The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues its expansion and at the core of the current Phase 4 is the multiverse, but the MCU has already seen other major events, such as those in Eternals – however, Phase 4 has already turned the ending of Eternals into a giant MCU plot hole. The original Avengers team is now over, but that doesn’t mean the MCU has been left without superhero teams, as there are the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Phase 4 introduced the Eternals, who turned out to be the oldest team in the MCU.
Directed by Chloé Zhao, Eternals introduced the title team, whose members were created by the Celestial Arishem and sent to Earth centuries ago to protect it from the Deviants, their evil counterparts. After getting rid of the Deviants, the Eternals stayed on Earth and helped humanity evolve, but they weren’t allowed to interfere in their conflicts. The real reason for that was revealed to the surviving team members centuries later: the Eternals went sent to Earth to prepare it for the birth of another Celestial, Tiamut, who would emerge from the center of the Earth. With the help of the “Uni-Mind”, Sersi (Gemma Chan) stopped Tiamut’s emergence and saved the world, but that’s not the only big event in Eternals.
The presence of the Eternals in the MCU should change this universe’s history (past, present, and future), but Marvel has left them aside as well as the two biggest moments from their movie: the failed emergence of Tiamut, which left his head and part of his hand in the middle of the ocean, and the sudden arrival of Arishem to take Sersi, Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) with him, and so the MCU has turned the ending of Eternals into a big plot hole.
Eternals' Ending Hasn't Been Mentioned In Phase 4 Since It Happened
In order to stop the Emergence, Phastos came up with the idea of channeling all their energy to form a Uni-Mind and stop Tiamut with their collective energy. After having to fight Sprite (Lia McHugh) and Ikaris (Richard Madden), Sersi was able to activate the Uni-Mind and turned Tiamut into marble, leaving the parts of him that had already emerged (most of his head and part of one of his hands) in the middle of the ocean, like a huge marble sculpture. Eternals had another twist up its sleeve when right at the end, when all seemed to have gone back to normal for those on Earth, Arishem showed up, appearing as a giant (like, truly a giant) figure in the sky and took Sersi, Phastos, and Kingo with him, explaining he will spare humanity if their memories show that humans are worthy of living.
Over the course of more than 20 movies, the MCU has seen a variety of catastrophic events, with the most notable one so far being Thanos’ snap or “the blip”, which had repercussions not only on Earth but the rest of the universe. In this new era in the MCU, the sudden appearance of monstrous creatures like the Deviants, Tiamut’s emergence, the effects it had on Earth (surely, there were some strong earthquakes and other natural disasters happening as he emerged from the center of the planet), a giant marble head casually sitting in the middle of the ocean, and then a giant figure appearing in the sky are some of the biggest and most shocking events the world has gone through, and yet none of these have been mentioned in subsequent MCU movies, which are known to happen after the events of Eternals.
Phase 4 Not Mentioning Eternals' Ending Creates An MCU Plot Hole
With so many things happening in the MCU at all times, and with so many movies, this connected universe hasn’t been safe from a variety of plot holes, and by ignoring the events in Eternals, Phase 4 is creating a big plot hole. The MCU is usually quick to address or at least casually reference events that happened in the previous movie, even retconning some of them in the process, but ignoring the ending of Eternals raises a lot of questions about not only the effects the Emergence and Arishem’s arrival had on Earth but also how the active superheroes on Earth reacted to these.
A Celestial coming out from the center of the planet and another one appearing dangerously close to Earth are not events that characters like Doctor Strange, Wong (who’s now the Sorcerer Supreme), or Bruce Banner would simply ignore and never question or look into them, and while there have been other big issues to pay attention to, such as the multiverse’s chaos, the Emergence should have, at least, been mentioned in one of the subsequent movies. By ignoring the events and ending of Eternals, the MCU raises many questions about the movie’s relevance in this universe, its impact, and even its credibility, as the rest of the characters are acting as if all this disaster never happened.
Will MCU Phase 4 Ever Address Eternals' Ending Disaster?
Eternals was unlike any other MCU movie so far, with a more serious tone and a more philosophical narrative that didn’t sit well with most critics and viewers, making it one of the most divisive MCU movies to date. The true nature of the Eternals – alien androids who are essentially immortal – made them difficult to relate to, so they and their story didn’t resonate with the audience, and all this has led to Eternals being isolated from the rest of the MCU, which is also a strange move from a universe that hasn’t forgotten even its weakest links. The events of movies like Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, two of the least popular MCU movies, were quickly referenced in subsequent movies, and they weren’t exactly at the level of the Emergence and Arishem’s arrival.
With that in mind, it would be expected that the MCU’s Phase 4 will address the ending of Eternals at some point, either in a movie or TV show, though the studio might also opt to subtly distance itself from it given its poor reception and its unclear future. At the time of writing, there’s no word on a sequel to Zhao’s movie, and while some of the Eternals were planned to appear in a flashback scene in Moon Knight, there aren’t any other known plans to have them back, so the studio could be rethinking their approach to these characters and the events in their debut movie – but it just created a massive plot hole in the process. The more the MCU expands, the more problems it will face in terms of continuity, and ignoring the ending of Eternals is only making a problem that could have been somewhat easily solved a lot bigger than it should be.
