Eternals vs Deviants: Who Would Win and Why?
The Eternals and Deviants are, nominally, equally powerful. This is how they were envisioned initially, as two groups of polar opposites, equally strong, but representing opposite moral standpoints. The heroic Eternals usually win in the end due to being heroes, but their powers are nominally equally strong.
Speaking of Eternals vs Deviants, there’s still a lot to be said. Throughout the rest of this article, we will look at their powers and abilities in more detail and see how the fight between Eternals and Deviants would play out.
Eternals and Their Powers
The Eternals are a fictional race of superhumans that appear in the comics of Marvel Comics. They have been described as a separate branch of the evolutionary process that created intelligent life on Earth.
The original investigators of this process, the alien race of Celestials, intended to be the protectors of Earth, leading to the inevitable war against their destructive counterparts, the Deviants.
Physiology and Biology
Due to the cosmic energy that permeates their bodies and the near unbreakable mental hold they have over their physiological processes, the Eternals of Earth are virtually immortal. They live for millennia, do not get tired from physical exertion, are immune to disease and poison, and are unaffected by the extreme cold and heat of their surroundings.
Most cannot be harmed by conventional weapons, and even if they somehow are, an Eternal can quickly regenerate any damage as long as he is able to maintain a mental hold on his body; this mental connection can be broken, however.
In the 2006 series, it was also stated that the Eternals are able to directly absorb oxygen from water, and therefore cannot drown. In the same series, Ikaris is immersed in molten metal and experiences great pain, but no physical injury, which the Deviants attribute to a force field that protects Ikaris even when he is unconscious.
However, it is not certain that all Eternals share this same degree of protection. At one time, the official limit to the durability of the Eternals was that they could only be permanently destroyed by dispersing a large part of their body’s molecules over a large area.
However, it was revealed that this degree of extreme durability had increased to a much greater extent; in the 2006 Eternals limited series, it is shown that even full molecular dispersion is insufficient to destroy an Eternal.
As long as “the Machine” (a restorative device of Celestial origin; perhaps the Earth itself) continues to function, any destroyed Eternal will eventually return, as was the case with Ikaris after being completely vaporized by a particle accelerator as part of a series of “experiments” performed on it by the Deviants.
The Eternals only have births every 1000 years. A child of eternal and human parents is more common, but the offspring do not inherit the powers of their eternal parent.
Psionic Powers and Other Abilities
The Eternals can channel the cosmic energy contained within their bodies, and are potentially all capable of performing or obtaining a number of superhuman abilities:
- Superhuman strength: Their strength limit can be increased after years of focusing some of their energy for this purpose.
- Flying through the air (and levitating other people and objects).
- Reading and mind control.
- Generation of illusions.
- Teleport great distances, although most of the Eternals prefer not to use this ability as many find it uncomfortable or inconvenient (and according to the 2006 series, it also significantly depletes their store of cosmic energy).
- Transmute items, changing both their shape and composition (the extent of this ability may vary from Eternal to Eternal).
- Generation of force fields offering invulnerability to damage.
Sersi, for example, has developed the power of transmutation further than any other Eternal. In addition, some Eternals choose to focus their cosmic energies on other non-standard abilities. Ikaris, for example, channels his cosmic energy to dramatically improve his senses, while the Interloper uses his to generate fear in others and Makkari for high speed.
Uni-Mind
In addition, groups of Eternals, three at a time, can initiate a collective transformation into a “gestalt” (mental structure) called the Uni-Mind, a psionic entity that is extremely powerful, which gathers and contains the totality of the powers and capacities of all the beings which compose it. Some Eternals choose to focus on a particular power in order to increase their effectiveness.
- RELATED: Strongest Eternals (Ranked)
Deviants and Their Powers
Deviants is the name of a species of fiction belonging to the Marvel universe of the Marvel Comics publishing house. Created by Jack Kirby, they first appeared in the comic book Eternals (vol. 1) #1 in July 1976.
Like Homo sapiens or the Eternals, the Deviants are a branch of humanity. They are, like the Eternals, the result of an experiment on Earth of the cosmic entities called the Celestials.
Biology
Deviants are far less powerful than perfect Eternals, but their enormous reproductive capacity obviates this imbalance. These beings have the characteristic of being a changing population: there is no single individual equal to the other, the genetic code is constantly changing, generation after generation.
Their appearance is generally anthropomorphic but mostly altered and monstrous: their skin is greenish, brown, reddish, gray, etc., and can be covered with scales, ridges, or the like. Some have horns, others have tails, fangs, and/or the like.
Personality
The nature of these creatures is often aggressive and violent, and they do not seem endowed with pity or clemency: despite this, they are also more intelligent than humans and gifted with speech. Deviants have some rather feral habits: killing mercilessly or for fun, eating live animals, etc.
Mutates
Due to the unstable genetic code, some Deviants are particularly monstrous: these beings are called Mutates and are discriminated against by other Deviants, who consider them untouchables, imprison them and kill them en masse or use them in arenas as a form of entertainment, as warriors or slaves.
Mutates generally have very little anthropomorphic traits, and they are true monsters; paradoxically it can happen that they look totally human (like the Forsaken) or that they have intelligence and a good heart (like Karkas).
Powers and Abilities
Deviants can alter their genetic code by changing their physical appearance: for example, they can get horns or other physical attributes to appear or even take on a totally human form.
Some Deviants are extraordinarily long-lived, others (especially Mutates) have powers deriving from physical attributes (for example, a Deviant with tentacles can easily imprison an enemy with these) or are particularly strong, agile, and resistant.
Deviants are also able to heal very quickly. As you can see, most of the Deviants’ general powers are actually associated with their specific biology, while the Eternals have actual powers. This, of course, varies for each Deviant but the idea is that they are closely associated with their respective genetics.
- RELATED: 15 Strongest Deviants (Ranked)
Eternals vs Deviants: Who Would Win?
Both the Eternals and the Deviants are groups with a lot of members. Now, this makes it very difficult for us to compare each of the members individually, as it would take both a lot of time and a lot of text to do. This is why we had to do our comparison on a general level, which made things much easier, to be frank.
Now, the Eternals and Deviants were, as we have established, created to be polar opposites. In a constant quarrel, these two groups were created to fight until the end of time, but as we’ve seen, they were unable to wipe each other out of existence. Now, why is that? The answer is quite simple – they are both equally strong.
Sure, their power structure is vastly different and the two groups don’t have a lot in common when you compare their powers. But their levels are identical and while their powers are different, they ultimately end up annulling each other. Not every Eternal could beat every Deviant and vice versa, but on a general level – they’re of equal powers.
This is why, objectively, there is no real winner here, no. The Eternals will usually end up as the winners because they are heroes and the heroes usually win in the end, but that is a plot element and not an objective evaluation of their powers and abilities.
