We have our first good look at Eternals as Marvel drops extended teaser

Gemma Chan and Richard Madden head a star-studded cast in Marvel's Eternals, part of Phase Four of the MCU.

Last month, we got the first teaser for Marvel Studios' upcoming film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the second feature film in the MCU's planned Phase Four. (Black Widow will be the first when it premieres in July.) Now we have our first real look at Eternals, in which members of an immortal alien race with cosmic powers reunite to protect the Earth from their malevolent counterparts.

The film is based on the comic book series of the same name created by Jack Kirby in 1976. The storyline tells of alien Celestials who visited Earth a million years ago, creating two divergent races-the Eternals and the Deviants-by way of genetic experiments. Those experiments were also responsible for the rare emergence of mutations in certain humans, giving them super powers. The Eternals protect the human race from the Deviants, and the two races engage in recurrent violent clashes. The Eternals' immortality and powers come from cosmic energy and their ability to channel it.

Kirby was partly inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (1953)-which featured Overlords who controlled Earth's fate-and the 1968 nonfiction bestseller Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken, postulating the concept of alien gods. Eternals also owes something to New Gods, Kirby's own earlier series for DC Comics, circa 1970. When that epic saga series was cancelled (and left incomplete), he wrote Eternals for Marvel Comics. A new Eternals comic series was launched in January of this year, written by Kieron Gillen with art by Esad Ribi.

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