Sersi of the Eternals: Editorial History and Key Issues

Among the characters of Marvel's cosmic mythos, Sersi holds a singular place: at once ancient goddess, the merry sorceress of the Odyssey, Manhattan party girl and full-fledged Avenger, she embodies the impossible synthesis of Kirby's contradictions. Born in 1976 in the last great series Jack Kirby created before leaving Marvel, she channels the King's late-career vision: a planetary mythology where the Greek gods, lost civilizations and cosmic upheavals converge into a single unified cosmogony. Her popularity long languished in the shadow of Marvel's major cosmic figures (Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, Captain Marvel), until the 2021 film adaptation abruptly swung the spotlight back onto the entire Eternal pantheon.

This guide traces the 7,000 years of Sersi's editorial history, from her first appearance in Eternals #3 to the 2006 Gaiman/Romita Jr. reboot and her MCU interpretation. We cover the 1976 Kirby creation, the Eternals/Deviants/Celestials cosmology, her integration into the Avengers in 1989, the 2006 reboot, Chloé Zhao's film adaptation, and the 2026 market value of the associated Bronze Age and Modern Age key issues. The goal: to equip collectors with a clear, verified and quantified timeline, so they can spot buying opportunities on a character still undervalued relative to its narrative and cinematic potential.

Created by Jack Kirby in Eternals #3 (September 1976)

Jack Kirby's return to Marvel in 1975, after five years at DC building his Fourth World, gave rise to several new series: Captain America, Black Panther, Devil Dinosaur and, above all, The Eternals, launched in July 1976. The series was written, drawn and conceived entirely by Kirby, who used it to develop a self-contained cosmogony drawing on Greek mythology, the theories of Erich von Däniken (Chariots of the Gods?, 1968) and the cosmic explorations of his time at DC. The central idea: millions of years ago, a race of space gods called the Celestials visited Earth and ran a genetic experiment on early hominids, creating three branches of humanity — ordinary humans, the monstrous and unstable Deviants, and the Eternals, perfect, immortal and endowed with near-divine powers.

Sersi makes her first appearance in Eternals #3, cover-dated September 1976, actually published in June 1976 given the standard Direct Market lead times. The cover, by Kirby, depicts Ikaris, the series' main hero, facing a gigantic Deviant. Inside the issue, Sersi is introduced as an Eternal living among humans, in a Manhattan apartment — cheerful, worldly, free of the solemn gravity that defines her peers. Kirby drew her in a green dress, with wavy black hair and a sparkling tiara, a look lifted straight from the Circe of Homer's Odyssey — a reference the writer fully embraced: in the narrative continuity, Sersi is the real Circe who turned Odysseus's crew into swine on the island of Aeaea.

This mythological identification is Kirby's stroke of genius on The Eternals: every character in the series is presented as the real-world source of a human myth. Ikaris is Icarus, Thena is Athena, Sersi is Circe, Makkari is Mercury. The device echoes the ancient-aliens theory popular in the 1970s and offers a rationalist-cosmic rereading of mythology. In this logic, Sersi is an Eternal roughly 7,000 years old, a direct witness to the fall of Troy, the Persian invasions, the Italian Renaissance and 20th-century America. Her signature power — the transmutation of matter, the ability to turn one object into another — explains the legend of the Homeric transformations. An Eternals #3 CGC 9.8 copy trades in 2026 between $120 and $220, a trifling price for a Kirby-signed Bronze Age first appearance.

The cosmic mythos: Eternals, Deviants and Celestials

The ontological trilogy Kirby laid down in the first Eternals series (1976-1978, 19 issues + annual) structures the entire Marvel cosmic mythos for the next fifty years. The Celestials are colossal cosmic entities, 2,000 feet tall in their armor, that roam the galaxy to run genetic experiments on sentient species. Their first visit to Earth, about a million years ago, split the hominid line into three branches: baseline humans, destined to evolve naturally; the Deviants, marked by chaotic, unstable mutations, who withdrew into subterranean cities (notably Lemuria, explicitly named by Kirby as their capital); and the Eternals, genetically perfect, immortal, telepathic and able to manipulate matter, energy and gravity.

The Eternal pantheon numbers around a hundred members, of whom some twenty are major figures: Ikaris the warrior, Thena the warrior princess, Makkari the runner, Gilgamesh known as "the Forgotten One," Phastos the smith, Ajak the priest, Sprite the eternal child, Druig the mind manipulator, and of course Sersi. They all originally dwell in the city of Olympia, perched in the Greek Alps. Kirby establishes a political hierarchy: the Prime Eternal (Zuras, Thena's father) governs the community, and the Eternals occasionally merge into a Uni-Mind, a collective gestalt of their consciousnesses, to communicate with the Celestials during their cyclical visits.

Sersi stands apart in this pantheon through her radical rejection of Olympian solemnity. She prefers to live among the humans of Manhattan, throws society parties, seduces mortal lovers, and uses her transmutation powers for pranks as often as for heroic deeds. This hedonistic, almost Dionysian personality makes her the necessary counterpoint to the rigidity of Ikaris or Thena. Kirby also expands the cosmology by introducing the Fourth Host and the Fifth Host of the Celestials, series of cyclical cosmic expeditions tasked with judging humanity's evolution — a concept later picked up in the Celestial Madonna event and in the Hickman/Aaron arcs of the 2010s-2020s. The original 1976-1978 series remains a high point of late-career Kirby creativity, and a complete set (19 issues + annual) in CGC 9.0+ runs today between $1,200 and $2,500, an accessible and culturally essential Bronze Age investment.

Avengers #305 (July 1989): Sersi joins the team

After the Kirby series ended in 1978, Sersi remained a peripheral figure in the Marvel universe for a decade. She appeared sporadically in Avengers, Thor and What If?, never getting a sustained arc. The turning point came in July 1989 with Avengers #305, the first issue of John Byrne's run on the flagship series after his acclaimed stints on Fantastic Four and West Coast Avengers. Byrne, a longtime fan of the Kirby mythology, chose to bring Sersi onto the official Avengers roster, giving her full-time member status alongside Captain America, Thor, Vision and She-Hulk.

The plot of Avengers #305 coincides with the "Acts of Vengeance" crossover and crosses paths with the British characters of Excalibur, notably Captain Britain. Sersi is portrayed as a flamboyant socialite, a New York gala host and an improbable new recruit to the heroic roster. Byrne plays on the tension/comedy dynamic between Sersi's apparent frivolity and the military seriousness of the other Avengers, creating an unusually lively supporting character. It is during this period that her romantic arc with Black Knight (Dane Whitman) takes shape — an arc that would culminate in the early-1990s Gatherers saga and in the psychological breakdown known as Mahd Wy'ry, the cyclical madness peculiar to the Eternals.

The key issues of this Byrne/Harras era deserve collectors' attention. Avengers #305 in CGC 9.8 trades in 2026 between $40 and $80, a negligible price for a minor but documented key issue. The Gatherers saga (Avengers #355-375, 1992-1994), written by Bob Harras and drawn by Steve Epting, in which Sersi sinks into Mahd Wy'ry and ends up banished from the team into an alternate reality alongside the Black Knight, is her densest Avengers arc. Raw copies of these issues run $3 to $8 apiece, making it one of the most accessible Modern Age runs for building a coherent themed collection. Sersi's participation in Avengers vol. 3 under Kurt Busiek (1998-2002), notably in the Above the Law arc, rounds out her official superhero résumé without meaningfully moving the value of the back issues.

Eternals 2006: the Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr. reboot

In 2006, Marvel handed an ambitious reboot of the franchise to Neil Gaiman, then crowned with the prestige of Sandman, 1602 and his novels (American Gods, Stardust). The Eternals vol. 3 miniseries, in seven issues (August 2006 - May 2007), drawn by John Romita Jr. at the height of his stylistic mastery, redefined the Eternals' standing in post-House of M Marvel continuity. The pitch: in the wake of the mutant decimation, the Eternals have forgotten their true identity. They live ordinary human lives (ER doctor, scientist, student) until Ike Harris (Ikaris) begins to wake them one by one.

Sersi is introduced as early as #1 as an extravagant New York party planner, running an events agency for millionaires. Gaiman faithfully revives the worldly character inherited from Kirby, but adds a layer of existential dread: what if all of this is merely an illusion implanted by a sleeping Celestial? The seven issues weave a tale of gradual awakening, punctuated by Romita Jr.'s iconic art, whose angular, cubist style suits the cosmic grandeur of the Celestials perfectly. The arc closes on the awakening of the Dreaming Celestial beneath San Francisco, an event that reorients the franchise's mythological future for the following decade.

The value of the Gaiman/Romita Jr. miniseries remains accessible in 2026. Eternals vol. 3 #1 (August 2006) in CGC 9.8 runs between $40 and $80, and #2 through #7 raw between $4 and $10 apiece. The collected hardcover published by Marvel in 2007 (and reprinted several times since) is the reference format for reading, and trades secondhand between $20 and $35. This series directly informed the staging of Chloé Zhao's 2021 film, notably in the idea of Eternals living among humans with no memory of their divine nature. A second miniseries by Charles Knauf and Daniel Knauf, Eternals vol. 4 (2008-2009, 9 issues), extends the Dreaming Celestial arc without reaching the literary quality of the Gaiman run. For collectors looking to invest in the Eternal mythos for the long haul, this hardcover and Kirby's 1976 run are the two pillars to assemble first.

MCU 2021: Chloé Zhao and Gemma Chan

On November 5, 2021, Marvel Studios released Eternals, the twenty-sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, directed by Chloé Zhao (2021 Best Picture Oscar for Nomadland). The film belongs to MCU Phase 4, opens up the post-Endgame cosmic mythology, and adapts the 2006 Gaiman/Romita Jr. run directly while folding in elements of the original Kirby material. Gemma Chan, previously seen in Captain Marvel (2019) in a Kree role, plays Sersi and becomes the story's lead, functionally presented as the group's leader after Ajak's death.

The Zhao/Chan interpretation diverges noticeably from the Sersi of the comics. Where the Kirby character is worldly, hedonistic and frivolous, the screen version is introverted, melancholy and romantic, a history teacher in London in a relationship with a human played by Kit Harington (Game of Thrones, the future Black Knight). Her transmutation power is faithfully preserved, but her narrative role is broadened: she is the one who makes the final decision to halt the Emergence of the Celestial Tiamut, saving humanity at the cost of a rift with her fellow Eternals. The film drew mixed critical reception (Rotten Tomatoes 47% critics, 78% audience) and grossed $402 million at the worldwide box office, a performance seen as disappointing for Marvel Studios after the Endgame and Spider-Man successes.

The impact on the comics market was nonetheless notable, though more muted than the Iron Man #55 (Thanos) or Hulk #181 (Wolverine) explosions. Before the 2019 casting announcement, Eternals #1 in CGC 9.8 traded around $100-150; after the film's release in November 2021, the peak hit $500-700 in early 2022, before a correction to $400-550 in 2025-2026. Eternals #3 (first Sersi) followed the same curve with a smaller swing: from $40-60 CGC 9.8 before 2019 to $120-220 today. The film's critical underperformance likely capped its speculative ceiling, but the near-total absence of subsequent MCU appearances leaves room for appreciation should Marvel Studios announce a sequel or a tie-in to future phases. To anticipate value moves tied to production announcements, see our guide MCU Phase 6 comics: what should you anticipate?.

2026 market value: why Sersi remains undervalued

The Sersi case illustrates a recurring dynamic in the back-issue market: a cosmic character of high creative pedigree (Kirby) that stays undervalued because it has never benefited from a major narrative event capable of crystallizing speculative attention. By comparison, characters with similar origins but propelled by a hit film have seen their key issues multiply by 10 to 50: Iron Man #55 (Thanos) went from $5,000 to $80,000 in CGC 9.6, Hulk #181 (Wolverine) from $10,000 to $60,000, Tales of Suspense #39 (Iron Man) from $80,000 to $600,000. Eternals #1 and #3, despite their Kirby signature and first-appearance status, have never cleared the $1,000 threshold in CGC 9.8.

This undervaluation presents an analytical opportunity for collectors willing to bet on the long term. Three scenarios could trigger a re-rating: (1) a second Sersi appearance in the MCU, notably in Phases 6 or 7 slated between 2026 and 2030, which would refocus speculators on Eternals #3; (2) a new, ambitious comics run handed to a prestige author (of the Jonathan Hickman or Kieron Gillen caliber), capable of recasting Sersi as a central character; (3) a major cosmic crossover of the Secret Wars 2027 type that would reintegrate the Eternals into an Avengers-Galactic storyline. None of these scenarios is guaranteed, but their cumulative probability is not negligible.

To structure a reasoned Sersi collection in 2026, three priorities emerge. Entry level (budget $100-300): target Eternals #1 and Eternals #3 raw NM or CGC 8.0-9.0, available at $50-150 apiece on eBay or at specialized conventions. Intermediate level ($300-1,000): add an Eternals #1 CGC 9.6 ($250-400), an Eternals #3 CGC 9.6 ($60-120), and the 2006 Gaiman/Romita Jr. hardcover. Advanced level ($1,000-5,000): target Eternals #1 CGC 9.8 ($400-700), Eternals #3 CGC 9.8 ($120-220), and the complete Eternals #1-19 run in CGC 9.0 minimum. Protecting copies through CGC grading is necessary for high grades: see our complete CGC grading guide before any investment above $200. To set this strategy within the broader context of undervalued Bronze Age cosmic comics, read our feature investing in comics: a strategic guide and the overview modern comics: investing 2020-2026.

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