SALT LAKE CITY — Marvel Studios’ Phase 4 might bring back familiar heroes like Doctor Strange and Black Widow, but one of their more star-studded announcements is a little more obscure — “The Eternals.”
Like the Guardians of the Galaxy pre-2014, the Eternals aren’t household names, but they have origins in a few concepts already introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to AV Club, the Eternals were created by Jack Kirby in 1976 and fall definitively into the “cosmic” side of Marvel’s offerings.
The Eternals are a society of long-living beings created by the Celestials — think Kurt Russell’s Ego from "Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2" — and serve as a beautiful superpowered foil to regular humans and Deviants, a category of monstrous aliens with funky chins.
According to CBR.com, Skrulls, the shapeshifting aliens seen in “Captain Marvel,” fall into both Eternal and Deviant camps, but the prettier shapeshifters were wiped out by their more aggressive cousins, who invaded Earth a few times in the comics.
Alternatively, Colliderreports that the Eternals were meant to defend Earth against Deviants. In the upcoming movie, the group of immortals will be made up of Thena (Angelina Jolie), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Phastos (Bryan Tyree Henry) Ajak (Salma Hayek), Sprite (Lia McHugh) and Gilgamesh (Don Lee).
So how does this group of heroes figure into Marvel comics? IO9 notes the heroes are essentially a rip-off of DC Comics’ New Gods — who are also created by Kirby.
The Eternals are also a riff on the Ancient Greek pantheon — which you probably figured out from their names. In their first appearance, Ikaris and Thena led a group of Eternals in driving the Celestials away from Earth.
More recently, the Eternals have served as victims in larger cosmic battles, like when they were all wiped out in a recent “Avengers” storyline involving Dark Celestials, IO9 reports.
While the slate is clean for Feige and director Chloé Zhao to do basically anything they want with the Eternals, there is one related character that fans would recognize who’s currently off the table — Thanos.
According to ScreenRant, Thanos of the comics is an Eternal who displays the Deviant gene, which gives him purple skin and his trademark wrinkly chin. The Titan — who was both beheaded and snapped away in “Avengers: Endgame” — was later cast aside because of his appearance.
While Thanos likely won’t pop up in “The Eternals,” it’s possible he could still be mentioned in the movie, which is set to arrive in theaters on Nov. 6, 2020.