Chapter 3: Peers' Path
An Eternal is not exactly immortal. But, Ikaris approaches such supreme spryness. For example, he has picnicked at this central European location for nearly eighty millennia. The Alps accent the lake impeccably. They have at least since the last Ice Age, ten thousand years back. Before that, there wasn't even a Wörthersee, Lake Worth, here in Austria. It was still a fine spot for feasting though.
Now, the Ice Age landscape offers exquisite ice cream both in present Carinthia, Karnten, and across the border in alpine Italy. Epicurean Ikaris will experience some after enjoying some black bread with olive oil accompanying an authentic spaghetti entrée. Of course, a gourmand god cannot appease his appetites until his company arrives. Any early eating would be audacious esurience (i.e. bad bacchic manners).
Although, High Evolutionary is sufficiently hoity-toity to refuse hospitality anyway—even from Eternal Ikaris. High Evolutionary—Herbert—may see himself as above eating and assume that one evolves past that habit after attaining semi-immortality.
In any case, Prof. Wyndham need politely arrive punctually soon—for politeness' sake. Eternal Ikaris almost has Eternity before hunger would actually overtake him.
Sighing, the ancient returns his attention to the countryside before him. In Austria, this landscape is one of his favorite things. Refreshing wind blows beneficently. The lake's rippling surface shimmers subtly under the noon sun, but one still perceives sizable sucker fish swimming, circling, carousing in the stony shallows. Near and far, a person spots folks here and there along the See shores. Despite autumnal temps, they half-naked bask on beaches and brave cool waters. On sidewalks, people stroll, sometimes arm in arm, past plentiful flowers planted so thick along the lake's perimeter that garlands grow up poles placed for the flora. Austrians love their flowers, and Ikaris stands upon the Blumenpromenade in Poertschach, in fact, as people pass him during the midday pause bound for shops, eateries, pedestrian zones, and pretty parks.
Ikaris affixes his affective gaze upon the Alps encompassing the whole scene. An Eternal has seen them over "endless" years, an Eternal being almost "old as the hills" himself. Eras back, the green was even more bountiful, and there were few folks, all farmers or feudal lords, amidst faraway castles and forts. An age ago, glaciers glinted and glistened on every precipice as resilient ruffians endured and elephantine mastodons ambled. An epoch previous, the Mid-Pleistocene, the Eternals arose, thanks to Celestial experimentation, and fledgling homo immortalis frolicked together over vast ice fields that intermittently unfroze into sierran seas, in which young gods gallivanted underwater beside behemoth beavers and terrific turtles. An earthly era before, the Alps themselves formed to expand and erode before eyes preceding those of Ikaris and those eyes alive long after. An eon ago, an Eternal can only imagine, but he has ogled the obscure igneous evidence in the minutest iota of these magnificent mountains.
"Mr. Harris," someone speaks beside Ikaris and sassily cinches a god's shoulder.
Ikaris turns his attention. An incognito High Evolutionary stands beside him and presents the appearance of Herbert Wyndham, except neither Herbert's advanced age nor his usual armored attire. Instead, the 125-year-old Wyndham wears an artificial epidermis of unwrinkled skin accessorized by the average European attire of today. Ikaris appreciates the effort, for Avenger acquaintances inform the Eternal that Evolutionary is unsettlingly altered, mutated, beneath his usual mask (see Uncanny Avengers #5).
The old Englishman extends a hand to shake, "Ike, I see that you have not aged a bit in all our years."
"Not especially," affirms the Eternal, "For any man, enlightenment should be obligatory but enervation optional."
"Au contraire, mon ami," muses the mad scientist, "Organismic entropy is inevitable. Darwinism dictates that elimination and extinction are necessary for good, nicely-done natural selection."
The ancient Athenian admonishes, "Actually, your words infer an interference in natural selection, but I am unsurprised to encounter such implicature. After all, you dub yourself the 'High Evolutionary', as though truly advanced, although you veritably exemplify a eugenicist of the early twentieth century from whence you came. You create complete Counter-Earths but constantly cull them. You endlessly experiment as though you could outdo the Universe's grand design. Indeed, you meddle with Mother Nature more than learn her ways as Darwin did."
Herbert hoots, "Hypocrite! Your kind interferes in the world's ways all the time."
"Hardly," asserts Ikaris, "We Eternals engage, almost exclusively, occasional Deviant discord only when necessary. Other than that, we oppose Celestial obliteration of Earth when another Host of high-and-mighty, unwelcome experimenters arrive like an amoral High Evolutionary times ten."
"Other than that," Evolutionary adds, "Eternals—from Gilgamesh to Sersi—adventure with the Avengers. And, such deus ex machina activities are interference in Earth's average lives."
Ikaris shrugs, "But, deus ex machina isn't wrong when we quasi-deities do it. While not simply observing like the Watchers, we only subtly influence this or that eddy in the stream of time, and we do so for man's edification."
Wyndham warbles laughter, "Oh, how arrogant! The Eternals have repeatedly saved the entire Earth!"
"Oh," Ikaris shrugs again as though above answering his High Evolutionary inferior.
The repartee hits a pause as "endless" lake waves rap the shore. Then, the snippy mad scientist speaks, "Anyway, why summon me here to Austria? What do you want, Herr Harris?"
"Do you remember Miles Warren, your assistant soon after WWII?" replies the temperate titan, "You must. That era was only yesterday for a man of your amazing mnemonic faculties."
Evolutionary answers, "I remember Warren as my least impressive assistant. He made the least positive impression. He was perpetually pathetic, perverted, and pernicious. That plebian helped produce the New Men—under my strict oversight.
"But, Prof. Miles was more a pupil than a partner. Thus, to progress his powers, I provided him with a canis aureus pup for practice experimentation. In turn, he provided the world a mad Jackal-Man that promptly escaped and killed, pared, peeled, plastered, and partially polished off Warren's wife and progeny, situated near my Citadel. Miles Warren was a pure prat, per se!"
"Your heart 'beats peanut butter', as American pre-teens used to say," infers Ikaris, somehow knowing Reagan Era Gen X jargon.
Evolutionary additionally expounds, "Research assistant Warren wore-out his welcome woefully further. He attempted to organize and proselytize the New Men into a cult critical of their Lord High Evolutionary [see Scarlet Spider Unlimited #1]. That brazen betrayal brassed off, I, his benefactor. Beyond that impudence, there was Warren's pedestrian interest in cloning. Cloning was the little jackal's obsession at the expense of my worthier research. Cloning accomplishes nothing except pausing life on the path to perfection by copying crude current creatures continually.
"Consequently, I kicked-out odious Miles, and his career carried him back to America. At Empire State University, in New York City, he taught and studied biochemistry. I have eyes like Argus, and my sources say that Warren was a perverted pedagogue with a petty passion for a particular pretty student. When she perished, he persistently cloned his 'pet' almost as perpetually as he has pestered Spider-Man over the years as the Jackal.
"But, really, Miles Warren should have called himself the Jackass, the Weasel, or the Worm. Those appellations are more apt—for the moron.
"Anyway, why do you ask about wonky Warren?"
As though from thin air, Ikaris produces a wrapped package that molecular alteration kept invisible from even "Argus", whom the Eternal knew in antiquity. The hatbox has an amber bow and periwinkle paper apt for a royal present.
Ike offers the gift, "Please accept this item of interest to you. It relates to Prof. Warren's errant erudite efforts."
Wyndham takes the curious token, "What is it?"
"The Man-Jackal's decapitated head," declares the present-presenter, "The curio may complement Man-Beast's head on your wall if you ever collected it." Traitorous minion Man-Beast has been the bane of High Evolutionary's existence over time.
Herbert tilts his (own) head and grins, "Gadzooks, that is quite a gift. How did you get it?"
"The abomination strayed into Eternal territory," explains Ikaris, "After opposing superheroes in Ontario [see Alpha Flight #114], he apparently wandered all the way to the Pyramid of the Winds in Siberia. Security devices alert me of any intruders at that Eternal armory. We can't have trespassers thieving anything—such as a Celestial-Slayer or a Deviant Dreadnought—from the arsenal. So, I flew fleetly to the Far North and unfixed Jackal-Man's head from his hals. Afterward, I headed to Holland for a handsome haberdasher's hopper fit for gifting. Then, I invited you to Austria. Then, I came here."
"Thank you for the specimen, Ike," says the mad scientist, "As you indicate, it is suitable for either study or display. Either way, the exotic item is special."
"Such is the spirit of the gritty, gory gewgaw's giving," affirms the (perhaps icky) Eternal.
Abruptly, High Evolutionary clicks his tongue testily, "But, you know, you could have simply dropped-off the drummed dumb dome on Wundagore Mountain. That way, I need not trek five hundred miles from Transia to north of North Tyrol." Herbert's nose whiffs, and his eyes roll imperiously.
In response, Ikaris' eyes abruptly glow raging rutilant, reacting to vain rudeness. The Eternal utters, "Herbert, I am essentially a god while you are essentially a glib git grossly gleaning the grand scheme in which I occupy Olympus while you inhabit lowly Earth, Counter or otherwise. I have been mistaken for an angel [see Eternals #2] while you have been recognized, by the Beyonders and Celestials, as this planet's passing riff-raff. A scoundrel, you salaciously steal Sersi, Scarlet Witch, homo superior student Magma, Silver Surfer, synthezoid Vivian Vision, and even Shanna the She-Devil while Zuras and his scion only do such sordid snatching in Grecian saga. You are a satyr to Hyperions! You sack the Savage Land [see Quicksilver #8-9], and I successively save the solar system and beyond. Thus, thou shalt not summon me; I'll call you."
With wounded ego, Wyndham replies, "Well then . . . you're a snob!"
"So be it," asserts Ikaris, "Suitably, I respect some mortals, and they may get a visit from me at their Avengers Mansion and the like. Suitably, I disdain many, and they must seek me when summoned—especially those arrogant instigators of unnatural evolution."
Irritated, Evolutionary itches his chin, "Ike, I shall be honest. I think that we both bear the 'bright man's burden', to borrow phrasing and 'ugly' imperialist concept. Each of us looks at life as it is and is sure that he can progress it—as a favor. And, in this marvelous universe, we are indubitably not alone. From false gods such as you to Victorian Age Englishmen such as me to the Axis Powers to En Sabah Nur's adherents to the Ancient One and his acolytes to Reed Richards and Victor von Doom to AIM's MODOK and Avalon's Morgan La Fay to Info Age mass media to American political 'progressives' of today, we intelligentsia all think the same way. Egomania and ethnocentrism trace our trail to a better Terra. We all want to rule the world, impose our internal gospels onto the external globe, and make everyone of our tribe. We need correct knackered culture and Creation as in the Kipling poem. Whether ancient humanoid or antique humanist, each Ikaris or Evolutionary is the hero of his tale and deems the other, the alien, the Deviant."
Unimpressed Eternal Ikaris announces, "You're an idiot. Enjoy your gift. I am going to get ice cream." The irked Apollonian exits the area.
A short span later, the Sovereign Eternal savors a sizable sundae, such as Austrians serve. And, he remembers what was a short time ago for him. He recalls some of the assorted humanity who he has met at this resort spot, for Fate crossed their paths. A century back, the Eternal encountered some German aristocrat—arrogant as the Evolutionary—who worked upon wonder weapons and a super adhesive—that he seemed to have been sniffing (so Ikaris internally joked). Eventually, Heinrich Zemo's path ended in South America (see Avengers #15).
After the bellicose baron, some Swiss mad scientist sporadically made his way to Poertschach and repasts with Ikaris. Arnim Zola had quite the head on his shoulders, and his intellect surpassed Heinrich Zemo's. Zola even occasionally kept company with Wyndham. He also kept company with Deviant texts and technology. Therefore, as a spy, Ikaris kept an eye on him. However, Supreme Eternal Zuras said not to tamper, so a loyal subject did not.
After WWII, an amiable American arrived on several vacations. His name was Bernard Harris. Usually, he had a precocious and high-spirited daughter Debbie with him, and his sister from Ireland intermittently joined the other clan Harris. Ike liked the family enough to adopt their surname for secret undertakings. Thus, the incognito Eternal was known as Ike Harris whether a travel guide in Peru (see Eternals #1), a wanderer in San Francisco (see Eternals v.3 #1) or a pro wrestler in Manhattan (see Eternals v.2 #1). In fact, one other way in which Ikaris was intimate with the Harris' was. . . . .