Eternals will debut of one of the oldest characters of the MCU in Angelina Jolie’s Thena
The Eternals, along with the Deviants, were created by legendary Marvel artist and writer Jack Kirby in the 1970s. And while Thena made her first appearance in the fifth issue, she went on to become of Eternals’ central characters. However, she was later revealed to be Minerva, a Timely Comics character that had debuted in 1940. So, Thena is one of the oldest superheroes in the MCU.
History of Marvel’s Eternals
Thousands of years earlier, the god-like Celestials came to Earth and carried out experiments on humans. This led to the formation of two races, Eternals and the Deviants. The Deviants were nothing more than a failure, while Eternals were possessed prolonged unnatural aging. These Eternals build their city on Earth called Titanos. Centuries later, Kronos, their leader, was experimenting with cosmic energy when an accident led to the destruction of his body. It also altered the molecular structure of all the Eternals on Titanos, giving them immortality and cosmic powers.
Watch: MCU Eternals Explained
With Kronos gone, his son Zuras took over as the leader, with Thena (formerly named Azura), daughter of Zuras, as the second-in-command. Now, with Titanos destroyed, the Eternals built a new secret home, called Olympia, near Mount Olympus in Greece. And Eternals of this place were known from then on as Olympian Eternals. And Thena is one of them. Most stories in the Marvel comics revolve around these Eternals. And this seems to be true for MCU Eternals as most of the characters are Olympians. They include Thena (Angelina Jolie), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry).
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Thena Wanted To End Deviants
During her early years, Thena showed her discontent at the relation between Eternals, the Deviants, and the humans. She wanted to eradicate the Deviants and have humans share the equal position of the Eternals.
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Thena Fell In Love With A Deviant
During the 1980s, an issue which showed a lot of things changed for her. Thena fell in love with a Deviant, Warlord Kro, and even had had children. Afterward, she was accused of treason for loving one of their ache-enemies. Their love story, which spans over two thousand years, has been responsible for her pain all her life.
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She Worked For Tony Stark
Another 2006 Eternals miniseries by Neil Gaiman remained her character. Here we see her living among humans with her memory erased. She worked for none other than Tony Stark and even had a family and a child.
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Thena Can Manipulate Matter
All Eternals have some form of cosmic energy that gives them different abilities. Due to the possession of advanced tech, they additionally have special weapons. As for Thena, she shares her levitation, telepathy, teleportation, energy beams through eyes and hands, and manipulation of matter with the other Eternals.
Thena highly skilled in weaponry as well; her signature weapon is her golden spear that emits heat energy along with an anti-gravity field. She also carries a crossbow that fires cold-energy bolts.
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Thena Is The Most Formidable Eternal
Other than these, she also has superhuman strength, agility, and speed. She has honed her skills and powers for thousands of years. And this makes her one of the Eternals’ most formidable members also, one of the oldest!
Angelina Jolie in the MCU
The fact that Angelina Jolie will be playing MCU’s Thena makes a lot of sense. We have already seen her action-packed performances in movies like Salt, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and The Tourist. She has also shown her taste for the supernatural in Maleficent.
An Academy-award winning actress, Jolie certainly adds to the star power which MCU Phase Four’s Eternals will be bringing to the theatres in November 2021. Along with Jolie Marvel’s Eternals casts Salma Hayek as Ajak, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Lia McHugh as Sprite and Don Lee as Gilgamesh. Along with Barry Keoghan as Druig, Gemma Chan as Sersi and Kit Harrington as Dane Whitman/The Black Knight.
