Tag: The Olympians

Posted on in Features

‘Eternals’ & Olympians Essentially Same Sect Of Immortal Aliens In The MCU?

The next big Marvel Studios release to grace the big screen will be Chloe Zhao’s Eternals, which will see the MCU version of the team. We already know that the film incarnation will be different than their comic book counterparts and a new detail might help link them to a similar group of god-like aliens.

Marvel’s Nate Moore recently revealed to Comic Book another slight tweak to the Eternals origin, stating the group of immortals are from an alien planet called Olympia.

“In the past we see the Eternals, who, in our version of the mythology, are immortal aliens from a planet called Olympia. [They’ve] been asked by the Celestials to come to Earth to rid the Earth of creatures called the Deviants. The Deviants are these parasitic aliens who go from planet to planet, and as they kill the apex predators on a given planet, they sort of take the characteristics of those predators and wipe out intelligent life. Well, the Eternals are heroes, so they’ve come to earth to eradicate the Deviants and allow humanity to thrive.”

In the comics, Olympia aka High Olympus was set on Earth in Greece.

Interestingly enough, The Olympians (Marvel’s cosmic version of the Greek pantheon of gods) will be officially introduced in Thor: Love & Thunder after Australian actor Russell Crowe revealed he’d be playing the MCU version of Zeus in the sequel.

I don’t exactly see why Marvel wouldn’t have Zeus and The Olympians also being from this planet of Olympia as a streamlined way to be less confusing to audiences by making the groups essentially interchangeable. This might also be why Zuras (Thena’s father) isn’t in the film, both Zeus and Zuras have similar character designs in the comics.

Zeus, of course, is the father of demigod Hercules Panhellenios aka The Prince of Power, who just happened to be on The Avengers roster around the same time as Gemma Chan’s Sersi and Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman aka Black Knight.

Adding a bit of fuel is that director Chloe Zhao told Empire Magazine that the Eternals are “akin to stories of Greek and Roman gods, who live very human lives with human traits, rivalries, jealousies and frailties.”

It’s hard not to notice this information only further distancing themselves from Thanos and Titan. In the trailer, Ajax (played by Selma Hayek) explained that The Mad Titan wasn’t a Deviant, which prevented them to interfere with his dastardly plan to kill half the universe (addition of Olympia could suggest he’s not an Eternal either). This line was also likely out of convenience because Marvel wasn’t even thinking about bringing Jack Kirby’s obscure creations, The Eternals, into the MCU until Chloe Zhao pitched them on the idea.

However, nothing stops them from making Titans like Starfox part of the Eternals/Olympian group.

The MCU version of Deviants could also have a larger connection to Lemurians and world of Namor/Atlantis, if Lemuria and Atlantis both were sunk during The Great Cataclysm (potentially shown in Eternals). This might explain why we see Deviants coming out of the ocean in the trailer footage and possibly where they’ve been hiding out for 5,000 years until the events of the film.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see when Eternals releases on November 5.

Posted on in Features

Marvel’s Justice League Knock-Off Team Squadron Supreme Could Appear In ‘Eternals’ Sequels or ‘Secret Wars’

Marvel Studios has been recently tapping into their obscure roster of heroes with a feature film based on Jack Kirby’s god-like superhero heroes the Eternals on the horizon this fall from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao and Taiki Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder introducing The Olympians via Russell Crowe’s Zeus appearing in the sequel.

Another group of obscure heroes from Marvel Comics that could be ready to the make the jump to the big screen is The Squadron Supreme. The team includes a heap of characters that are a cheeky pastiche of DC Comics’ Justice League such as Hyperion, Nighthawk, Power Princess, Doctor Spectrum, Thundra, Whizzer, Amphibian, Tom Thumb, Golden Archer, Lady Lark, and Arcanna.

A version of Hyperion’s origin in the comic has him being part of the Eternals and could see them join sequels as another sect that may have alternative motivations. Another way to get them into Eternals sequels could have Squadron Supreme retrofitted into The Olympians (cosmic versions of Greek gods from the realm of Olympus), who have a conflict with Eternals that could be explored in future installments. Some of the Squadron Supreme’s power-sets are meant to mimic Greek/Roman gods already, so having them the children of an older generation of Olympians could be a way to explain them without having to give everyone on the team an Earthbound origin.

With director Chloe Zhao’s Oscar wins over the weekend there is a good shot that Marvel Studios will attempt to secure her for at least two more Eternals movies. Having The Olympians and Squadron Supreme part of that franchise could help introduce those characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading to various spinoff shows and movies.

We could see the Eternals movie attempt to explain things like Atlantis, Olympians, and even the origin of the mutant gene that will eventually give us the X-Men.

The Multiverse could easily be another way to bring them into the MCU as they were originally introduced in the Avengers comics as The Squadron Sinister, a villain group created by The Grandmaster (played by Jeff Goldblum) that was pitted against The Avengers in some game with Kang The Conqueror (played Jonathan Majors) siding with the heroes.

They could also be pulled-out of the Multiverse by Kang or Grandmaster for a giant event like Secret Wars. The Russo Brothers have suggested that Secret Wars would be a project that could bring them back to Marvel and they stated last year it could bigger than The Infinity Saga.

 JOE RUSSO: “You know, I read that when I was 10 or 11, and it was the scale of getting all of the heroes together. It was one of the first major books to do that — that was really event-storytelling to me at its finest. And what happens when you put all of those personalities together. I also like the idea of villains having to team up with heroes. Anth and I like complicated relationships between heroes and villains, we like villains who believe they’re heroes in their own stories, so it’s all sort of built into this notion of Secret Wars. To execute something on the scale of Infinity War was directly related to the dream of Secret Wars, which is even larger in scale.”

ANTHONY RUSSO: “It would be the biggest movie you could possibly imagine, so that’s what really excites us about the story — the ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga.”

Loki and What-If…? will be our first true introductions to the Multiverse in 2021 ahead of Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, however, it’s unknown if we’ll see Squadron Supreme will appear in those projects or if they’ll attempt to pull other teams out of the Multiverse such as X-Men. There has been a longtime fan theory that one way Marvel could usher-in mutants is simply bring them in from another Earth in the larger Multiverse, however, as the Loki series seems to establishes that the Time Variance Agency aren’t big fans of people tinkering with timelines. However, Kang seems to be an exception and could get his hands on the Squad to use against the Avengers, potentially in a Secret Wars event.

Another way to go is having them become a cosmic team assembled by multiple alien planets to combat future Thanos-level threats and they could bump into The Guardians of The Galaxy in a fourth film. However, James Gunn has stated he’ll be ending his run on the franchise with Guardians of The Galaxy 3 and the Disney+ Holiday Special, it’s unclear if Marvel Studios will continue the franchise without him.

Plenty of options for Squadron Supreme outside of their own solo project.

Posted on in Film News

‘Thor 4’: Russell Crowe Confirms He’s Playing Zeus Allowing Fellow Olympians Hercules & Ares To Finally Join The MCU

Taika Waititi is assembling an impressive cast for Marvel’s fourth Thor movie which already sees Natalie Portman as Jane Foster aka Lady Thor, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Christian Bale as Gorr The God Butcher, Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie of New Asgard, Matt Damon as fake Loki, Melissa McCarthy as fake Hela, Sam Neill as fake Odin, Luke Hemsworth as fake Thor, Jaimie Alexander as Lady Sif, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Dave Bautista as Drax The Destroyer, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Taika as the lovable Korg, and Sean Gunn as Kraglin.

One late-stage addition was Oscar-winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator, The Nice Guys, Man of Steel) landing a secret role in the Marvel flick and the actor has now revealed who he’s playing on the Melbourne show Joy Breakfast with The Murphys. Crowe announced that he is playing the Marvel Comics version of Greek God, Zeus. The father of Marvel superhero Hercules, a character part of The Olympians (a cosmic take on Greek mythology) and future member of The Avengers.

Having Zeus in the mix could allow Hercules to eventually move his way into the MCU alongside the villainous Ares (member of The Dark Avengers). It was bound to happen as they’ve scaled-back the Asgardians after the destruction of Asgard and with the introduction of the Eternals in their own movie, it was only a matter of time before the cosmic version of the Olympians (connected to the Eternals) would make their debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

There is a strong chance that Crowe’s Zeus could be killed-off by Bale’s God Butcher, given the nickname we’ll likely see some gods get dusted before he clashes with Thor and Lady Thor. Russell and Christian previously worked together on the western remake 3:10 To Yuma from James Mangold (The Wolverine, Ford v. Ferrari, Logan), so a reunion might actually be quite fun to watch. What isn’t known is if we’ll see other Olympians appear in Thor: Love & Thunder or somewhere else down the line.

I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if Marvel announced a Hercules: Prince of Power series for Disney+ at some point as the character would certainly warrant his own series similar to Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and Ironheart giving the superhero a chance to be explored in a episodic format.

It’s kind of neat that we’ll potentially have Black Knight, Sersi, and Hercules all mingling in the MCU in the very near future at the same time, as the trio were part of an incarnation of the Avengers lineup. Suggesting the studio isn’t just building-up towards Young Avengers and The Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers but other splinter teams of the Avengers.

I’m sure fans already have their fan-cast for Herc, but comedian and podcaster Jon Gabrus has been campaigning for a while now to play the superhero. Interestingly enough, Russell’s The Nice Guys co-star Ryan Gosling (former Micky Mouse Club actor) had actually played a different version of the demi-god in Young Hercules, a prequel series to the Sam Raimi-produced series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys from the 1990s.

The sequel was penned by Taika Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

Production is still taking place in Sydney and it’s possible we could be getting more casting surprises in the coming weeks/months.

Thor: Love & Thunder will open in theaters on May 6, 2022.

SOURCE: JOY BREAKFAST