With the release of Eternals, Marvel Cinematic Universe is going all the way to the cosmic boundaries and times even before the Big Bang. Celestials, Deviants, and the protagonists of the movie, Eternals, will play a huge part in the upcoming storylines of the MCU.
This is, of course, not a full list of all the Eternals, as that list would be overly long (there are a lot of Eternals in the comics), but rather a selection of the 10 Eternals members that we know are going to appear in the movie.
We are going to list them in alphabetical order and give you an overview of their powers and abilities.
Ajak
Played by: Salma Hayek
Note: the character is originally male in the comics. However, the MCU variation is female.
Like all the Eternals, Ajak possesses the power of levitation, insofar as he is able to manipulate gravitons (particles of gravity). He can fly at over 1,000 km/h. He can also mind-manipulate molecules in masses of up to 500 kg, but takes about an hour to recover.
Like all Eternals members, Ajak ignores fatigue. He can heal himself from any non-fatal injury and can only be killed if a large portion of his cells is destroyed. His cosmic power allows him to emit bursts (through eyes or fists) and teleport.
Depending on whether he uses his power, he can lift between 800 kg and 25 tons. Ajak is the only Eternal who can communicate directly with the Celestials.
He is trained in wrestling. He has advanced knowledge in archeology. Ajak is equipped with a helmet and armor made from an unknown alloy, made in the city of Polaria.
In the movie, Ajak is going to be portrayed as a female character.
Druig
Played by: Barry Keoghan
Druig is one of the more powerful Eternals. In the twentieth century, he was an agent of the KGB, which employed him to torture prisoners of war. When the Celestial Zirann arrived in Polaria, the Siberian city, he tried to kill him but he was mortally wounded by his cousin Ikaris. His remains were recovered by the Celestials.
Druig is seen again in the miniseries Eternals, in 2006, as prime minister of Vorozheika, an independent state located in Russia. He organized the kidnapping of scientists during an embassy party organized by Circe (all the Eternals then unaware of their origin, except Ikaris). During the hostage-taking, his mercenaries panicked and made him lose control of the situation. It was then that he ‘woke up’.
He returned to Vorozheika and, with his newfound powers, ordered a bloody coup. Recently, Druig has set out to find other ‘dormant’ Eternals (whom he ‘awakens’ by altering memories), with the goal of stopping the Dreaming Heavenly and becoming the undisputed leader of his race.
As Eternal, Druig possesses all the powers of his race. He mastered his control of cosmic energy and became a master of control. He can hypnotize with a simple glance, or even control machines from a distance. Telepathic, he can read the memories of others and hide his presence.
Gilgamesh
Played by: Don Lee
Gilgamesh is a member of the race of the Eternals, and possesses a number of superhuman abilities common to the Eternals, but has trained some of them much more than normal. Although his exact limits are unknown, his immense superhuman strength makes him the strongest Eternal known, except for Thanos. His strength has been seen to rival that of Thor, Hercules, and Hulk.
Like all other Eternals, Gilgamesh is practically immortal. He has not aged since he reached adulthood and is immune to all known diseases. In addition, its body is highly durable and resistant to physical damage. He is capable of withstanding large-caliber bullets, drops from great heights, powerful shocks, and extreme temperatures without being injured.
That said, it is possible to permanently or fatally injure him by disrupting the mental discipline he maintains over his body, which normally allows him to control each of his molecules and thus regenerate any damaged or destroyed tissue.
Other abilities he has in common with most other Eternals include the power to levitate and fly at high speed, project rays of shocking force or heat with his eyes and hands, and manipulate matter.
It is not known to what degree these powers have developed compared to other Eternals, but the first two mentioned are believed to be within average. Being blind has made him develop the rest of his senses enormously, which makes him an excellent hunter and tracker.
Gilgamesh is one of the Eternals’ most skilled melee combatants. He possesses an extraordinary ability to fight hand-to-hand, and knows most of the martial arts created by the ancient civilizations of Earth. He sometimes wears combat armor of unknown composition and is usually armed with simple hand weapons such as an ax, a spear, or a mace.
Ikaris
Played by: Richard Madden
Ikaris’ life force is augmented by cosmic energy and he has full mental control over his physical form and bodily processes, even when he is asleep or unconscious. As a result, he is virtually immortal, immune to disease and aging, and invulnerable to conventional forms of injury. If Ikaris were injured in any way, he could regenerate any injured or lost tissue.
Cosmic energy strengthens Ikaris’ metabolism so that he does not tire of any physical effort. He can withstand extreme temperatures through mental concentration. Ikaris can levitate himself by mentally manipulating the gravitons around him. He can also levitate other people and objects, even while they are already levitating.
Ikaris can fly through self-levitation at approximately 850 miles per hour, a speed that most other Eternals cannot match.
Ikaris has low-level psychic abilities, allowing him to scan the surface thoughts of any mindless adept than his own. He can mentally create illusions to disguise himself. Ikaris can also psionically manipulate atoms and molecules to transform the shape of an object. However, Ikaris is only a second-level adept on a scale of five levels (the fifth level being the highest) in this discipline.
He can rearrange molecules in the air to create a virtually impenetrable shield over himself. Ikaris can project cosmic energy in the form of rays from his eyes or rays and flashes from his hands. This cosmic energy, stored in specialized enclaves of cells in his body, can be used as force, heat, light, and possibly other forms of electromagnetic energy.
Ikaris can project a maximum concussive force of at least 260 pounds per square inch. He can project heat to a maximum temperature of at least 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt iron. It takes him about a minute to reach this maximum temperature.
Because Ikaris heat rays can vaporize solid objects, they are often called death rays. The maximum range for energy beams from him is approximately 200 feet. Ikaris is a fourth-level adept on a scale of five levels (the fifth level is the highest) in this discipline.
Expenditure of cosmic energy in this way continuously for several hours will temporarily deplete Ikaris’s physical strength, but not his resistance to injury, although it will temporarily increase his sensitivity to pain. He will quickly return to normal after that prolonged energy expenditure is over.
Ikaris can teleport psychically, but he prefers not to, as, like other Eternals, he finds the process of self-teleportation physically unpleasant. He can also teleport other people along with himself.
Kingo
Played by: Kumail Nanjiani
Kingo spent centuries in Japan learning the ways of the samurai, and he is one of the most skilled swordsmen on the planet. Today, he has shown his abilities to become a great action movie star in Japan.
He later reappeared, after Sprite erased the memories of the Eternals, once again as a major Japanese movie icon, now an actor, director, and producer, who is making a movie in San Francisco starring the Blob, being drawn to the Celestial Dreamer.
Kingo Sunen presumably has all the typical Eternals powers: immortality, super strength, flight, energy projection, and molecular manipulation. However, he avoids using these powers in battle, preferring to fight in the traditional Samurai manner. Kingo uses a sword forged by the Eternal Phastos that can cut through almost any material.
Makkari
Played by: Lauren Ridloff
Makkari is another Eternals member; he possesses superhuman strength, speed, and reflexes.
He can create cyclones by running in circles, and he can climb walls and walk on water. Makkari’s body eventually accumulates poisons from fatigue and is susceptible to injury.
Although in most of his appearances, Makkari has the typical powers of an Eternal, his obsession with speed, beginning in the Quasar series, causes him to focus most of the Cosmic Energy from his body to enhance his running speed. As a result, he lost his ability to fly and many of his other powers have been weakened in the process.
Makkari possesses none of the average Eternal’s psionic powers (levitation, eye force projection, and molecular rearrangement), having purposely re-adapted all of his specialized cell enclaves to speed and running-related attributes.
At present, he can run at close to the speed of light for long periods, but his physical strength (although still much greater than that of an average human) has been halved, and he apparently cannot project energy or manipulate light.
Makkari sometimes wears a protective helmet, although he doesn’t really need it. He wears synthetic stretch fabric, specially treated to withstand the rigors of high-speed movement. Makkari has great mechanical aptitude and the ability to pilot most land and air vehicles.
He has moderate experience in hand-to-hand combat; his fighting style incorporates his superhuman speed. He has completed the Eternal Higher Education Standard, and underwent special tutorials in Speed Applications.
Phastos
Played by: Brian Tyree Henry
Little is known about the history of Phastos. He is part of the third generation of the Eternals who decided to stay on Earth (his own reasons are not known, but it is believed that he would have stayed to find a specific person or object). He was the teacher of Sigmar the Eternal.
Over the centuries, he had relationships with humans, who gave him different names: Vulcan, Hephaestus, etc. Phastos is a genius inventor. It is he who created most of the technological machines of the Eternals. His base is now located in Germany, in the Ruhr Valley.
When Sprite used the Heavenly Dreamer to make all the Eternals amnesiac and rewrite their lives, Phastos became Philip Stoss, a German automotive engineer. He was found and ‘awakened’ by Ikaris and Thena. We see him again in the Saga of the Deviants, where he guarded with Virako, Karkas, and Ransak the City of the Eternals.
He helped the god Thor find a powerful destructive artifact, stolen by Ereshkigal, and prevent the destruction of the universe. He is a technologist and a weapons manufacturer. He has a fixed base located in the Ruhr Valley (Germany).
Phastos is an Eternal, he has all the powers inherent to this race. He is immortal and does not fear disease. His healing capacity is extraordinary. He can, however, be killed if its molecules are too dispersed.
His superhuman strength allows him to lift nearly 25 tons. He controls cosmic energy, which allows him to fly (at nearly 900km / h), create illusions, transform matter, and even teleport. He uses a special hammer that generates bursts of unknown energy. He is a genius in the field of technology and inventions.
Sersi
Played by: Gemma Chan
As an Eternals member, Sersi has the standard abilities of the Earth Eternals, though she has focused most of her power on transmutation abilities and has passed it on as illusion or magic throughout the ages.
Sersi’s psionic ability to rearrange the molecular structure of objects is far greater than that of any other Eternal; the limits of Sersi’s molecular rearrangement powers have yet to be revealed. Sersi is the only living fifth-level expert in the transmutation of matter (on a scale of 1 to 5).
She has the ability to alter the molecular and atomic structures of all matter, including living organisms. However, she has expressed difficulties in reorganizing subatomic matter.
Sersi has a talented intellect and superhuman strength (which he can complement by psionically levitating heavy objects), stamina, durability, agility, and reflexes.
Sersi possesses the ability to manipulate cosmic energy to increase her life force, granting her virtual invulnerability and immortality, the ability to project cosmic energy from her eyes or hands in the form of heat, light, or shocking force, and possibly other powers.
Sersi is resistant to cold, disease, electricity, energy, heat, radiation, and toxin attacks. She does not age, and can only be killed if her atoms are scattered. Sersi has total mental control over her physical form, granting her virtual invulnerability and immortality.
Sersi has the ability to levitate herself and seven other people, with the ability to keep flying at superhuman speed. She has the ability to make illusions to disguise the appearance of herself and others from the perceptions of normal human beings.
She has the ability to teleport herself and others with her; like other Eternals, Sersi finds her method of teleportation unpleasant and uses this power rarely.
Sersi can communicate telepathically, although she cannot mentally read the minds of any Deviants, and she can control the minds of Eternals, Deviants, and humans. Sersi can telekinetically manipulate objects and generate a force field.
Sersi, like all Eternals, can join with the Uni-Mind. As a trained dancer who has perfected her art for centuries, aided by her superhuman physique, Sersi has extraordinary athletic ability. She has also demonstrated a talent for martial arts, multiple languages, wrestling, and fashion design.
Sprite
Played by: Lia McHugh
Sprite, like all Eternals, has full control over his body’s life force and molecular structure, making him virtually immortal. He does not age and is immune to all known diseases and toxins, radiation, and extreme temperatures.
His former Eternal body had the appearance of a pre-adolescent child (and against his will, according to him), but is actually hundreds of thousands of years old. Sprite is able to channel cosmic radiation into bursts of heat or force, levitate himself or others, and create illusions that deceive the senses.
He has superhuman strength, though due to his small size and his infantile anatomy he is smaller than most Eternals. He can rearrange atoms and molecules in such a way that he radically restructures objects (he once created a spacecraft from ground to orbit in seconds) and is, in fact, second only to Sersi in the art of molecular reconstruction.
If Sprite’s story is to be believed, he has successfully used the Heavenly Dreamer’s powers of reality to give himself a human body that would have aged to manhood normally, if not for his passing.
Thena
Played by: Angelina Jolie
As a result of being an Eternal member, Thena has superhuman strength, speed, durability, stamina, agility, and reflexes.
Thena also possesses the ability to manipulate cosmic energy to increase her life force, granting her virtual invulnerability and immortality, the ability to project cosmic energy from her eyes or hands in the form of heat, light, or shocking force, and possibly other powers.
Thena has full mental control over her physical form, granting her virtual invulnerability and immortality. She also has the ability to levitate and therefore fly at superhuman speed, the psionic ability to rearrange the molecular structure of objects, the ability to cast illusions to disguise its appearance and that of others from the perceptions of humans, the ability to teleport herself and others with her, and the ability to initiate the formation of the Uni-Mind.
Thena has a gifted intellect and has studied with the best human and eternal scholars throughout her lifetime. She is highly educated in numerous areas of eternal and human knowledge. Thena is also a formidable hand-to-hand combatant, with extensive training in unarmed combat and the use of many ancient and timeless high-tech weapons.
Thena wears body armor of unknown composition. She carries a bow that shoots arrows that release “cold energy”, and an energy spear that surrounds victims with a ring of intense heat and light or bombards them with anti-gravitons.
