When Eternals launches in two weeks, it’ll be Marvel’s biggest origin story ever told. The Eternals have been protecting the world against Deviants for seven thousand years.
But that’s the only kind of threat the Eternals’ masters let them engage on Earth. The Eternals kept to themselves, choosing not to interfere in any of the planet’s tumultuous historical events.
They didn’t even fight Thanos (Josh Brolin), forcing the Avengers to do all the work even if that meant witnessing a massive defeat that wiped half of life from the known universe, Earth included.
These aren’t even spoilers anymore. We know all these details from the trailers, promo videos, TV ads, and featurettes that Marvel has released. With two weeks to go until the premiere,
Marvel isn’t stopping with the teasers. And there’s one central theme that keeps popping up in these Eternals videos: The Avengers.
Marvel Eternals Movie
We already know from the Eternals press tour that the upcoming movie tells a story that spans millennia. That’s the only way to understand this family of heroes. And we’re told that the film will reshape the MCU going forward.
We have 10 different individuals featuring all sorts of powers. Some of them are beyond what the Earth’s Avengers can do. By choosing to fight for the first time, the Eternals will come out of hiding. People will get to meet them and see how powerful they are.
But the world will not be in shock to discover powerful superheroes hiding among regular people. They’ve known since the early adventures of Captain America (Steve Rogers), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and the Hulk (Edward Norton) that the world has a few gifted individuals capable of impressive feats. And modern times have shown the world that the Avengers exist. Not only that, but there’s alien life in the universe. And some of that life isn’t friendly.
While the Avengers “band” was broken up before the first Thanos attack, they’re now an established group of mighty heroes. The events in Falcon and Shang-Chi proved that. Bucky (Sebastian Stan) has also been recognized as an Avenger in the TV show. The same goes for Wong (Benedict Wong) in Shang-Chi.
The movie trailer
Let’s also remember the Avengers homages in Far From Home and Falcon. And Hulk’s massive popularity in Endgame. Everyone knows who these superheroes are, and they’re famous for what they’ve done.
What matters here is that we discover the Eternals against that backdrop. They’re going to emerge as new, incredibly powerful heroes in a world that’s already used to having superheroes around. And by doing that, they’ll be challenging the status quo, showing the world that there are still big threats out there that the Avengers can’t necessarily handle by themselves.
This will make the audience question everything and see the Avengers in a new light. We just learned in Loki and What If…? that the threats the Avengers have been dealing with are minuscule when looking at the broader multiverse. And the Eternals are about to prove that point even further.
Then there’s also a more practical use of Avengers mentions in the Eternals promo videos. Marvel is making the Eternals cool by associating them with the Avengers. And some of the Avengers mentions are hilarious. In what follows, we’re going to cover some of them briefly.
All the Avengers mentions in Marvel’s Eternals clips
The most obvious Eternals-Avengers association comes in the following clip, where Marvel simply reuses some of the iconic scenes in Endgame:
In the first Eternals trailer, Sprite (Lia McHugh) wonders who will lead the Avengers now that Iron Man and Captain Rogers are no longer on the team. Ikaris (Richard Madden) says that he could lead them, with everyone at the table quickly bursting into laughter.
The same Ikaris also says “Eternals, assemble” in different clips, an obvious nod to the famous “Avengers, assemble” line from the comics and Endgame. We had been waiting for years for Captain America to say it, and it’s been an incredible thing to experience it in theaters.
The Avengers get a big seal of approval at the beginning of the final Eternals trailer. Ajak (Salma Hayek) tells Ikaris about the new threat, but not before recapping how the people of this planet brought everyone back with a snap of a finger. That’s Hulk’s snap in Endgame. But it’s the Avengers who made that happen, at great personal cost. Iron Man was the last to snap his fingers to destroy Thanos and his army.
Regular humans like Dane Whitman (Kit Harington) are also aware of all of that. Well, Dane will be a superhero, but he apparently doesn’t know it yet. He asks Sersi (Gemma Chan) in one scene why the Eternals haven’t helped defeat Thanos.
Later, he asks her if she is a wizard, like Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Presumably, this is after the London fight that we see in the trailers, where he sees several Eternals taking down a Deviant. Sersi hilariously responds that she’s supernormal. Spoiler: She’s not.
Eternals premieres globally on November 5th.
Eternals vs. Celestials
If you’re wondering the difference between the Eternals and Celestials, a quick primer: Eternals were engineered by the Celestials so that there were only 100 in total, though they are incredibly powerful. The reason their names are Eternals is because they don’t change and are immune to all forms of damage.
