Eternals: Who are the Celestials?

The Eternals will soon be gracing the big screens and the age-old band of superheroes would be making their debut in the MCU. Long awaited to make their entry into the universe, they are now coming out of hiding after thousands of years blending in with the people on Earth. But first, tracing back to their roots, who are their creators, the Celestials?

Eternals: Who are the Celestials?

Credit: Marvel Studios

The Eternals were created by the Celestials they paid Earth a visit a million years ago. In here, they had genetic experiments with humans resulting to two races: the Eternals, the winners of the gene pool of perfection as all of them are in perfect shape, perfect appearance, and with cosmic powers; and the Deviants who were monster-like and genetically unstable creatures.

This isn’t the first time we heard of the Celestials. We’ve seen some throughout the history lessons in the MCU. The Celestials are giant humanoids who lorded over races, even predating the Asgardians. They are millennium old creatures who were there when the universe was created. Just by how little information were shared about the Celestials in the MCU, their arrival makes it more interesting as they are expected to be extremely powerful beings.

In various occasions, the Celestials have been discussed in the MCU like when The Collector was explaining to the Guardians of The Galaxy the Power Stone where a Celestial named Eson used the Power Stone to “judge” and eradicate civilizations thousands of years before, and when Nebula called Vormir the center of “Celestial Civilization.” The place Knowhere was also believed to be the skull of a Celestial.

The MCU even introduced a Celestial, Ego, the father of Peter Quill. In Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2, it was explained that Ego had some experimenting on his own in seeding a child by planting on various planets and meeting with various women from different races, children which we learned later on were killed for not possessing the powers he wanted them to have.

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In the comics, they are first ever cosmic beings who influenced major events throughout the history of evolution in the universe – the closest thing the MCU has as the OG gods. In their experiments, they produced two genetic offshoot races: the perfectly created Eternals and the monster-like Deviants. They pass down messages to the Eternals, even ordering them to never interfere.

In various trailers of the Eternals, it has been shown that the Celestials would be making an appearance and they seem to be cooking something up on their sleeves, and whatever that is, hopefully it is not something that is Earth-shattering.

Catch the Celestials on Eternals in theaters on November 5, 2021.