Eternals’ Superman, Batman references break the Marvel and DC universes

It’s no secret that Eternals has a lot of characters — some expected, like the 10 top-billed Eternals, some hidden, and some entirely unexpected.

There are however two super heroes in the world. Eternals who go beyond the pale of “unexpected” to full mind melt.

They don’t appear in the film, but they are mentioned by name, and it’s absolutely outrageous bit of world breaking. Writer-director Chloé Zhao went the extra mile, as if giving Richard Madden’s Ikaris eye lasers wasn’t enough.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Eternals.]

Batman and Superman?What are you waiting for?

Image: Marvel Studios

Figures EternalNot the greatest DC Comics super heroes, Batman or Superman, you can namedrop. The Eternals would be familiar with Superman and Batman, this would suggest.

First, when meeting Karun, the human character is described as Kingo’s valet. “Like Alfred?” another character quips, meaning Alfred Pennyworth, loyal butler to Bruce Wayne. It’s not a cheeky joke for the audience, it’s simply a conversation.

As if that wasn’t enough, when Sersi and Ikaris arrive at Phastos’ house, they namedrop Superman in the same tone, comparing Ikaris’ powers of flight and laser vision to the Man of Steel.

If EternalsIf this is serious, then we will assume that, in a world where Captain America was a true superhero for many decades and people like Iron Man and Thor have been zipping about since around 2008,…

That world is also a world where DC Comics characters Batman and Superman — No, Alfred Pennyworth and Superman — hold cultural cachet?

It’s not impossible, I’m just mad about it

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby/Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics has had a tradition of making reference to the existence and future of superhero comics within a universe full of them. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby began writing occasionally into the pages. Fantastic Four1963. Ever since then, it’s been a a little known fact of Marvel Comics canon that a version of the publisher Marvel Comics exists in the Marvel Comics Universe, where it prints legally licensed accounts of superhero adventures.

Marvel Comics (and DC) have never shied away from making fun of the distinguished competitors. However, the notion that Batman or Superman comics had been on newsstands at Marvel Comics Universe was a joke. Fantastic FourNever on the agenda.

Blockbuster movies don’t seem to be worried about this, and EternalsThis isn’t the first Marvel film to reference DC Comics. That crown goes to 2018’s Venom, for a scene in which Anne Weying finds out that a certain frequency of sound can harm Eddie Brock’s alien parasite.

“What, so, sound is like his kryptonite?” she says, a word and concept originating in the Superman radio serial and appearing in comics for the first time 1949 — despite the fact that she could just as easily have said “Sound is like his Achilles heel?”

You have to be cautious about Eternals!

Superman is being named, and I believe that this excuse was made by the creators of Eternals wanted to hang a lampshade on the fact that Ikaris’ power set is going to remind at least some viewers of Superman. By mentioning the Man of Steel, they’re holding a placating hand out to the audience, as if to say “Yeah, yeah, we know. But these are just his powers.”

But that certainly doesn’t explain the Batman reference. This opens up another huge can of worms. That is how orcs are able to associate restaurants with them. It is this way that we can get fans theories about how Autos Wall-EAre in the same timeframe.

Here’s how I missed a scene. Eternal while mouthing “what the fuck” over and over again behind my mask. This is where I start to lose myself in the implications that Superman and Batman films have in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And this is when my mind spirals out. Is the Snap a DC Comics feature? Is it possible to see the impact alien life has had on Hollywood’s blockbuster movies? Has anyone ever said that Carol Danvers is “like a real life Wonder Woman?”

I don’t need this stress in my life, man.