2020 will see the introduction of a new group of extremely powerful characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – the Eternals!
In the comic books, the Eternals are a race of humanoids described as being an offshoot of the evolutionary process that originally created sentient life on Earth.
The instigators of that process were the ancient cosmic beings known as the Celestials, who intended the Eternals to be the defenders of Earth itself.
Inevitably, that led to a war against the Eternals’ more destructive counterparts, the Deviants.
The Eternals’ movie – aptly entitled The Eternals – is set to begin several millennia ago and span thousands of years. Given the timescale, and the fact it will be set in deep space, it might be hard for some people to imagine how it could possibly link to the MCU we already know – but we have several ideas about that.
In this piece, we’ll be discussing ten ways that we’d like to see The Eternals linking to the wider MCU.
10. Avengers Links
Believe it or not, one of the ways in which The Eternals could link to the wider MCU – and one of the ways we definitely hope it will – is that some of them could actually join the Avengers!
You see, in the comic books, not only have the two groups joined forces to fight against common enemies on numerous occasions – the Celestials, for example – some of the Eternals have actual been bona fide members of Earth’s most iconic superhero team!
For example, Sersi – the character who will be played by Gemma Chan in the movie – first joined the Avengers way back in 1990 and has maintained relations with the team ever since.
Gilgamesh AKA the Forgotten One – who’ll be portrayed by Don Lee in the movie – joined the Avengers even further back than that, in 1989.
Then there’s Starfox – Thanos’ brother – who hasn’t been confirmed to be in the movie, but he is an Eternal, and he joined the Avengers way back in 1984!
Moreover, Dane Whitman – the Black Knight – will be in the movie, played by Game of Thrones star Kit Harington. Although he’s not actually an Eternal, he could very easily connect the movie to the Avengers, as he’s an Earth-based character who joined Earth’s Mightiest Heroes all the way back in 1964 in the comics!
We’d love to see any of these guys join the MCU Avengers in the future!
9. Guardians of the Galaxy Links
The Avengers aren’t the only MCU superhero team that The Eternals could link to – the other is, of course, the Guardians of the Galaxy!
The fact that the ragtag group of misfits are based in space means they seem more likely to interact with the Eternals by default, but there are in fact several more concrete reasons why the two groups could be connected.
For starters, the aforementioned Starfox – Thanos’ Eternal brother who isn’t confirmed to be in the movie at this stage – has been a member of the Guardians as well as the Avengers, so he could end up being the link, if indeed he does end up being in the movie.
But then there’s also the fact that the Eternals were created by the Celestials – of which Ego was one, which means Peter Quill is half-Celestial.
Now, Peter may no longer possess Celestial powers, but his intrinsic link to the powerful beings may ultimately draw the Eternals to him – and it’d be cool to see his Guardians team interacting with the powerful group.
Of course, they could just bump into each other in space as well…
8. Thanos
As we’ve already touched upon, the Eternals were created by the Celestials as an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth.
But they weren’t the only side-effect of that process – their more evil and destructive counterparts, the Deviants, were also created by it.
Thanos – the big-bad of the MCU’s Infinity Saga – is actually an Eternal-Deviant hybrid in the comic books, so if that was the case in the MCU (we never did find that out while he was alive), there may just be references to Josh Brolin’s character in The Eternals. That would be so cool.
Even though the Mad Titan is dead, given that The Eternals will be set over thousands of years, we may well get to see how the big purple villain became the powerful warlord we’ve all loved to hate these past few years.
Essentially, this movie has the potential to serve as a prequel to the entire MCU, which may just include something of an origin story for Thanos – at least, we really hope that’s the case, because we really can’t get enough of one of the most awesome villains in modern cinema.
7. The Celestials
We already know that the Celestials will play a big part in The Eternals – it’s a given when you consider that they’re confirmed to be in the movie and are, quite literally, the reason the Eternals exist – but we’d really like to see their presence link to the much wider MCU.
For example, we’d like to see references to Ego – who was revealed to be a Celestial in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – and potential reveals regarding other characters who might be Celestials or at least have Celestial blood (the Grandmaster and/or the Collector, for example).
It would also be cool to see more about their connections to the Infinity Stones in the MCU. We already saw – in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie – that Eson the Searcher had wielded the Power Stone. But had the cosmic beings possessed any of the others?
Also, how did the Celestial whose head became Knowhere die? Are the Celestials responsible for the creation of any other super-powered races? Did any Celestials other than Ego breed with lesser species to create more hybrids like Peter Quill? Maybe THAT’S what the Grandmaster and the Collector are?! We have so many Celestial-related questions that need answering!
6. The World of Magic
When it was announced that Game of Thrones star Kit Harington would be appearing in The Eternals, fans got excited. But when the character he was playing was revealed, it caused more intrigue and confusion than anything else.
Harington will be playing Dane Whitman AKA the Black Knight – a character strongly associated with the Avengers in the comic books (which, in itself, provides a link to the wider MCU).
Black Knight certainly isn’t one of the characters who immediately springs to mind when you think of the cosmic Eternals, given that he stems from the world of magic!
But he has been romantically linked to Sersi (with whom he’s been known to share a psychic link known as the gann josin), which is probably the reason he finds himself in this movie.
His inclusion provides potential links to the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange and the more mystical side of the MCU – and that’s a pretty exciting prospect!
He wields mystical weapons known as the Sword of Light and the Shield of Night – which may have been in the possession of the MCU Masters of the Mystic Arts at some point.
5. Asgard
The Eternals have been around in Marvel’s comic books since 1976, when they debuted in their own self-titled series but, after that, they featured quite heavily in Thor’s stories on the odd occasion (1980’s Thor #301 immediately springs to mind as a prime example).
With that in mind, it’d be cool to see the worlds of the Eternals and Asgardians collide in The Eternals!
In Marvel’s comics, inevitably, power attracts power, and if two powerful groups of characters exist, they invariably meet and/or clash at some point.
That should definitely be the case with regards to the Eternals and Asgardians in the MCU – and, thankfully, even though Asgard no longer exists in the franchise (thanks to Surtur destroying it during the events of Thor: Ragnarok), that shouldn’t be a problem, given that The Eternals will be set over thousands of years, including in the distant past.
How cool would it be to see surprise cameos from the likes of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Anthony Hopkins’ Odin, Rene Russo’s Frigga, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Cate Blanchett’s Hela and/or Idris Elba’s Heimdall, for example? Or even Sif and the Warriors Three! It’d be awesome!
4. The Quantum Realm
Since the Quantum Realm was introduced as a concept in the MCU, it’s felt as though anything was possible in the franchise – and that could continue to be the case in The Eternals.
We already know that the Quantum Realm can be accessed using magic – and Black Knight’s inclusion in the movie ensures magic will be involved in the plot – but it’s also been shown that it can be accessed by other means, such as shrinking to subatomic size, and given the number of powers that will be on show in The Eternals there’s absolutely no reason to believe the group won’t have access to the mysterious plane of existence.
Take Thena (Angelina Jolie), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Sprite (Lia McHugh) and Druig (Barry Keoghan), just for a few examples – they can all manipulate cosmic energy and matter on an atomic scale. Potentially, any of those guys could have access to the Quantum Realm!
It could become apparent that the Eternals know about the likes of Ant-Man, the Wasp, Doctor Strange and the Ancient One through their exploits in the Quantum Realm. It’s a very convenient way to potentially link them to a number of other characters in the MCU.
3. The Infinity War/Endgame
One very easy way that The Eternals could link to the wider MCU – and one that we’d definitely like to see depicted on screen – is by showing how the titular group were affected by the events that unfolded in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
While there have been a number of high-impact events in the MCU to date, none have been as devastating or as truly universe-spanning as those depicted in the two most recent Avengers offerings – and it would undoubtedly be cool to see exactly what happened to the Eternals.
Even the most powerful beings won’t have been immune from the effects of the Infinity Stones, so when Thanos snapped his fingers, which of the Eternals turned to dust? How did the survivors react to seeing their friends disappear before their eyes? And when Bruce Banner snapped his fingers five years later, how did they react when their dusted friends reappeared?
Given that the movie will span over a long period of time – and, hopefully, take us up to the present (2023) MCU – we may get answers to all of those questions. That would undoubtedly be very cool.
2. Disney+
It’s no secret that there’ll be a plethora of MCU shows on the new Disney+ service starting at the end of 2020 – The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision and Loki, to name just three of them. However, none of those that have been announced seem to be connected to The Eternals in any significant way at this stage.
That’s understandable before the movie has even been released. If it was to flop, Disney wouldn’t want to expand on Eternals lore with a television series – but the fact is there’s massive potential for a show or two related to the Eternals as a species.
Only a handful of named Eternals characters will be in the movie – at least according to what we now about it right now – but there are dozens more in the comic books.
Should The Eternals be a success – which, frankly, pretty much all movies in the MCU tend to be – we’d absolutely love to see a Disney+ series or two that delves further into the species and their supporting characters.
The likes of El Vampiro, Phastos and Sigmar, for instance, would all be welcome on our television screens!
1. The X-Men
Since Disney’s purchase of Fox was officially confirmed in March of 2019, the arrival of the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has felt like something of an inevitability.
It might take a while, but the mutant superheroes – and indeed all other mutants in the Marvel universe – will be introduced to Marvel’s flagship movie franchise at some point.
With that in mind, they’ll need an origin story, and in the comic books, it’s generally accepted that the X-gene is a result of modifications on early man by the Celestials – and the Celestials will play a major part in The Eternals.
They did, of course, actually create the Eternals on Earth several millennia ago! So it stands to reason that they could have created mutants in the MCU in the same way.
Now, granted, we haven’t seen mutants in the MCU yet, so it’s hard to imagine them just pop up out of nowhere if they’ve existed for thousands of years, but maybe something could happen in The Eternals that triggers (or re-triggers) the concept of the X-gene in humanity.
We will have to wait until November 2020 to find out if that will be the case!
Are you looking forward to The Eternals? How do you think it’ll link to the wider MCU? Let us know your thoughts!
