The Shang-Chi and the Eternals, and the latter group will surely change what fans thought they knew about this universe.
Directed by Chloé Zhao, Eternals is set after the events of Avengers: Endgame and introduces the title team, whose are from an immortal alien race and have been living on Earth for 7000 years, yet they have never interfered with human conflicts, though they have guided humans in their development. The Eternals will reteam to protect Earth from the Deviants, their evil counterparts, and that will have some big consequences. Like with every MCU movie, most plot details about Eternals have been kept under wraps, but the trailers have given a good idea of what the story will be about and the movie’s connections with previous Marvel ones, especially Avengers: Endgame.
With the release date of Eternals fast approaching, Marvel has shared the final trailer in which different of the Eternals discuss their role on Earth and which showed the aforementioned Deviants for the first time, while also quickly explaining why they had never interfered before in some of the biggest battles, as was Thanos’ invasion in Avengers: Endgame. Here’s what happens with the Eternals, why they can’t interfere in major conflicts, and why they are getting involved in them now.
Who Created And Controls The Eternals
The Eternals were created by the Celestials, an ancient race of entities with vast matter and energy manipulation abilities. In the comics, the Eternals were also created by the Celestials, who visited Earth millions of years ago and performed genetic experiments that resulted in two divergent races: the Eternals and the Deviants. The Celestials are some of the first life forms in the universe and have contributed to the creation of the multiverse and the evolution of life. The Celestials collected a number of natives upon their arrival on Earth during the Stone Age to conduct a series of experiments, which resulted in the creation of the Eternals and their evil counterparts.
Now, in the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Celestial Eson the Searcher used the Power Stone as a means of destroying an entire planet, and the severed head of a Celestial became Knowhere, home of the mining colony of Exitar. Ego (Kurt Russell), Peter Quill’s father, was also a Celestial, so these beings have had a strong but mostly silent presence in the MCU, and they are about to take a bigger role.
Why The Eternals Aren’t Allowed To Interfere On Earth
If the Eternals have been around for thousands of years, it’s inevitable to question why they have never interfered in some of Earth’s biggest battles and conflicts, especially when Thanos vanished half of life in the universe when he gathered all the Infinity Stones. This question has been used as the basis of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame because the Deviants weren’t the ones causing trouble, but there surely is more to this than just the Celestials prohibiting the Eternals from interfering with human conflicts, and as revealed by EW, all that will be revealed in the movie, with Kevin Feige adding that Eternals will have “major ripple effects on future stories”, and this could be linked to their “no interference” policy.
Why The Eternals Will Interfere In Phase 4
If the Eternals have been around since way before the events of the MCU began, why did it take them so long to interfere? The first three Phases of the MCU, collectively known as the Infinity Saga, focused on Thanos and his quest to find the Infinity Stones so he could “bring balance to the universe” by wiping out half of life in it. Phase 4 is changing its focus and it’s adding the multiverse to the mix, and the consequences of it and the madness triggered in the season finale of the “emergence” mentioned by Ajax (Salma Hayek) in the trailer, will open the doors for threats that not even the Eternals will be able to ignore, as are the Deviants. The final trailer showed that the Deviants have been to Earth before, with a shot of Ikaris (Richard Madden) defending a kid from a Deviant, so there must be something different in this new arrival that will require that the whole team gets together again, and it’s quite possible that the Celestials themselves will make an appearance as well as a result of the "emergence".
There’s a lot about Eternals that Marvel has kept a secret, and as this universe has become known for its twists and turns, what’s known about them, their role on Earth, and their do’s and don'ts so far surely isn’t everything there is to know about them, and the answers aren’t as simple as they seem. The Eternals have been following the orders of the Celestials and haven’t interfered in wars and more since their arrival on Earth, but the Celestials might be hiding something that the Eternals will soon learn about, and which will have a big impact in future MCU movies and TV shows.
