Eternals: 10 Biggest Changes From The Comics
2. The Deviants Were Always Sentient
The part of The Eternals that aged the worst was its portrayal of The Deviants. Not because they were some negative stereotype or something, just that the setup with them and the Eternals was so simplistic that it just wouldn't have worked.
The Deviants were originally just as sentient as The Eternals right from the get go, they were just evil because uh, they were ugly I guess. That's about it. The Celestials created them alongside The Eternals, but considered The Deviants to be a failed experiment that they then tasked The Eternals with destroying, lest they wipe out humanity.
Why The Deviants want to destroy the human race is never explained because for all his mythological gravitas, Kirby always remembered that he was writing for little kids who don't often really care about nuances like that.
As much of an albatross around the narrative's neck as The Deviants are in the movie version, what was done with them was probably the best approach Zhao had available to her.