#1: I noticed that you were Jack Kirby's inker on the cover of Devil Dinosaur#8. What other opportunities did you have to ink his work?

I’ve only inked Jack a very few times. Many years ago, I inked a big drawing of Fighting American and Speedboy that was used as a cover for an oversized portfolio book of Jack’s work, published, I believe, by Mitch Itkowitz. And a couple of years ago, I inked an Odin drawing from Jack’s sketchbook as part of a collection of Jack’s pencils inked by various folks. I also recently inked an unpublished Mr. Miracle cover for Greg Theakston for the Jack Kirby Quarterly but I don’t know if that one’s seen print yet. The Devil Dinosaur cover is, I think, the only work of Jack’s I inked that was actually done over Jack’s pencils during his active career.

#2: Do you have any theories on the Celestials and their origins? Or do you prefer them to be "unfathomable"?

Don’t have any theories about their origins although if I were working on them, I’d probably come up with something, just so I’d have some clues myself. But I’m not sure it’s something I would ever actually put into the comics. I do generally prefer the ‘unfathomable’ where such mysterious and powerful characters are involved. There is great power in mystery that is usually dispelled, not for the better, when the answers to such mysteries are revealed. Answers rarely live up to the mysteries that spawn them.

#3 In his editorial in Thor Annual 7, Roy Thomas describes you as "one of the bigger ETERNALS fans among the Bullpen itself." What is it about the Eternals that appeals to you?

I’m just a big fan of mythology, gods, and demons and the Eternals certainly seem to fall into the mythological end of Jack’s work. I just like that sort of stuff. And I loved the whole idea of the various Hosts that Jack worked into the Eternals to give it structure.

#4: Some have argued that Jack Kirby didn't initially want the Eternals to be a part of the Marvel Universe. Seeing that you were the artist of Thor Annual#7, the comic that fully brought them into the MU, do you have any thoughts on the way this was handled?

Not really. Besides being a long time ago, I never had any contact with Jack regarding the Eternals, nor do I remember ever hearing any sort of argument at that time about whether or not the Eternals should be in the Marvel Universe. They already were, or at least so it seemed to me, when I did the Thor Annual.

#5 The cover to Eternals Vol 2, number 1 is awesome, was there anything in particular that inspired you for that particular cover? How did you come to do the cover to this and the next issue in the first place?

I was asked by someone, almost certainly the editor of the book although I no longer remember for sure, if I would do the covers for the series. I did the first two but other work intervened and I stopped doing covers after the second issue. I was just trying for a kick ass first issue cover with No. 1.

#6: What were the circumstances that led to you writing Eternals#9-12?

Peter Gillis was the writer of the series originally as I recall and he left after issue #8. I don’t really remember the circumstances under which he departed but I was offered the last four issues to finish up as the writer by the editor of the series. By that time, I would certainly have been known at Marvel for my mythological interests and I’m sure that that had something to do with my being offered those last four issues. But you’d have to ask the editor to be certain. I’m just making an assumption here.

#7: Was Sal Buscema's departure from the Eternals limited series a result of him taking over your job as penciler of Thor?

I’m not sure about that. I don’t remember the timing of the Eternals series and Thor so I don’t know if work schedules had something to do with it. You’d really have to ask Sal.

#8: Among Eternals fans, your most notorious contribution to their legend was the death of Margo Damian in Eternals#10- which one fan called the most disturbing scene she'd ever witnessed in comics. While this did lead to an excellent epilogue in Eternals#12 -when Ikaris buried her- why did you decide to have her killed?

Drama. It’s long enough ago that I don’t remember the specific thoughts I had at the time. However, the Eternals were (back then) a fairly small part of the Marvel Universe and I’m sure I wanted to try to finish off the series with an impact. As a writer, you try to give stuff meaning and few things give life more meaning than death. I know that when I was given the series to finish, I had no idea where Peter was going with it. So, following the same process I would use years later with Avengers HR, I read the preceding issues and then tried to figure out where they would lead logically and dramatically. The general idea of stories is to play fair with the reader, give them the information they need to follow the story, and yet, still surprise them in the end. That was essentially what I was trying to do.

#9: There's a strange bit of dis-continuity in Eternals#11. Kingo Sunen and Ransak journey inside the Flame Pits, and Ransak sees something which nearly drives him mad, causing Kingo to knock him out. Then Kingo looks at this same thing in horror. Now, I imagine that this was supposed to be them seeing the storehouse of Deviants that Ghaur had put into suspended animation to serve as the "Fifth Host", but when Kingo and Ransak appear later, there's no mention of this scene. Was it lost in the shuffle?

At this point, not a clue! Sorry.

#10: During the climax of Eternals#12, Kro revealed to Thena that he had been manipulating her all along with a small brain-mine, and that this was the reason she had been so compliant during the limited series. Why did you make this revelation?

I don’t know this one either but it sounds as though I may have thought Thena was not behaving in a ‘Thena-like’ way for the earlier part of the series, at least not as I understood the character, and I wanted some way to recover the character I thought she way.

#11: Why did you decide to make the Forgotten One an Avenger? And was there a particular reason why you chose the "Gilgamesh" alias for him?

I liked him or at least his potential as a character and since he was supposed to be a sort of amalgam of ancient almost mythological heroes (at least so I remember), I thought it was be fun to give him the name of the oldest hero of whom we have a record. He did need a name if he was going to be hanging out with other characters on a regular basis and I liked the idea that he might go back to one of his early ones. And I’ve also liked the name Gilgamesh every since I saw an Outer Limits written by Harlan Ellison entitled ‘Demon with a Glass Hand’.

#12: Strangely, in Avengers#299, when the Forgotten One learns of the events of "Inferno", Thena appears to be the ruler of the Eternals again, even though you had Ikaris depose her in Eternals#9. Did you mean for Thena to have regained her status as Prime Eternal, or was this an error?

Haven’t a clue at this point. Sorry.

#13: The Forgotten One's joining the Avengers came on the heels of your storyline where Nebula was searching for a Celestial weapon. Did you intend for the Forgotten One to play a part in the search for the weapon, had you been able to use the story in Avengers?

I think I was just using all those characters at that time and some of them, the Forgotten One among others, seemed to have potential and to have been underused. When I started writing the Avengers back then, I quickly discovered that my stories were being altered--which is to say that I was being asked to alter them--on a fairly consistent basis because of the presence of Avengers who had their own titles elsewhere. Essentially, I was being asked to match continuity over which I had no control and I was being asked to match it with very little notice. So the direction I chose in my Avengers was to try to create a team that consisted of characters who didn’t appear in other titles. It was no more complicated than that. I just wanted to be able to tell some stories where I wouldn’t have to keep making a series of mid-course corrections in the middle of things. It wasn’t the best way to write stories.

During the year I wrote Avenger stories, I was constantly asked to cut or expand stories to match other titles--Thor is in space this month/write him out of the Avengers for November (that’s just a general example of the kind of thing I ran into, not a specific one). But it made writing the Avengers difficult because I couldn’t tell my stories as I had intended to, almost right from the beginning. About half way into my year writing the book, I found that Reed and Sue Richards had been written out of the FF by Steve Englehart who at the time, as I understand, didn’t plan to bring them back. I thought they were great characters and I thought they would make interesting Avengers, partly because it would be so unexpected. So I got editorial permission to introduce them into the Avengers, maybe five months before I put them into the book. Then, just as I was introducing them and lining up the stories I wanted to use them for, I was told that the editorial decision had been made to put them back in the FF. And I could only use them for one issue. I asked to be able to use them for three issues or so just so it wouldn’t look so incredibly arbitrary but it wasn’t worth it and in the end, it persuaded me that writing the Avengers at that time was, for me at least, something of a thankless job.

As it turned out, I was offered the FF right after that so I was able to do the stories in the FF I would have done in the Avengers, with a slightly different cast and no Eternals.

#14: Have you followed any of the stories the Eternals have appeared in since the end of the limited series? (ie, Eternals: The Herod Factor, New Eternals)

I really haven’t. Once I’ve done some characters myself, I rarely follow their subsequent adventures.

#15: Between Thor Annual#7, the covers to Eternals#1-2 and the scripts in Eternals#9-12, you've dealt with the Eternals as both artist and writer. Which did you prefer?

I enjoyed them all. It was fun to work with Roy, I liked the way the covers turned out (especially No. 1), and they were interesting to write. But I will add that I would probably enjoy writing as well as drawing them the most.

#16 Some fans see the Eternals and the Deviants as symbolically representing the good and evil in humanity, while others state that characters such as Karkas and Druig indicate that it is not as clear cut as this. Do you have any particular feelings either way on this?

Hadn’t really thought about it like that. The Deviants don’t seem wholly bad and the Eternals don’t seem wholly good. I like more of a mix in my good guys and bad guys than the symbolic use you suggest. It seems a more accurate mirror of the way things are in life!

#17 As a fan yourself, do you have a favourite Eternal? And if so, what is it you like about him/her?

Probably Ikaris and the Forgotten One. Ikaris for his style and costume, the Forgotten One for the romance inherent in the character. And I don’t mean ‘romance’ as in romance novels. More as in the ‘long narratives of the adventures of chivalic heroes’. There’s a whiff of Prometheus in the Forgotten One.

#18 This is probably the most difficult of my questions, but as you are currently the man behind DC's Fourth World, and have experience with Marvel's Eternals, what thoughts do you have on the Eternals as an original concept- do you think they are a mimicry of the New Gods?

Not really. They’re the creation of a single creative mind who was wrestling with thematic material that informs all his work. Clearly Jack had a lot of concerns that he invented characters and situations and worlds, and mythological backgrounds were important to him. I do think that by the time Jack was doing the Eternals, he may have needed a bigger canvass than a single monthly book could afford him. But there are enough differences that I don’t see the Eternals as merely an imitation of the New Gods. I do think that the stage Jack had to play on was perhaps no longer big enough for him or the Eternals.

#19 Finally, would you like to work on the Eternals again someday? And if so, would you want to be their writer, artist, or both?

If I were to do an Eternals work down the road, it would be fun to both write and draw them.

I'm sure we speak for all Eternals fans in saying that we'd love to see you do just that Walt! Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.