Eternals, the movie that doesn't end

[Ramza00]

Maybe I missed something, or its comics canon, but I'm not sure where you're getting Arishem is programmed or a super-AI.

quote snipped above, so I snip below

We're drifting towards a topic that's going to cause moderator issues, so I'll mostly leave it at my initial comment and only add on that 'as a human' I don't find the 'humans are helpless little creatures which need to be protected' to be a terribly interesting storyline.

Not really. The Ancient Aliens build civilization predated Kirby and was not part of Marvel but Kirby used it to launch his own ideas. For example he copyrighted a 4 page tv script which was all about Judgement by the Gods, and it was in part a WW2 metaphor. Stuff with Judgement, Armageddon, The Holocaust, What We Owe Each Other, Mass Media, etc.

Then Kirby was re hired back to Marvel and was promised he got to do freedom to do his own thing. And he did so for the first half of the 19 issues Eternals. The goal was not to connect The Celestials, The Deviants, The Eternals, Humans, to mainline 616 Marvel. But Marvel said midway through Vol 1 your sales are not good enough so you better start doing crossovers with our IP. Thus we get Robot Hulk, and the Eternals Vol 1 was canceled after 19 issues.

So Kirby Eternals with those 19 issues are not like The Chariots of the Gods book (which is not Marvel but launched the Ancient Aliens craze with all its creepy stuff I will not talk about due to board rules ), and likewise almost all of The Eternals and Celestials lore came after Kirby in the 1980s and was established by different authors in non eternal books such as “What If?” Issues 23 to 30. It was those issues that connected The Eternals to all these Earlier Concepts including some of the Stan Lee alien races that are part of the “Sol” Solar System which includes Earth.

The main Eternals titles include:

Eternals (vol. 1) #1–19 (written and penciled by Jack Kirby, July 1976 - Jan. 1978)
Eternals Annual #1 (written and penciled by Jack Kirby, 1977)
Thor Annual #7 (September 1978)
Thor (Vol. 1 ) #284-301 (June 1979-September 1980)
What If... #23-30 (October 1980-September 1981)
Iron Man Annual #6 (November 1983)
Avengers (Vol. 1 ) #246-248 (August 1984- October 1984)
Eternals (vol. 2) #1–12 (limited series, Oct. 1985 - Sept. 1986)
Avengers (Vol. 1 ) #308-310 (October 1989- November 1989)
Eternals: The Herod Factor (November 1991)
Avengers (Vol. 1 ) #361, #374-375 (April 1993, May 1994 -June 1994 )
Heroes for Hire (Vol.1 ) #4-7 (November 1997, January 1998)
The New Eternals: Apocalypse Now (also known as Eternals: The New Breed) #1 (Feb. 2000)
Eternals (vol. 3) #1–7 (written by Neil Gaiman, limited series, Jun. 2006 - Feb. 2007)
Eternals (vol. 4) #1–9, Annual #1 (August 2008 - March 2009)
Hulk (vol 3.) #49 (May 2012)
Thor:The Deviants Saga #2–5 (February 2012 - May 2012)
Avengers (vol. 8) #4 (September 2018)
Eternals (vol. 5) #1–4 (January 2021 – present)
Others include:

The Eternal #1–6 (written by Chuck Austen, with pencils by Kev Walker and inks by Simon Coleby, Aug. 2003 - Jan. 2004)