Thanos’ Eternals connection and ties to Harry Styles’ Eros, explained

With Eternals MCU’s focus shifts away from Thanos towards a more cosmic perspective, and on to new galactic weirdos like the Celestials.

However, the Marvel comics show that Thanos and Eternals share a strong bond which may help to chart the course of the Marvel movie universe. Following an Eternals post-credits scene silently invoked the connection, let’s talk about how Thanos ties into Phase 4, even after his story seemingly ended.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Marvel’s Eternals.]

Thanos’ Eternals lineage

Marvel

In the comics, Thanos is an Eternal, and one from a very important bloodline: His father, Al’ars, was the son of Kronos, who ruled the Eternals of Earth following a civil war that divided the original colony. Following his father’s death, Al’ars traveled the universe as the Mentor.

He then traveled to Titan, the moon Saturn’s, with its own Eternals. There, he found the entire planet had been decimated in its own Eternal civil war with one survivor — the Titan Eternal Sui-san. They used a genetic device to rebuild Titan, and then repopulated the planet with Titans, new Eternal-like creatures dubbed Titans. Although they lived longer and were more powerful than the Titan Eternals before them, they still far outclassed the Earth Eternals.

Eventually, Sui-San and Al’ars had two children of their own: Eros (we’ll get to him) and Thanos.

It is not an eternal, it’s still not a deviant

Thanos is an Eternal, yes, but he’s also a Deviant. You ask why? Because genetics!

See, Eternals and Deviants are made from the same batch, and that means there’s eventually some crossover. An Eternal getting a Deviant-like mutation was later dubbed “Deviant Syndrome,” or the way Thanos looks with his purple skin and ridged chin. (Of the two sons, he’s the only one with this condition; Eros looks like a regular Eternal, something that Thanos naturally hated his brother for.) And because the Deviants’ evilness is tied to their biology (yikes), Thanos’ appearance freaked out Sui-san so much that when she first laid eyes on him after giving birth, she went mad and tried to kill him (also yikes!You can read the rest of it here.

Current Eternals run from Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribić, the genius Phastos discovered that Thanos is actually a “true Eternal,” same as the rest of them. It isn’t clear what this means for the character going forward; the next arc of Gillen and Ribić’s run will continue Thanos’ story, where he will be known as “Eternal Prime.”

Let’s talk about Eros

Created by Jim Starlin and first appearing in 1973’s Invincible Iron Man #55, Eros is Thanos’ younger brother. With good looks and the power of controlling other people’s emotions, Eros is both the superhero called Starfox and a massive fuckboi. If he wasn’t helping the Avengers with a crisis, he was being hedonistic as hell in space.

The two are like fictional brothers who do not get along. Thanos will frequently capture Eros to torture him. They do get along, sometimes: They once had to work together to defeat Thanos’ future self, and they have a truce to meet once a year and bring each other gifts.

What’s this mean for the MCU?

Image: Marvel Studios

Eternals’ Thena and Makkari are on board their ship as Druig, Druig, and Druig realize that Sersi and Phastos have taken Kingo and Sprite. Before they can formulate a plan, they’re interrupted by none other than Eros, played by Harry Styles. Introduced explicitly as Thanos’ brother by his sidekick Pip (Patton Oswalt), Eros offers to help the Eternals save their friends. And his fuckboi nature seems to be intact, as his introduction is set to “Feels Like the First Time” and he flirts with Thena.

Since the film ends with the standard “Eternals will return …” promise, Eros is probably included in that now, too. Should this movie succeed, it’s possible that Styles is locked in for an Eternals 2, Perhaps even his own film or TV show. He is not present in the Infinity Saga, which would make it difficult for anyone to connect with him. We will see how he connects to them and the purpose of his role in the MCU. It is also uncertain whether Thanos will appear again to join the Marvel sibling rivalry. The Eternals are now a formidable ally in the fight against the Celestials. Undoubtedly, this person will cause trouble.