It’s Eternals vs. Deviants in Final Trailer for Marvel’s Eternals

It feels like Disney and the MCU have been sitting on Eternals for eons at this point, but that’s oddly fitting for this particular property, which has always been about a secret, immortal alien race hiding among us. Come November, however, the Eternals will finally be revealed to the rest of us, and the new, final trailer for the MCU’s latest shows a bit of them in combat against their ancient enemy, the Deviants.

Says the official synopsis for the film: After an unexpected tragedy following the events of Avengers: Endgame the Eternals—an immortal alien race created by the Celestials who have secretly lived on Earth for over 7,000 years—reunite to protect humanity from their evil counterparts, the Deviants.

The Eternals, therefore, have been here among us all along, but they’ve essentially taken a vow not to specifically interfere with our struggles, in the same mold as Marvel’s own The Watcher, who sits and silently judges us from the moon. The one aspect that the Eternals are allowed to interfere in is in the machinations of their sinister flipside, the Deviants. As for why they wouldn’t have stepped in when it came to a threat as grave as Thanos and the Infinity Stones, the trailer tells us exactly why: Because the all-powerful Celestials who created the race of Eternals told them not to.

The Celestials have been referenced and hinted at repeatedly throughout the MCU to date, but the only one we’ve really met was the rogue Ego the Living Planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It will be interesting to get some more information on them in particular, as the massive Celestials built much of the foundations of the Marvel universe before most of them died off. A bit less exciting is the presentation here of the Deviants, who seem very CGI-heavy indeed, in a way that uncomfortably reminds one of say, Steppenwolf in Justice League. Let’s hope that director Chloé Zhao’s MCU entry actually has some compelling antagonists tucked away in its back pocket, or this could come off as pretty reductive.

Eternals is scheduled to arrive on Nov. 5, 2021, as part of Phase 4 of the MCU. Check out the full trailer below.