Who Is Eternals' Villain? Kro Identity, Comics Origin & Powers Explained

Marvel's second trailer for Eternals finally gives viewers their first glimpse of the film's villain - and here's all you need to know about the Deviant leader Kro. Marvel has been remarkably secretive when it comes to Chloe Zhao's Eternals, with their marketing deliberately raising more questions than answers. Even in the comics, the Eternals tend to stand apart from the rest of the Marvel Universe, so this seemed an odd direction for the MCU - which emphasizes its interconnectivity - to take.

Many of those questions have been answered at last by the second Eternals trailer, which finally explored the movie's relationship with the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe. It revealed the events of Avengers: Endgame released a flare of energy powerful enough to trigger something called the "Emergence," which may well be an extinction level event for the Earth. The precise nature of the Emergence is uncertain, but it draws two secretive ancient races out of the shadows - the Eternals and their sworn enemies, the Deviants. The Deviants appear to be the main villains of Eternals, although they may just be a precursor to a greater cosmic threat - the return of the Celestials, beings from the dawn of time who judged entire worlds and civilizations.

The second Eternals trailer also introduced viewers to the Deviant leader Kro, who clearly has plans of his own for Earth. Here's all you need to know about the Deviant warlord.

Click here to watch Marvel's Eternals: New Villain Kro Explained on YouTube.

Kro & The Deviants Comics Origin Explained

Kro wearing black shades in Marvel Comics

When the legendary Jack Kirby created the Eternals for Marvel Comics, he imagined the Deviants as their sworn enemies. The comics revealed Earth had been visited millennia ago by a race of "space gods" known as the Celestials, and they had created two evolutionary offshoots of humanity: the Eternals and the Deviants. These two races became locked in an endless war, with the Deviants striving to dominate humanity and the Eternals to protect it. The Celestials would return on numerous occasions in order to judge the world, and the Deviants - driven by a toxic combination of wounded pride and lust for power - made several attempts to somehow claim the power of the Celestials for themselves. The war between the Eternals and the Deviants, and the past judgments performed by the Celestials, are woven into the history of the world through mythology and legend. One particularly horrific conflict between the two races led to the destruction of an entire continent, Lemuria, with the capital city of Atlantis sinking beneath the waves. There is still a Deviant city buried beneath the southern tip of the Lemurian continent in the Marvel Universe, deep in the Pacific Ocean, where warlord Kro and a high priest named Ghaur vie for supremacy.

No two Deviants are alike, each possessing a unique mutation with abilities shared by no other of their kind. The warlord Kro is the most unusual of them all, because his powers have granted him immortality - meaning he is rather closer in nature to the Eternals than to his own kind. Kro is over 20,000 years old, and over the course of the millennia he has trod a path that takes him between the two warring races - secretly becoming lover of the Eternal Thena. Aware his fellow Deviants would subject him to harsh experiments in order to discover the secret of his immortality, Kro has used his shapeshifting powers to create new identities. He has been the basis for countless demonic figures in human mythology, ranging from Pluto to Hades.

Kro Powers Explained

Unique among even the Deviants, Kro possesses powers that are more like an Eternal than one of his own race. He appears to be an immortal, possessing a psychic control over his own body that allows him to manage its every function and regenerate its cells at speed. In addition, Kro has tremendous resistance to injury, although that particular trait cannot rival the Eternals; Ikaris once nearly killed him by throttling him, an act that wouldn't have harmed an Eternal at all. Still, any harm Kro suffers lasts mere minutes, because he can prompt his body to repair itself at an accelerated rate.

Kro is a shapeshifter, although again this ability has limits; he cannot make significant changes to the shape of his skeletal structure, for example, meaning there are only a number of forms he can take and he usually limits his shapeshifting to changing his facial appearances. This power has allowed Kro to hide among the Deviants for millennia, his true nature undiscovered, simulating aging and creating a new identity for himself when the time is right.

How The MCU Has Changed Kro

Kro lifts a captive Thena by his tentacles in a dark cave in Marvel's Eternals.

Leaked Eternals merchandise had already given viewers a first look at the MCU's Kro, and it's clear he's been changed quite significantly. Marvel Studios has abandoned Kro's traditional pink skin, instead giving him a darker complexion, and even his facial features have been altered. It's striking that his shapeshifting powers appear to have been enhanced, with his skin flowing like strands, even forming tendrils that he uses to restrain Thena in one shot of the trailer. This fits with a Marvel Legends figure that leaked, which goes further and suggests Kro can morph his hands into weapons. Even Kro's feet have been changed; the new design seems to be inspired by Pan, the half-man/half-goat god who became the basis for many Christian depictions of the devil.

It's interesting to note the tenderness with which Kro treats Thena in the Eternals trailer. It's possible that, as in the comics, the two have a historic romance; Marvel has repeatedly claimed Eternals is a love story, and while all attention is on the love triangle between Sersi, Ikaris and the Black Knight, it's possible the theme of love and romance involves Kro and Thena as well. Marvel has often been criticized for quite one-dimensional villains in the past, and it would be good to see one who is much more complex - and who is perhaps redeemed in the end.

What Is Kro's Plan In Eternals?

An unidentified Celestial creates an energy ball in his hands in Marvel's Eternals.

Kro's plan in Eternals remains a mystery, but clearly he intends to capitalize on the Emergence - even though doing so will literally destroy the Earth. While it's possible the Emergence involves Deviants themselves, it's more likely this is about the return of the Celestials to the MCU; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 suggested these ancient, cosmic beings have been rendered extinct, but they could well have simply been transported to a higher dimensional plane, with the energy released by the Infinity Stones now being used to bring them back. If the Celestials are returning, then traditionally the Deviant goal has been to either kill these space gods - or drain their powers. Marvel is still keeping a lot of secrets, though, so right now it's impossible to say how that could be done in the MCU's Eternals.

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