Marvel’s soft reboot of the Eternals’ darkest secrets. For centuries, the Eternals have been the only truly immortal group of Earth’s defenders within the Marvel comics universe. However, the dark price of that immortality has recently come to light.
In Eternals #6 from Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribić, it is revealed that reanimating an Eternal in their resurrection process comes at a cost; an individual human life. This is a heartbreaking truth, especially for Eternals like Ikaris, Phastos, and Thena who care for humans deep within them. Gillen, with artist Dustin Weaver, relates that the Eternals have spied on Krakoa and learned of the mutants' newfound immortality in the pages of Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/X-Men #1. To add insult to injury, Krakoan resurrection is more efficient than the Eternals’ as it does not require human deaths.
After ousting Thanos and making him look like a fool, the new Prime Eternal Druig may have some less than friendly plans in mind for Krakoa after learning about mutankind’s most recent leaps in innovation. But if those were to be put aside, this shared knowledge between mutants and the Eternals could be just what Ikaris’ band of Eternals have been looking for: to remain immortal without endangering human lives. 2019’s House of X #5, penned by Jonathan Hickman with art by Pepe Larraz, details the process of mutant resurrection.
Rather than The Machine of Earth recreating them atomically from the point of death and being sparked to life by a stolen human soul, all the mutants need are a DNA sequence, a psychic copy, and The Five. Could the Eternals learn from The Five, thereby saving human lives when an Eternal is resurrected? The Machine that is Earth already performs most of the Five’s duties: generating an appropriately aged body with an up-to-date psyche. The only missing piece is Elixir.
While the mutant Josh Foley, Elixir, originally wanted to destroy all mutantkind, he's since become vital to Krakoan life. Josh is a healer who triggers life on a cellular level within a gestating egg. . Essentially the same function is performed by the Machine when stealing life from a human and giving it to a resurrected Eternal. Elixir’s specific abilities have not been displayed by the Eternals, so they could not perfect their immortality on their own. Sadly, any collaboration between the X-Men and the Eternals seems far from likely in light of Marvel's Judgment Day event this July.
