When the
Celestials visited Earth 1,000,000 years ago and performed genetic experiments on early
proto-humans, they created two divergent races: the long-lived Eternals, and the genetically unstable and monstrously grotesque
Deviants. These experiments also led to the capacity for super-powered
mutations in humans. They also performed this experiment on other planets (such as the
Kree and
Skrull homeworlds) with similar results. Despite looking human, Eternals are
much longer-lived (but were not originally fully
immortal), and that kept them from having much contact with their human cousins. Eternals have a low birth rate; they can interbreed with humans but the result is always a normal human (although
Thena's son, Joey Athena seems to have become an Eternal with long-lived properties and powers). Despite this, the Eternals have in general protected the human race, especially from the Deviants, with whom they have always had an enmity. The Eternals also developed advanced technology. Long ago, a civil war broke out amongst the Eternals over whether to conquer the other races, with one faction led by Kronos and the other by his warlike brother, Uranos. Kronos's side prevailed, and Uranos and his defeated faction left Earth and journeyed to Uranus where they built a colony. Some of Uranos's group soon tried to return to Earth to re-kindle the war, but they were attacked by a passing Kree ship and forced to land on Saturn's moon
Titan. There they built another colony (experiments performed by Kree scientists on a captured Eternal led them to go to
Earth and perform their genetic experiments on a group of humans, thus creating the
Inhumans). One day, Kronos's experiments in cosmic energy caused a catastrophic release of energy throughout the Eternals' city, Titanos, destroying it, activating latent genes in the Eternals, and disintegrating the scientist's body. The Eternals now found they could channel large quantities of cosmic energy themselves, granting them near-godlike power. The accident left Kronos in an
immaterial state, so a new leader had to be chosen. For the first time, the Eternals merged into a single being, the Uni-Mind, to decide which of Kronos's sons,
Zuras or
A'lars should be the new leader. Zuras was chosen to be the Prime Eternal, and A'lars chose to leave Earth to avoid causing another civil war and journeyed to Titan. There he found that a war (allegedly caused by the
Dragon of the Moon) had erupted on Titan and wiped out all but one member, a woman named
Sui-San. A'lars fell in love with her, and in time they repopulated Titan. Due to the mix of activated genes from A'lars and unactivated ones from Sui-San, these new Titanian Eternals are not as powerful or immortal as Terran Eternals, but are more powerful and longer-lived than the earlier pre-civil war Titanian Eternals. While Zuras ruled, three new Eternal cities were built. The first was Olympia, located in the mountains of Greece, near the main portal between the Earth dimension and the
Olympians' home dimension, which led many ancient Greeks to confuse some of the godlike Eternals with members of the Olympian pantheon. Eventually, an agreement was reached with the gods where some Eternals, such as Thena, would impersonate the Olympians before their worshipers. The other two Eternal cities were Polaria (located in Siberia) and Oceana (in the Pacific). 18,000 years ago, the Celestials returned to Earth. The Deviants attacked them, but the Celestials counterattacked, resulting in the sinking of
Mu and
Atlantis, and much worldwide havoc. The Eternals helped rescue many humans. An Eternal named
Valkin was entrusted by the Celestials with an artifact of great power for safekeeping. At some point during the early centuries,
Ikaris and the Eternals came into conflict with the immortal mutant,
Apocalypse. This conflict ended when Ikaris and the Eternals defeated him. Ikaris believed Apocalypse was dead. 1,000 years ago, the
Asgardian god
Thor encountered some Eternals, but the encounter was erased from his mind, to prevent him from learning about the Celestials, who were about to return to Earth. An Eternal named
Ajak became the Celestials' spokesperson, and put himself to sleep when the Celestials left, to wait for their return 1,000 years later to judge humanity. During the early 20th century, a human scientist made contact with the Uranian Eternals and was taken to live with them along with his young son, who would later become
Marvel Boy. The Uranians were eventually killed by
Deathurge. After World War II, some Eternals allied with humans and Deviants to form the Damocles Foundation, which tried to create a new breed of superhuman to rule Earth. Some Eternals, such as
Makkari, were also active as
superheroes, or living amongst humans, keeping their true nature hidden. The Eternals also helped to move the Inhumans' city to the Himalayas to keep it hidden. At some point,
Thanos of the Eternals of Titan nearly destroyed their colony, but they rebuilt it, and would help Earth's heroes to oppose him on several occasions.
Modern Age In recent times, Ikaris met the archaeologist Daniel Damian and his daughter Margo, and accompanied them into an old Eternal city in the Andes, where he awakened Ajak. Ajak began the process to receive the Celestials. These movements alerted the Deviants, who decided to attack New York and to provoke fear in the humans against the coming celestials. When the Celestials returned to judge the worthiness of their creations a few years ago, the Eternals found themselves clashing with the Deviants again, and decided to publicly reveal their existence to humanity. Zuras feared what would happen if the Celestials judged unfavorably. They encountered Thor again, and were attacked by Thor's father
Odin and the Olympian gods, who tried to prevent their interfering with the gods' plans to attack the Celestials. Eventually, the Eternals decided to help the gods and formed a Uni-Mind to assist the
Destroyer's assault on the Celestials. They were forced to dissolve back into Eternals by the Celestials, and the shock of the attack killed Zuras. Before his spirit fully left the material plane, he instructed his daughter Thena to take his people to explore space. Since then, the Eternals have helped Earth's heroes, particularly the
Avengers, against several menaces. They also discovered the existence of the Titanian Eternals. Some time later, the Deviant's aristocracy, led by Brother Tode, attacked Olympia, kidnapping the Eternals and intending to disintegrate them. The hero
Iron Man (James Rhodes) rescued the Eternals and helped them defeat the deviants. Then the Eternals transformed the deviant's aristocracy into a synthetic cube, killing them. The Eternals formed a Uni-Mind to discuss their future on earth, after which most of the Eternals (led by Valkin), went to the stars. But a handful – those most heavily involved in Earthly affairs – remained behind on Earth. Thena came to lead the remaining Eternals but she wasn't very respected by her subjects. With the ascension of Priestlord Ghaur as leader of the Deviants, the Eternals joined the Avengers in defeating him after he absorbed the power of a Celestial and tried to gain godhood. Meanwhile, Ikaris questioned Thena for her poor choices as leader of the Eternals. She was subtly being controlled by a brain mine put in her by
Kro. After a special ceremony, Ikaris succeeded her as leader of the Earth's Eternals. The lover of Ikaris, Margo Damian, was captured by Ghaur's minions and was killed as a result of a Deviant experiment on her. After the death of his daughter, Daniel Damian decided to take revenge against the Deviants and the Eternals. With the help of ancient Eternal machines, he forged a prophecy to incite war between the two races and transformed Ajak in a murderous monster. When his plan was discovered by the Eternals, Ajak reverted to his original form and regretted the killings that he had committed, so he killed Damian and himself. The Eternals Gilgamesh and Sersi briefly became part of the Superhero team Avengers. When Sersi became sick with the ''Mahd Wy'ry
disease, a uncurable degenerating Eternal disease, Ikaris and other Eternals tried to bring her to Olympia and perform a rite of Cleansing. Sersi rejected the idea, on the basis that the ritual was designed to kill the infected Eternal, and solicited his family to perform the Gann Josin
bond between her and her lover the Black Knight. Ikaris was furious and performed the bond without consent of the Knight. Later Thena and other Eternals helped the Avengers in the battle against the Gatherers and Proctor, who was an alternate Black Knight and who infected Sersi with the Mahd Wy'ry'' disease for spite. The Eternals fought once more against Ghaur and the Deviants, with the help of the
Heroes for Hire. The mad priest tried to form an
Anti-Mind with some captured eternals, to defeat any invasion of the Celestials. Later they were at odds with Apocalypse and briefly posed as a superhero team called
the New Breed.
Memory loss and the Dreaming Celestial The Eternals began reappearing on Earth in
Neil Gaiman's new take on the immortal beings. Most seemed to have no memory of their own history and abilities, except Ikaris, and few records of their previous appearances remain. The Eternal known as
Sprite, angered at having to remain an eleven-year-old and unable to grow any further, managed to change reality, inducing collective amnesia in the Eternals as well as distorting their perceptions of history. He used a Uni-Mind with the
Dreaming Celestial and other unwilling eternals to achieve his desire, transforming himself in a mortal 11 years old kid. This can possibly be seen as Gaiman's attempt to
retcon some details of the characters; early stories as well as
officially published statistics portrayed most of the current generation of Eternals – such as Ikaris and Thena – as being "only" several tens of thousands of years old but Gaiman's run describes them as being closer to a million years old.
Makkari was working as a medicine intern, Sersi was planning to kickstart her party planner business. Meanwhile, Thena was working as a weapons scientist in
Stark Industries. She was also married and had a young son. Druig was apparently alive again and he was the Deputy minister of Vorozheika (a fictional post-soviet country). Ikaris contacted Makkari, but he did not believe the eternal's words about the past and rejected him. Then, Makkari met Sersi again, become attracted to her and accompanied her to a party that she was organizing for Druig of Vorozheika. Thena assisted too. In the party, the amnesic Eternals are attacked by mercenaries of another faction of Vorozheika government. The reunion of the four Eternals triggered a recovery of their powers. Ikaris was captured by two deviants and they were experimenting in ways of destroy his body, until that they seemingly killed him with a particle accelerator. However, Ikaris was resurrected by a special machine in the Antarctic base of the Eternals. With their returned powers, Druig took control of Vorozheika. Thena frees herself from the mercenaries that captured her and Makkari went to talk to Sprite, who now was a young celebrity. Sprite trapped the amnesic Eternal and told him his plans and the reasons why he did the reality changes. It was uncovered that Ajak had been revived too and that it had been he who contracted the two Deviants. He succeeded in awakening an amnesic Zuras. The two Deviants managed to kidnap Sprite, and the trapped Makkari, using him to awaken the Dreaming Celestial, who was under Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Upon awakening, the Celestial decided to judge humanity. The Eternals, now remembering their past, arrived in San Francisco, and realizing that they cannot stop the Celestial, decided to leave him be. Makkari was transformed by the Celestial into his spokesman. The Deviants called him
Skadrach, and respected him, because the Dreaming Celestial was adored as their god. Sprite was killed by Zuras because of his actions and the rest of the Eternals then embarked on a quest to find and recruit the other members who had similarly forgotten their true selves due to Sprite's trickery. The Dreaming Celestial told Makkari the reasons for the creation of the Eternals and Deviants, and helped him to find more Eternals. Ajak, jealous of Makkari's new function, manipulated Gilgamesh into killing Makkari. With help of Sersi, Makkari was reborn and the Dreaming Celestial stopped a planned autodestruction. Then the Eternals stopped the invasion of the Horde. With their numbers completed, and with the new information given by the Dreaming Celestial, the Eternals debated what to do with mankind and the Deviants—leave them alone, protect them or rule them. They formed another Unimind to decide what to do and decided to hold themselves apart from the mortal world.
The Final Host When Celestials literally began "raining" down on Earth, the Avengers are forced to reunite again and just in time to see the arrival of the Final Host which is composed of Dark Celestials that are each physically unique and were the ones who easily took down their brethren. In an attempt to learn more about these new breed of Celestials,
Iron Man and
Doctor Strange travelled to the Mountains of Greece to try to get some answers from The Eternals. When Stark and Strange arrived, there were no signs of life to be found as almost all of the Eternals were dead, with Strange deducing that the wounds were self-inflicted. Only Ikaris was left barely alive and reveals that the Eternals were never meant to protect Humanity as they thought. Instead, because the Celestials saw the human population as a useful pathogen to act as antibodies against the Horde, the Eternals were created to defend the process under the false impression that they were actually protecting the human race. This discovery drove all Eternals mad which either made them turn against each other or commit suicide. Ikaris is also able to reveal that the only way to prevent the Final Host from unleashing the Horde is the Uni-Mind and sends a message into Stark's mind before dying.
Resurrection and their confrontation with Thanos After the events of The Final Host, The Eternals are then revived by the Machine with no memories of their recent events. As Ikaris retrieved Sprite, Zuras was mysteriously murdered, forcing Ikaris and Sprite to retrieve others after encountering the Mad Titan Thanos. Phastos was the first Eternal reborn and learned the shocking truth about the Machine. Every time an Eternal was resurrected from their death, one human life was taken in return, resulting in a devastating outcome. Shocked by this revelation, Phastos vowed to end it by ending the Eternals. So, he rescued Thanos from a black hole and blackmailed the Mad Titan into helping him with his scheme. However, Phastos' plans have backfired when Thanos killed Phastos to hide the truth and worked with Druig to depose Zuras. The Eternals learned the truth after Ikaris sacrificed himself to repair the machine. When the issue was argued with the Prime Eternal Zuras after his resurrection, it was determined that most Eternals would never agree to change it, as Eternals didn't care about the lives of individual humans. So, several Eternals met with the Deviants of Lemuria, asking them how to become like them. They also learned that Deviants have unstable mutations that the Eternals are programmed by the principles to kill them. Thanos is then elected as the new Prime and succeeded by Unity Mind and disposed of his uncle Zuras as a result. The group infiltrates the Avengers' base to confront Progenitor and learned why the Celestials created the Eternals. While the Eternals stall the Avengers, Ajak gains access to the Progenitor's consciousness and uncovers the truth of their origin. She learned that when the Progenitor died from sickness, the necrofluid began to contaminate life on Earth, which resulted in excess deviation and mutation. The Celstials began designing the Deviants to stabilize the necrofluid, while the Eternals served as antibodies to eliminate the Deviants if the mutations were unstable. After gaining knowledge, the Eternals confronted Thanos, and Druig secretly created a failsafe on Thanos' armory if the latter orchestrated his betrayal. After Thanos' defeat, Druig took over as Prime and began to suspect the mutants' settlement on Krakoa as Deviants, wishing to eliminate them.
A.X.E.: Judgment Day ==Powers and abilities==