Created by the legendary Jack Kirby, The Eternals are a race of ancient humans, genetically modified by the god-like alien beings known as the Celestials. They have lived alongside humanity for thousands of years, secretly guiding and protecting burgeoning civilizations since antiquity.
A prominent member of the hidden race of demi-gods, Sersi is set to receive her silver-screen debut in the upcoming MCU Eternals film, played by Gemma Chan. Although she is one of the most notable amongst their ranks, Sersi, like most Eternals, is a relatively unknown character to most casual fans, but there are a few important facts about her that longtime readers know well.
Homer's Odyssey
A permeating theme of early Eternals comics involves the ancient beings existing as the influencers behind many of the world's mythological gods. In the case of Sersi, one of her earliest confirmed exploits is as Circe, the sorceress encountered by Odysseus as depicted in Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey. During this encounter, Sersi captured Odysseus for a year, seduced him, and transformed the crew of his ship into hogs, before unwittingly falling in love with the hero. During their time together, Sersi learned to appreciate the tenacity of the human spirit, which would go on to influence her future encounters with developing human societies.
Pandora's Box
An early adventure of Marvel's Sorceror Supreme, Doctor Strange, depicted in Strange Tales vol. 1 #109 (1963) involved the mythical Pandora's Box, which had been discovered by an explorer who unwittingly opened it. In her identity as Circe, Sersi intervened to disable the artifact and contain the evils within. This adventure was published over a decade before Sersi's first actual comic book appearance but was folded into her history years later when Marvel attempted to consolidate many of their past stories, with Kirby's mythology-inspired concepts experiencing multiple retcons. While Sersi herself officially first appeared in The Eternals vol. 1 #1 (1976), the revelation of Circe as being one and the same makes this her unintentional canonical first appearance.
Romance With Makkari
In early issues of The Eternals, Sersi and fellow Eternal Makkari were frequently depicted as sharing romantic feelings for one another. This tension would become an enduring element of each of their characters for years to come.
As The Eternals concept expanded to intertwine amidst the larger tapestry of the Marvel Universe, the romantic element of their early stories would be slowly phased out, although references to the two's shared history would continue to feature as easter eggs in their later comic book adventures. The most notable modern instance of this was depicted in 2006's Eternals vol. 3, in which a mindwiped and amnesiac Sersi and Makkari only realized their true lineage after their memories were returned when they happened upon each other.
She's A Socialite
While most of the Eternals have been determined to maintain their hidden status as human society progressed around them, Sersi is amongst the few who eschewed this edict. In the course of her time interacting with burgeoning civilizations, Sersi became enraptured by the hedonistic mortal existence that surrounded her. To this end, she has developed a thoroughly documented record as one of history's greatest partiers and event organizers. From ancient Greece to the modern age, Sersi has reveled in the inconsequential debauchery afforded by her immortality. This crescendoed when the Eternals were mind-wiped and believed themselves to be mortal in 2006's Eternals vol. 3 by acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman. In that story, the amnesiac Sersi lived a human life of indulgence as the famed party planner Sylvia Sersi, an identity she was hesitant to abandon after the revelation of her true heritage.
She Was An Avenger
After meeting then-Avengers Starfox and The Wasp at one of her own parties, Sersi would feature in a series of team-ups alongside members of earth's mightiest heroes, including heavyweights such as Captain America and Thor. This series of alliances eventually culminated in Captain America himself offering her membership amongst their ranks, which Sersi accepted, despite expressing a preference for festivities over fighting.
Around this time, the Eternals' comic had been canceled, and the ancient beings dispersed to co-star in various other Marvel series. Sersi would be catapulted to immediate prominence within the Avengers comic, and to date is one of only three of the immortal heroes to have ever served on the premiere team of adventurers.
Romance With Dane Whitman
Dane Whitman, better known as The Black Knight, is a classic Marvel hero who first debuted in Avengers #47 (1967) and would become a recurring ally of the team in the following years, eventually gaining full membership shortly before Sersi's recruitment. While Avengers, Sersi, and Dane discovered an immediate attraction to one another, compounded by Sersi's flirtatiousness and their frequent time spent in each other's company between missions. The greatest immediate obstacle to this blossoming romance was the subsequent recruitment of the Inhuman Avenger Crystal, whom Whitman developed a casual reciprocal attraction to. This dramatic love triangle between the heroes would become a major plot element during writer Bob Harras' Avengers run in the mid-1990s.
Mahd Wy'ry
Within Eternal culture, there exists an illness called Mahd Wy'ry, "the Eternal Madness." Although they possess incredible longevity, Eternal's minds are still essentially human. Mahd Wy'ry is the result of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and experience eventually overloading and breaking down the mind of an Eternal, similar to old-age senility. Shortly after joining the Avengers, Sersi began showing more violent and impulsive tendencies, eventually resulting in her unflinching execution of an enemy during a mission. When other Eternals were called in to assist, they determined the only way to stabilize her was to bond her mind to that of Dane Whitman's, in a process referred to as "Gann Josin", resulting in the two becoming intimately mentally intertwined. Although Whitman went along with the procedure in order to save Sersi, he was hesitant about the decision, as by this point he had determined that it was actually Crystal whom he truly loved.
Proctor
The villainous Proctor is a multiversal variant of the heroic Avenger Dane Whitman. In Proctor's universe, he and Sersi were bonded as Gann Josin, and Proctor was madly in love with the Eternal. Sersi, however, became bored of their union and left him, driving Proctor insane. After murdering his world's Sersi, Proctor set about traversing the multi-verse, eliminating every variant of Sersi he encountered while recruiting a team of multiversal dark Avengers counterparts, who came to be known as The Gatherers. When their mission brought them to the "prime" Marvel earth of Universe 616, Proctor and his Gatherers battled the Avengers in a story that came to be known as "The Gatherers Saga", spanning Avengers vol. 1 #'s 355-375 (1992-1994).
Trapped In The Ultraverse
Following The Gatherers Saga, both Sersi and The Black Knight found themselves trapped in the Ultraverse, where they were involved in a sprawling storyline involving the Infinity Stones and the Ultraverse's premiere superhero team, Ultraforce. The Ultraverse was the superhero-specific imprint of Malibu Comics, an independent comic book publisher launched in the late 1980s and acquired by Marvel Comics in 1994. While Marvel initially allowed the Ultraverse to exist as one of many worlds within their multiverse (designated Earth-93060), even going so far as to allow other Marvel characters such as Loki and The Juggernaut to be folded into this new world, low sales would eventually see the classic Marvel characters returned to the Earth-616 from which they originated.
She Has Some Impressive Powers
Due to the genetic tampering of the ancient Celestials, each Eternal possesses the ability to store and manipulate cosmic energies, to a variety of effects. Sersi has traditionally focused this on her abilities of transmutation, allowing her to alter matter on a molecular level, transforming both living beings and inanimate objects into any form she desires. In antiquity, she often passed these powers off as sorcery. This ability was used most prominently when the Eternal Makkari was killed, leaving the group with no means of communicating with The Dreaming Celestial. In a moment of desperation, Sersi completely transformed her own body into an exact replica of Makkari's, which was then uploaded with a backup copy of his mind taken from the uni-mind that all Eternals share with one another.