layouts help provide a visual juxtaposition for the book’s interlocking narratives. There are even pages where the artwork shifts style a bit and helps emphasize the meta-commentary element of the story. All of this helps enhance the reading experience and makes the book stand out even further.
Continuity
Eternity Girl is mostly standalone. However, it picks up on plot points that were introduced in the backup stories from each issue of the Milk Wars (Review) (Reading Order) crossover event.
The story here does not currently continue in any specific comic.