Thanos and his connection to the Eternals, explained

The Eternals and Thanos share a deep connection that was only teased in the recent film.

For over a decade, the MCU has been taking up characters and altering their origins to make them different from the comics. They did the same with the Eternals by turning them into alien androids. But how are they connected to Thanos?

The appearance of Starfox in Eternals’ mid-credits scene teased the link between the Eternals and The Mad Titan. Starfox is his brother in the comics, and he was dubbed the same in the MCU by Pip the troll. But Thanos’ history as an Eternal is yet to be explored in the MCU. Before that, let’s look at his backstory in the comics.

How Thanos is connected to Eternals

Official poster for Eternals and Marvel's well-known villain (Image via Marvel)

The Mad Titan is also an Eternal in the comics. To understand his origins, we need to look at how the Eternals were created in the books. Like the MCU, it was the Celestials who created the Eternals and the Deviants. But they did that by experimenting on humans. So the end result was the Eternals becoming immortal beings that looked like humans.

Deviants, on the other hand, turned out to be a failed offshoot of humans. Their unstable DNA gave them monstrous appearances. So, they couldn’t hide in plain sight like the Eternals. As for Thanos, he is an Eternal-Deviant hybrid. His genes were rare in his entire species. Because of Deviant syndrome in his DNA, he looks like the purple monster we saw in Infinity War and Endgame.

Looking like he did, The Mad Titan had to struggle quite a lot as he grew up. In fact, his looks are the reason why his mother could never love him. But who was his mother?

Is Thena Thanos’ mother?

Thena and The Mad Titan (Image via Marvel)

While watching Eternals, many people wanted to know the connection between The Mad Titan and Angelina Jolie’s Thena. The question that many asked was – Is Thena his mother? The answer to that question is no, because Thena is his cousin.

Returning to the backstory, the Eternals were led by the prime Eternal called Kronos. After the Celestials left Earth, Kronos experimented with cosmic energy but failed miserably. Due to his debacle, the cosmic energy had spread all across the base of the Eternals, permanently altering their genes in the process.

Baby Thanos and his parents (Image via Marvel)

Kronos was in no position to lead after his failed experiment. So, it was upon his two sons A’lars and Zuras to decide who would take the leadership role. Since both of them wanted to be the leader, they came to the conclusion that they’ll split the Eternals into two factions. Following A’lars, one large group of Eternals went to Saturn’s moon, Titan, and Zuras’ group stayed on Earth.

After the Eternals set up their colony on Titan, A’lars and his wife Sui-San gave birth to two Eternals, Thanos, and Starfox. Meanwhile on Earth, Zuras gave birth to multiple children, one of them being Thena. This is how The Mad Titan is connected to Thena and the other Eternals on Earth. But none of this is the case in the MCU.

How come The Mad Titan isn’t Synthetic, but the other Eternals are?

The Mad Titan in Endgame (Image via Marvel)

Looking at the connection teased between Thanos, Starfox, and the other Eternals, people were left asking why they were so different. The Mad Titan clearly bled and died like an organic being. So how can he be the brother of Starfox, who may be a synthetic being like the other Eternals? In an exclusive interview with The Direct, writers Ryan and Kaz Firpo did try to solve this dilemma.

According to them, the Eternals on Titan could have been organic. Kaz Firpo stated:

"I feel like there’s a couple of answers, neither of which we can confirm or deny. Is Thanos not a synthetic being? How do we know? How do we know Thanos is not an Eternal?"

Ryan Firpo added:

"I would also say that I think that there’s a version where the Eternals that they send to other planets are synthetic beings, but perhaps there was at one time, a planet where organic Eternals lived. Maybe Eros is one of those…"

He continued:

"...[Maybe] the ones that we’re seeing on these other planets, who were sent on these missions, who are essentially put into these loops basically that they keep reliving the same experience over and over, maybe those are synthetic beings that are copies of organic beings somewhere else."

Finally, Kaz Firpo concluded:

"Two potential doors for you to step through. I like the idea of… what if we learn that Thanos retroactively was actually synthetic all along. These seem like a couple great episodes for What If…?.”

The idea of some synthetic and organic Eternals does seem to be the way to go forward. This way, even dead Eternals like Ajak and Ikaris could be brought back as we could just see their copies or the original organic ones in the sequels.

Even though Eternals wasn’t a successful outing, Marvel still needs to follow through with Eternals 2 in order to solve their cliffhangers and reveal the true connection between Thanos and the other Eternals.

Edited by Upasya Bhowal