Marvel Entertainment is launching the “Eternals: The 500-Year War” digital comics series with brand-new stories featuring Earth’s oldest defenders, timed to sync up with Thursday’s streaming release of Marvel Studios film “Eternals” on Disney Plus.
The seven-issue comics series debuts Jan. 12 on Marvel Unlimited, the recently overhauled digital subscription service priced starting at $9.99/month. That will be followed by a launch on the Webtoon platform on Jan. 20.
“Eternals: The 500-Year War” follows Marvel’s band of immortal heroes spanning the globe in encounters across their five-century fight against the monstrously mutated Deviants. Each of the seven issues will be set in a different country — Brazil, China, France, Japan, South Korea, Spain and the U.K. — and will be led by an international creative team of writers and artists from the respective country where the story is set.
The rotating creative lineup for the comics includes writers Dan Abnett, Aki Yanagi, Jongmin Shin, Ju-Yeon Park, David Macho, Rafael Scavone and Yifan Jiang, and artists Geoffo, Rickie Yagawa, Do Gyun Kim, Magda Price, Marcio Fiorito and Gunji. Art will be colored by Matt Milla, Carlos Macias, Fernando Sifuentes, Pete Pantazis and Felipe Sobreiro.
“Bringing ‘Eternals: The 500-Year War’ to Marvel Unlimited will open up doors for our international creative teams to tell much more personal stories by setting them in their homelands,” Marvel editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski said in a statement. “These stories also break down borders and provide excitement beyond anything fans can imagine with these diverse, multicultural characters.”
Marvel released a poster for “Eternals: The 500-Year War”:
Webtoon, owned by South Korean internet company Naver, claims to have 72 million monthly active users. The service hosts original digital comics behind Netflix’s “Hellbound,” “Sweet Home” and the upcoming “All of Us Are Dead.” Other Webtoon best-sellers include “Lore Olympus” by Rachel Smythe and Miriam Bonstre Tur’s “Hooky.”
“Marvel’s ‘Eternals’ are the perfect fit for Webtoon readers around the world: a global narrative crossing borders and boundaries, and a diverse new cast of heroes, all available in an innovative mobile format,” said David Lee, head of content for Webtoon U.S.
Separately, DC Entertainment and Webtoon last summer announced a deal to collaborate on standalone webcomics featuring DC superheroes.
