Marvel Comics' Eternals are an ancient, cosmic race who live on Saturn's moon Titan.
If Marvel Studios embraces all the cosmos-spanning wonder of the group's comic-book appearances
in the upcoming Eternals movie, viewers have some technicolor treats in store.
Here's the lowdown on the Eternals.
The Eternals were created by comics legend Jack Kirby in 1976.
They're an ancient race of superbeings who have long protected Earth from evil, specifically
the rule of the treacherous Deviants.
The original Eternals series tells a meticulously plotted tale and was created with an ending
in mind.
Unfortunately, Kirby never reached his intended finale.
The Eternals was axed at issue #19 before Kirby had a chance to wrap up all of the existing
plot threads.
It lingered unfinished for a while until writers Roy Thomas and Mark Gruenwald used a storyline
that ended with Thor #301 to wrap up the tale of the Eternals' cosmic crusade.
We're glad the story ended up resolved, but we'll always be wondering what it could have
looked like if Kirby had a chance to finish the series as he intended.
While their name was on the cover, the Eternals arguably weren't the breakout stars of their
own book.
That was the Celestials, the "Space Gods" that created the Eternals, the Deviants, and,
it turns out, pretty much all sentient life in the Marvel Universe.
The Celestials were an example of Kirby building on an idea he'd explored in other comics.
They were a step past Galactus, who he and Stan Lee had created in Fantastic Four: a
massive humanoid that was essentially a living force of nature with ties to the origins of
the universe.
Even their designs were similar, clad in Kirby's trademark elaborate armor, but while Galactus
had a recognizable human face, the Celestials were completely covered by their armor, making
them far more unknowable.
The Celestials were defined by the ongoing life creation experiment that they'd been
tinkering with for billions of years, with names that indicated their function.
Gammemnon the Gatherer, for example, was charged with acquiring samples of life from across
the universe.
Arishem the Judge would determine whether a planet's population would live or die once
the experiment had run its course, and Exitar the Exterminator, well, you can guess his
job.
While characters like Ikaris have often been overlooked, the Celestials were woven into
the fabric of the Marvel Universe, with connections to everything from the X-Men to the Infinity
Stones.
The Avengers have even set up a headquarters in a building made from the body of a long-dead
Celestial.
You can't create a team of superheroes without giving them proper antagonists.
There must always be a Loki for every Thor, and Kirby knew this good and well when approaching
the Eternals, so he gave them the Deviants.
When the Celestials created the Eternals, they also created the Deviants, a horrifying
race of creatures that are, physically, the opposite of the beautiful humanoid Eternals.
The two species are caught in a constant war between one another, with the Deviants forming
a sort of natural opposition.
No Deviant mutation is repeated in their species, so each physical anomaly or superpower is
unique to the Deviant who possesses it.
They are, effectively, mutations of the Eternals.
Thousands of years ago, the Deviants resided on Earth and conquered much of early humanity.
The Eternals ended their reign, though Deviants still live on Earth to this day and clash
with Eternals regularly.
Kirby's stories were often more inspired by timeless literary classics than they were
by other comics.
His Thor stories are very much Shakespearean, while the Fantastic Four draws heavily from
sci-fi literature and classic monster movies.
It only makes sense that he'd carry that ethos into creating the Eternals.
Kirby is on the record as naming two novels as primary influences on the series.
The first is sci-fi master Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.
This novel in particular influenced Kirby's interpretation of the Celestials as well as
the Uni-Mind, a massively powerful composite of several Eternals.
He also drew heavily from Erich von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods, a nonfiction book that
posits the idea of alien gods.
It's proof that the best way to tell great stories is to draw inspiration from a wealth
of sources, not just from the medium or genre in which you work.
It makes sense that the filmmakers behind the MCU would bring the Eternals into play.
They already have a tie to the world at this point.
Eternals such as Starfox, Sersi, and Makkari can already be easily introduced to the world
through their family's presence in the MCU in the form of the Mad Titan himself, Thanos.
"I am...inevitable."
Thanos is perhaps the most famous of the Eternals.
While he wasn't introduced in the original Kirby series, Jim Starlin, the creator of
Thanos, designed him as an extension of their world.
Thanos is a Deviant child of an Eternal mother and father, a being born into a world that
instantly rejected him.
His mother was so disgusted with him from birth that she tried to kill him as a child.
His traumatic childhood only furthered his fascination with Death, which eventually led
to him becoming the Mad Titan.
While he's very rarely associated with the Eternals directly these days, he's very much
a product of their society.
The Eternals' relationship with their creators, the Celestials, is a bit turbulent.
They've at times found themselves on opposing sides of the battlefield.
The Celestials, being giant omnipotent immortal beings, are pretty hard to take on in battle,
so it makes sense that, on what may be the most famous occasion during which the two
races came to blows, the Eternals didn't go at it alone.
Who better to take on the Celestials than another race of gods?
The Eternals offered their aid to the forces of Asgard when the two sides found themselves
at odds with the Celestials.
The Eternals formed the Uni-Mind, which is kind of like an Eternal Megazord, while Odin
possessed the Destroyer armor and enlarged it to be the size of the Celestials.
Kind of like Ultraman.
It might not get the recognition the Avengers and X-Men do whenever they join forces, but
we think it's one of the cooler moments in the history of the Eternals.
A bunch of giant mega-powerful space gods and robots duking it out is a pretty solid
story as far as we're concerned.
Thanos and his brother Starfox are just about as polar opposite as they could be.
Thanos is a massive, purple death-worshipping supervillain.
Starfox, on the other hand, is a conventionally attractive ladies' man who typically fights
on the side of good.
His hair is always perfect.
That being said, Starfox is far from squeaky clean.
His rather appropriate real name is Eros, the same name as the Greek god of love, and
his superpower allows him to manipulate emotions, especially romantic ones, which has occasionally
gotten him into legal trouble.
He's specifically put on trial for harassment after a married woman claims he used his powers
to seduce her.
His lawyer in the case is none other than Jennifer Walters, better known as She-Hulk.
It's a story that could be taken as a one-note joke, but instead becomes a genuinely compelling
look into the ethics of Starfox's powers.
It comes to light that he's used them to not only make people attracted to him but to influence
the feelings of others.
He's responsible for Walters' marriage to John Jameson and is briefly convinced that
he triggered Thanos' initial infatuation with Death.
The story ends with Starfox agreeing to have his powers shut down so that he won't be able
to hurt anyone else with them.
There's something about super-speed that just feels right.
It's not too complicated.
It doesn't make the user omnipotently powerful.
It's perhaps the most perfect superpower.
As such, it makes sense that there are so many comic-book superheroes and villains that
run really fast.
Marvel alone has Quicksilver, Whizzer, and among others, Makkari, a member of the Eternals
family.
But even he's not the fastest out there.
An issue of Quasar written by Mark Gruenwald features a grand race between all of the speedsters
in the Marvel universe, including Makkari.
The one that comes out on top, however, isn't a character we've seen before.
He's an amnesiac from a different universe.
Even he doesn't remember his real name, though he seems to recall it being something like
"Buried Alien."
This issue came out just after DC Comics' the Flash, also known as Barry Allen, had
perished in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Gruenwald very clearly included Buried Alien as an homage to the character.
The Eternals generally keep to themselves.
Their stories are often pretty contained and don't bleed out into the rest of the Marvel
universe.
But there are exceptions to every rule, and the Eternal known as Sersi is one of them.
Sersi is pretty largely integrated into the world of Marvel.
She can cast illusions, has super strength, and has the ability to teleport.
Sersi was, for a time, even a member of the Avengers.
She joined at the invitation of none other than Captain America.
Her decision to join the team at the time is just as much motivated by her desire to
do good as it is by her infatuation with the Star-Spangled Avenger, which she's harbored
for quite some time.
Her tenure on the team came to a close in the 1990s.
She has since aided the team on occasion, and while she's yet to properly woo Cap, we're
sure she's not done trying.
Ultron has been a thorn in the side of the heroes of the Marvel universe for decades.
Fueled by an abject hatred of humanity, the evil robot's sole mission is the extermination
of humanity.
So what happens when Ultron is introduced to the power of love?
In the graphic novel Rage of Ultron, we see what happens when Starfox's emotion manipulation
powers meet the robot menace.
In the story's finale, Ultron and his creator, Hank Pym, have merged into a singular being
prepared to wipe out humanity once and for all.
Starfox is able to defeat them by using his powers to introduce love into the equation.
The encounter takes Ultron and Hank back to the moment the robot was activated and makes
both of them re-evaluate it, recognizing their love for each other as a sort of father and
son.
"I wanted to show you.
I don't have anyone else."
Ultron's introduction to love is enough to get him to back off and banish himself into
the depths of space.
Starfox's powers may make him a weird creep sometimes, but they've also managed to save
the world at least once.
When it was announced in April 2018, Eternals one of the more surprising entries in Phase
4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there was a hint of what was to come all the way
back in 2014, with a brief cameo in another surprising Marvel movie.
In Guardians of the Galaxy, when the Collector is explaining the Infinity Stones, we get
an unmistakable glimpse of a Celestial using the Power Stone to eradicate the population
of some unfortunate planet.
Knowhere is the severed head of a Celestial, and Ego identifies himself as a Celestial
in Guardians Vol. 2.
"I'm what's called a Celestial, sweetheart."
"A Celestial, like, a god?"
"Small 'g,' son."
Five years after that first glimpse of the eons-long saga of Eternals, Deviants, and
Celestials, we finally got a better idea of what we can expect when Eternals hits the
screen in 2020.
At Marvel's panel at San Diego Comic-Con, fans were introduced to the main cast.
"Everybody, big round of applause to the Eternals!"
Interestingly enough, while the movie was originally billed as focusing on Ikaris and
Sersi, the latter character was absent from the announcement.
Instead, we were introduced to Richard Madden, best known as Robb Stark from Game of Thrones,
as Ikaris, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Salma Hayek as Ajak, stand-up comedian and Academy
Award-nominated screenwriter Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, former Miss Deaf America and Walking
Dead actress Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Atlanta's Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Korean megastar
Don Lee as Gilgamesh and Lia McHugh as Sprite.
As for the plot, no details have been released just yet, but if the Celestials are out there
obliterating planets, someone should probably deal with that.
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