10 Most Hated Storylines In MCU History
6. The Explanation For The Eternals' Absence (Eternals)
With the end of Phase Three in the MCU came the end of the Infinity Saga, and a new beginning for the franchise. However, for every new property that now joins the party, there will be the inevitable question of where such characters were during the battle with Thanos, and why they didn’t help. It will happen with the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and in 2021 it happened with the Eternals.
They are incredibly powerful, ancient aliens/robots, and had been on Earth for 7000 years, so why not aid Earth’s heroes in their fight against Thanos? In the movie, Dane Whitman outright asks Sersi why the Eternals didn’t interfere, and he was given the flimsy explanation that they were asked not to. Arishem specifically instructed the ten Eternals to take no part in any of Earth’s conflict unless directly related to the Deviants.
This wasn’t a great explanation to begin with, but when Thanos’ brother, an Eternal himself, showed up in the post-credit scene, it raised more questions about this. Such a scene seemingly lent itself to the comic book make-up of Thanos, in that he was an Eternal born with the Deviant gene, but if that’s the case, wouldn’t that make his infinity quest exactly the kind of thing the Eternals were put on Earth to stop?
They were supposed to keep the Deviants from limiting population growth, yet here was a Deviant who planned on eliminating half of all life, and they did nothing?