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.

Character Highlight: Ajak (Eternals)

*Spoilers.*

It’s impressive that, more than fourth months since Eternals came out, I still haven’t gotten through the full ensemble. Granted, I haven’t posted about an Eternal every Marvelous Wednesday, and that’s been intentional, but it’s still a little wild to think about. Even though some of these characters get more dimension/screentime than others, they’re still distinct enough that I can write about all ten major characters in this two-and-a-half-hour movie. I watched all three Hobbit movies, and by the end, I couldn’t have matched the names of all thirteen dwarves to save my life.

Today, we’re looking at Ajak. She’s the leader of the Eternals, although you wouldn’t necessarily guess that from her relative screentime. A large part of that is the pure fact that she’s not really in any of the modern-day scenes. When the Deviants reappear, the first move Sersi, Sprite, and Ikaris take is to go to Ajak in her remote home in rural South Dakota, where they discover she’s already been killed by Deviants. The ensuing mission to reunite the Eternals is fueled partly by her death.

So she ultimately becomes more of a plot device, but who is Ajak before all of that? Like her fellow Eternals, she doesn’t age, and in their early millennia together, her healing powers restore the others from any injuries they suffer fighting the Deviants. The others follow her orders, but she’s not just a commanding officer. In a way, she’s like the mother of the group, and nearly all of the flashbacks with Ajak show her caring for her fellow Eternals in one way or another. Whether it’s checking in on Phastos during a devastating moment in history or nudging Sprite to visit Sersi so the two of them will have each other to lean on, she offers maternal love, understanding, and guidance.

Ajak’s other chief role is to liaise with the Celestials, who impart their instructions to her on a need-to-know basis, which she in turn gives to her fellow Eternals—again, need-to-know. This means that, as the others fight Deviants and steer human progress in ways that aren’t too interfering, Ajak knows the true purpose of their mission. Earth, like countless planets before it, is an incubator for a new Celestial, and once humanity reaches a sufficient population to sustain him, the planet will be ripped apart in his “birth.”

Naturally, when we learn this information, it doesn’t jive with what we know of Ajak. She certainly doesn’t seem like someone capable of rearing up humanity as lambs for slaughter, and she wrestles deeply with this knowledge. She tries to keep humans at a distance, instead lavishing her devotion on her fellow Eternals, and repeatedly reminds herself of her unwavering loyalty to the Celestials. But when the bonds between the Eternals start to break once they no longer have Deviants to fight, they go their separate ways, and Ajak finally gets to know humanity. For centuries, they tug at her heart as she travels among them, and when she sees how the Avengers rally against Thanos, she decides that humanity can’t be as disposable as the Celestials think.

So even though Ajak has spent nearly whole of her time on Earth preparing to sacrifice humanity, she recognizes the monstrosity of their mission in her final days and aims to stop it, to make things right. It’s a change of heart that gets her killed, but true to her compassionate nature, she expresses pity, not condemnation, toward her killer. In the end, realizing she won’t be able to lead her family down the right path, she uses her final moments to choose her successor well, knowing that Sersi’s gentleness and empathy will carry them through.

Character Highlight: Gilgamesh (Eternals)

Before we get started… trailer and release date for Ms. Marvel, woohoo! I’m so ready for Avengers fangirl Kamala! I’m a little mixed on the apparent change in her powers (it seems everybody’s all about the cosmic energy blasts these days,) but I do like what looks to be a more tangible aspect to them and it’s very possible that her usual polymorph abilities looked really weird in live action.

*Gilgamesh-related spoilers.*

When it comes to Eternals, Gilgamesh falls into the “cool but somewhat underused” category. While I like pretty much everything we see of him, he just doesn’t have as much time onscreen as some of the others. He’s certainly not on par with Kingo or Sprite, and even other “supporting Eternals” like Makkari and Phastos probably get a little more to work with than he does. But within the little we get, there’s a nice characterization that leaves me wanting more.

For the first stretch of the film, we don’t learn much about Gilgamesh. He’s one of the Eternals’ best fighters. Arguably the strongest, he can wield cosmic energy to enhance the power of his hand-to-hand combat (a bit like Iron Fist, but cooler.) When we see him in action, it’s mainly in the context of fight scenes.

The way we actually get to know him as more of a character is through his connection to another: Thena. When Thena is first stricken with Mahd Wy’ry, losing sight of herself and her surroundings against the weight of her suppressed memories, Ajak believes the only way to save Thena from the condition is to bring her back to the ship and erase her memories. The others are horrified at this idea, and Gilgamesh steps forward, quietly, to announce that he’ll look after Thena. Even if it means her attacking him in fits of Mahd Wy’ry, even if he knows it might one day get to the point where he’ll have to kill her, he decides it’s worth it to allow her to stay herself.

This coincides with the Eternals breaking up, and Gilgamesh takes Thena to the Outback, where they can live undisturbed and Thena won’t be in danger of hurting anyone but him. Over the centuries, he develops techniques for subduing Thena when the Mahd Wy’ry is upon her (he’s stronger than she is, but she’s more skilled at combat,) as well as methods of calming her and bringing her back to herself. Later in the film, Thena shares Gilgamesh’s words with Sersi, his explanation for why he chose to stay with her: “When you love something, you protect it. It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

It’s lovely to me that this formidable warrior exiles himself to care for Thena, that he risks his own life to look after her and, in the end, is killed trying to protect her from the Deviants. His strength is the gift he offers to humanity, but it’s his kindness that ultimately shines through. That, to me, is such an important distinction for a protector.

I also like that, when the other Eternals catch up to Gilgamesh and Thena in Australia, we see how nicely he’s taken to domestic life. When he’s not taking care of Thena, he enjoys cooking/baking, and he lays out a fine spread for the rest of his family. Again, that’s not a trait you necessarily see that often in formidable-warrior types, so I appreciate the extra shading. Even though Gilgamesh doesn’t have too much screentime, he makes it count, especially in the second half of the movie.