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So, we’ve finally gotten a bit of an update on Marvel’s still happening Eternals movie. Specifically, we know the film will be about the clash between the Eternals and their ancient enemies the Deviants and that Marvel will be aiming for colorblind casting, which is a pretty major positive. We’ve also received a character breakdown of who to expect in the new film, though they’re basically just names at this point.
However, there are some very surprising names on this list and some really out of left field descriptions worth digging into along with the more pedestrian choices for an Eternals movie. What’s more, this seems as good a place as any to dive into the basics of the Eternals’ core characters. So, let’s breakdown The Eternals character list.
IKARIS
Let’s start with the second biggest name the Eternals ever produced, along with a bit of background. If you’ve never heard of the Eternals, they’re a race of phenomenally cosmic beings that vaguely resemble characters from Earth mythology and live in a secret city in the Antarctic. They’re opposed by the Deviants, a race of monsters from Siberia, and their greatest champion is Ikaris, named after the Greek figure of myth. Essentially a sky god, Ikaris is basically a third generation version of Thor, God of Thunder, though there’s a good deal of Orion of the New Gods to him as well.
That’s because all three of these characters were developed by the great Jack Kirby as a way to keep telling a specific kind of space opera he’d gotten into even though he was switching publishers. Ikaris is more or less your standard hero, he does good and fights the bad guys and has a Superman-ish array of powers including flight, super strength, invulnerability, and eye beams. He’s probably the only Eternal who HAD to be in this movie with one another notable exception, which leads us to our next entry.
SERSI
Named after the witch from The Odyssey, Sersi may not be an Eternal champion like Ikaris but she’s definitely the Eternal with the most marquis value at Marvel. She has the power of matter manipulation and transformation, like her supernatural namesake she can transform things into other things. She’s been a pretty consistent member of the Eternals since their inception and will often end up romantically involved with Ikaris though that’s usually fairly open to interpretation.
More notably, she’s the only Eternal to get meaningfully included in franchises outside their own. She served as an Avenger for a time and has had a longstanding relationship with the Greek God Hercules. Where Ikaris is more stern and heroic Sersi is light-hearted and playful, as her powers of transformation definitely reflect. She’s also one of the more original Eternals as she doesn’t have a clear parallel in Jack Kirby’s New Gods or Thor work.
MAKKARI
Makkari is one of the odder additions to this list as he’s not really a major Eternal except for the fact he was the main character of Neil Gaiman’s mid-2000s revival. He’s been through a number of visual reworkings, none of which were particularly great, and aside from this one pretty good comic he was always strictly a supporting Eternal. However, when Neil Gaiman writes you that’s pretty much a lock for making you a more important part of the mythos so I can’t say I’m too surprised to see his name on the list.
In case that name wasn’t obvious enough, it’s a play on the name Mercury, the Roman messenger of the Gods. Makkari is a super speedster, which honestly promises to be really exciting visually. Actually, ALL of the Eternals have fairly interesting visual powers with an emphasis on altering reality, energy beams, super speed, and more. I wouldn’t be surprised if Makkari ended up one of the main characters in the film.
THENA
Here’s another pretty clear “third generation” character, Thena is basically the Eternal’s answer to Sif from the Thor series and Bekka from the New Gods: a warrior woman. Her name is a reference to Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, though her powers are basically your standard enhanced humanoid set-up. She really isn’t that different from Wonder Woman only with more of a space flavor instead of ancient Greece or Rome. She’s still a pretty cool character and basically serves as the queen of the Eternals.
She’s not quite as visually unique as the others on this list in terms of her powers but her costume of pure gold armor absolutely looks fantastic and I’m sure it will look even better in live action. I do wonder, however, with all these major Eternals on hand how the film will balance what’s sounding like a very large cast. It’s not as if Marvel hasn’t taken on larger groups before and the idea of solo superhero films feels weirdly quaint at this point but still, it will be a challenge.
ZURAS
As you’d expect from what’s basically a pantheon of Gods, the Eternals have their own version of Odin and his name is Zuras. Fun fact, actually, the term most commonly used for the King of a group of Gods in comics is a “Skyfather,” I have no idea where that comes from but it shows up all the damn time. In any event, Zuras is basically Zeus, as the name no doubt suggests. He’s the leader of the Eternals though he rarely tends to intervene or exert his full will on the collective, he’s more of a soft guiding hand.
He’s actually less like Odin, who was basically a Deus Ex Machina for any given Thor story, and more like Highfather from the New Gods, a source of authority but not power. His greatest ability is the power to summon the Uni-Mind, an energy being forged by the combined psychic energies of all Eternals into a single entity. It’s a weird concept but one I’m almost positive we’ll be seeing as part of the third act moment of self-realization in the inevitable film.
DRUIG
Of course a movie needs a villain the way a pantheon needs a God of evil and in this case, that character is Druig. Druig is actually a somewhat more unique character in these ranks as he doesn’t really track with Loki from Thor or Darkseid from the New Gods, he’s his own, somewhat bland, man. He doesn’t fully escape their shadow, though, as his origin is that he’s Ikaris’ scheming cousin, which feels par for the course in the realm of courtly intrigue and high drama that informs a lot of God stories.
His main power is control of darkness and fear, often he’s known as Druig of nightmares. He’s basically a traitor to his people, appearing benevolent but secretly working to undermine the Eternals by allying with the monstrous Deviants because he wants power and to wipe out mankind- the usual. I’m assuming we’ll get a more fleshed out and interesting backstory for the film.
THE FORGOTTEN ONE
So this is a really weird one. The Forgotten One is basically what he sounds like, a member of the Eternals who somehow became separated from the main group and was then forgotten, even losing his own identity over the years. This is part of the whole “Ancient Astronauts” origin of the Eternals as an ancient people genetically engineered by traveling cosmic giants they’re supposed to have existed for centuries and inspired their various myths like Zeus and Ikaris. In the case of the Forgotten One, he’s allegedly the inspiration for Sampson, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and Hercules despite the fact all four of those characters actually exist as real people in the Marvel universe.
That particular contradiction is a big part of why the Eternals have always fumbled for popularity, their very origin clashes with the Marvel universe as established. Regardless, the Forgotten One is fairly popular, serving as an Avenger for a time though he looked more like Gilgamesh in that iteration. I’m betting we’ll be getting the all-black costume version from when he served as a mad villain in the mid-2000s. Specifically, because he’s more powerful than any other Eternal and has difficulty remembering who he is he was easy for Druig to set loose on the others.
STAR FOX
So this is the first major curveball of the list. As I said just last entry, the Eternals’ origin is that a race of cosmic giants called the Celestials genetically engineered them from cavemen and then left them on Earth to develop. However, not all the Eternals stayed on Earth, some of them began a colony on Saturn’s moon Titan. The Eternals of Titan are actually very important characters as one of them was Thanos. However, it seems Thanos’ identity as an Eternal may have gotten written out of the MCU so the fact we’re now getting his comic book brother introduced to canon is a real shock.
Incidentally, that is Star Fox’ biggest and best claim to fame, that he’s the brother of Thanos. He’s also been an Avenger a few time but his basic power, vague mind control that borders on Kilgrave levels of creepiness, means he tends to get swept to the side. No joke, aside from the Thanos connection Star Fox’s biggest storyline is the time She-Hulk had to defend him in court against charges of sexual assault. Like I said, I never expected to see this guy get recycled into the mix especially in comparison to some of the bigger missing Eternal names.
ELYSIUS
And here we have curveball number two. Elysius isn’t technically speaking an Eternal in the comics but she’s close enough for comfort I suppose. She’s another Eternal of Titan, one specifically created by the rogue computer system ISAAC as part of a plan to conquer the moon. That’s all more or less beside the point though; her most prominent role in the comics was as the wife of the original Captain Mar-Vell. Mar-Vell was never too central a character to the comic but Marvel’s drive to keep the “Captain Marvel” copyright their own meant they had to keep the character around in one form or another for years.
In the case of Elysius, she was both married to the original hero and mother to his children Phyla-Vell and Genis-Vell, who have both served as Captain Marvel at one time or another. It’s weird there isn’t more TO this character given she’s listed on a pretty major cast list but at the same time, with Captain Marvel coming next year, I have to assume she’s setting up bigger things on that front.
PIPER
So this is probably the strangest entry on the list because, as far as I know, there is no Eternal named Piper. There have been a handful of Marvel characters who go by the name Piper, a few of mysterious origin, but none that have ever had ties back to the Eternals. Now, it’s possible that Piper will be the name of a new Eternal created specifically for the movie or even one of these G-list Marvel cast-offs now folded into the mythos for some reason. Personally, though, I think what’s most likely is that “Piper” is just the name they’re using for the Eternal Sprite.
Sprite is sort of a Loki type Eternal, a being of mischief and illusions who was most reminiscent of Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Sprite was a mostly unimportant Eternal for the bulk of his career…until that Neil Gaiman comic I keep referencing and will probably have to review on here sooner or later. Sprite, it turns out, was the Eternal responsible for the rest of them losing their memories and being left to live out their lives among the humans so the fact he’s on this cast list is starting to make that plot point look more and more likely to translate to the film, that is assuming this is Sprite and not just some new yahoo named Piper.
HERCULES
I admit this last entry is a bit more of a guess but given everything we know about this film, the history of the MCU, and the Eternals background I would not at all be surprised. Firstly Eternals seems fine making characters Eternals who were only related to the group in the comics, like Elysius. Secondly, I’ve been expecting the MCU to integrate the Olympian Gods in some way since Age of Ultron revealed that producers specifically nixed a scene where Thor said the Greek Gods weren’t real for this exact reason. Thirdly, Hercules has had a long history with the Eternals, leading a war against them in the pages of Thor, romancing fellow Avenger Sersi, and almost joining them in the mid-2000s so he’s certainly within their sphere. Finally, the character list names a “Greek God type” as its final mystery member. Add that all up and it seems a pretty good indication of Hercules showing up in the final film, especially with how underdeveloped the Greek pantheon is in the Marvel comics (seriously, aside from Pluto and Ares, who are villains, there are no other name Greek God types.)
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