Character Highlight: Ikaris (Eternals)

*Ikaris-related spoilers.*

We did it, people! We’re down to our last Eternal. It was a long road, with some detours along the way, but we made it. Now, to satisfy the completist itch in my brain, let’s talk about Ikaris!

Ikaris is the Eternals’ golden boy. Ajak is their leader, Phastos is the most intelligent, and Thena is their best warrior, but Ikaris has that something that draws people to him. When the Deviants remerge, he’s instrumental in reuniting their scattered family, and in Ajak’s absence, he seems a natural successor for her, even though Sersi is given that official role. Multiple Eternals address him as “boss,” and that’s even the name sign Makkari uses for him.

While a lot of his fellow Eternals, in addition to their strength, agility, and agelessness, have one main power, generally some type of cosmic energy manipulation, Ikaris has a few. He can fly, and he has laser/heat vision, not precisely sure which. When Phastos’s kid calls him Superman, the comparison is understandable.

But Superman he is not, in many ways. During their early millennia together, Ikaris isn’t all that invested in humanity. He mainly cares about them for Sersi’s sake, the not-quite-god equivalent of taking an interest in your crush’s hobbies. And while Superman takes on leadership well aware of the privilege of being entrusted with that responsibility, there’s a part of Ikaris that feels entitled to it. Even though he loves Sersi, you can tell he thinks he’s better suited for and more deserving of the mantle Ajak left behind, and it burns him up just a little bit to know that Sersi is the chosen one. It’s interesting to see someone with these abilities be driven more by his own interests than by altruism. It’s not like he’s auditioning to be on The Boys or anything, but his character definitely isn’t that of “a Superman figure.”

As the film goes on, we see it goes much deeper than that. Ikaris isn’t just the golden boy who was passed over for the big promotion. As Sersi discovers, and then tells the others, the Celestials’ true plan for Earth, they’re horrified to learn that the planet is due to be ripped apart by the Celestial incubating under its crust. Very understandably, Seri is sickened to think of how the Celestials have used them to help prime Earth for the Emergence, but Ikaris doesn’t think that wiping out the human race is something worth breaking with their lords and masters over.

There are a few factors to this. First, there’s the simple fact that this isn’t a new revelation for him. While Ikaris’s friends are sitting in shock at this discovery, Ikaris has already known about it for millennia. Ajak shared the truth with him alone, and he’s had ages to consider that fact of their existence/true purpose. It informs why he doesn’t take time to get to know or care about humans. He knows their time as a species is limited, so why get attached?

Next, after he’s had millennia to digest this revelation, Ikaris is ultimately committed to it. For him, shepherding a planet through enough development to give a subterranean Celestial the nourishment it needs to Emerge is the entire reason for his existence. If they turn back now, if they go against the Celestials and try to stop it, what are any of them there for? It’s a crappy reason to be on board with global genocide, but I can buy that learning you’re actually a robot who’s done this on countless planets, getting your memories erased between Emergences and your consciousness uploaded into a new body, might wreak havoc on your psyche.

So Ikaris isn’t just the sterling hero figure whose integrity fails to match his power. He in fact becomes the villain, standing in opposition to his friends who are trying to stop the Emergence and save the Earth. He thinks on cosmic scales, in which humans are tiny and insignificant, acceptable sacrifices to perpetuate the Celestials, but the others don’t hold humanity’s insubstantiality against them. Anyone, no matter how small or fleeting, deserves protecting, and even though the other Eternals love Ikaris, most of them are prepared to fight him in order to save humanity.