Based on the 1976 comics, the newest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “The Eternals,” was released in theaters last Friday, November 5th. Introducing a different set of heroes to the MCU; The Eternals takes place after “Endgame,” as ancient beings who had been secretly living on Earth for thousands of years come out of the shadows after a tragedy in order to fight against mankind’s oldest enemy- the Deviants.
Although this adaptation is based on the comics, Marvel fans recognized many differences between them; such as the look, gender and powers of the characters and even the origin. In the comics, for example, the most powerful beings in the Marvel universe, the Celestials, create the Eternals on Earth as a result of an experiment on early mankind. However, there’s no correlation between the Eternals and mankind in the movie. They are synthetic beings created by the Celestials in a distant planet called “Olympia” and sent to infinite worlds to protect lives.
Even in an interview with Marvel fan Jadyn Bernard, she mentions the movie itself was noticeably different from the comics and “a long-ass movie.” It is easy to see why the writers included so much though, because it’s a completely different side of the MCU that people might not know about if they hadn’t read the comics. However, those who had read the comics were probably disappointed at this adaptation. In comparison to other Marvel movies, “The Eternals” seemed different due to the lack of fight sequences and the introduction of many new characters. This also makes sense because up until now, viewers are used to seeing heroes like Iron Man and they almost know what to expect from a Marvel movie. Since this is a new chapter in the story, it’s easy to understand why the movie felt so bland to many fans. Now that these new characters are included however; this gives Marvel the opportunity to really expand on the mythological aspect, as they have already with the “Loki” series on Disney Plus.
Sources
https://www.marvel.com/movies/eternals
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Eternals_(Homo_immortalis)
https://screenrant.com/biggest-differences-between-eternals-movie-comics/
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