Who is Black Roger in Marvel’s Eternals? Meet the MCU villain
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Eternals (2021) provided fans with some context on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, who is the MCU villain Black Roger?
Marvel’s Eternals introduced Harry Styles in the cast as Eros, aka Starfox, in the end-credit scene.
The cosmic adventurer is introduced as “the brother of Thanos and defeater of Black Roger.” But, the identity and origin of Black Roger is yet to be revealed.
Screenshot from Marvel Studios’ Eternals | Official Teaser | YouTube
Who is Black Roger in Marvel’s Eternals?
Before diving into Black Roger’s identity, we need to understand who Harry Styles’ Eros is.
Eros, aka Starfox, is an MCU character in the Marvel universe. Not only is he an adventurer and the brother of Thanos, but also an Eternal.
Eros’ carefree personality often lands him in trouble and this is exactly what happens in Marvel Comics Presents #65 by Howard Mackie and Mark Texeira.
In the story “Wang Dang Doodle,” the cosmic adventurer comes face to face with Dark Roger, who could be the Black Roger mentioned in Eternals.
Black Roger is apparently a celebrated monarch of the Mystery Planet. The planet is literally called ‘mystery’ because no one in the universe has been able to find its location.
Its monarch, Dark Roger, aka Black Roger, prefers it that way and also stays in hiding until he eventually decides to emerge.
In Marvel Comics, Dark Roger is shown adorning a unique all-grey armour that looks like a mixture of Iron Man and the villain Stilt-Man’s costumes. Not much is known about the MCU villain’s abilities.
But, we do learn that he commands a massive army and weapons.
This content could not be loaded starfox eros harry styles marvel eternals mcu feels like the first time fancam edit pic.twitter.com/bOQrCrcLgZ — 📁nora made this (@poIaroidrrymp4) January 12, 2022
What happens between Black Roger and Eros?
Black Roger apparently drops the veil of mystery to woo a woman named Heater Delight but ends up coming face to face with Eros. Hardcore MCU fans know that Eros never readily seeks combat but does not back away once he finds it.
Although Black Roger stands his ground, his army and abilities turn out to be no match for Eros. He is eventually defeated in the face-off and a new title ‘defeater of Black Roger’ is credited to Eros.
What are Eros’ powers?
MCU fans have always had mixed feelings about Eros’ powers and the morality behind using them.
Eros can connect an individual’s pleasure centres and also bridge emotions between two people.
In the comics, Eros has been depicted as using this power to manipulate people’s thinking and perceptions of him as well as others. He causes them physical bliss until they are unable to move and become paralyzed.
He is known to have a carefree attitude but that changes after his elder brother Thanos goes on a destructive rampage across Titan, killing most of their population of Eternals, including their own mother.
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In other news, Who is Black Roger in Marvel’s Eternals? Meet the MCU villain
Eternals Post-Credits Scene Fuels Theories About New Marvel Team
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The following post contains SPOILERS for Eternals.
The arrival of Eternals on Disney+ has fans speculating once again — or maybe for the first time, since a lot of Marvel fans skipped Eternals in theaters — about the movie’s enigmatic post-credits scene. (Not to be confused with the film’s similarly confusing mid-credits scene, which introduces Harry Styles’ Eros and Patton Oswalt’s Pip the troll.)
In the final post-credits scene, Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman, who has spent most of the movie acting like a mild-mannered English dude, stands alone in an office with a mysterious case. He opens it, revealing a sword wrapped in bloody bandages. Unintelligible whispers fill the soundtrack, as if some kind of ancient power or presence is calling out to Dane. An inscription carved into the inside of the case reads “Mors mihi lucrum” — death is my reward. Sounds like a totally normal and chill sword!
Dane paces around the room, then goes to touch the sword, which releases tiny little waves of power that seem to reach out to him in return. Just as he’s about to grab the blade, a voice calls out to him from off-camera: “Sure you’re ready for that, Mr. Whitman?” Dane turns to see who it is and there’s a sudden cut to black and the words “Eternals will return…” (Not the Eternals, just Eternals. They’re like the band Eagles. Don’t ever call them The Eagles, because that’s not their name. They’re just Eagles.)
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The voice speaking to Dane Whitman is uncredited in the film, and it’s such a brief appearance that the first audiences to see Eternals weren’t entirely sure who it even was. On Disney+, the subtitles only refer to the voice as “Mysterious Man.” But we now know that it belongs to Mahershala Ali, who has been announced as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Blade the Vampire Hunter.
The Dane Whitman of Marvel Comics — who’s also known as the superhero the Black Knight — doesn’t have a ton of history with Blade. But generally when a character shows up in a Marvel post-credits scene, they’re not just there for a gratuitous cameo; the appearance is meant to set up future appearances, establish connections between heroes, and often to tease future team-ups. And that has got fans wondering where Blade and Black Knight will show up next.
A lot of speculation is focused around the MCU’s Blade starting a group of supernatural heroes called the Midnight Suns. First introduced in the 1990s, the original comic book Midnight Suns were a loose collection of heroes including Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze (the original Ghost Rider at a time when he’d been freed of his skeleton-headed curse), Morbius (the vampire played by Jared Leto in his upcoming solo film), the Darkhold Redeemers (various magic-inclined heroes who defended the Darkhold, an all-powerful occult book that was seen in the possession of Wanda at the end of WandaVision), and a group of vampire hunters that included Blade called the Nightstalkers.
There’s also a video game in the works called Marvel’s Midnight Suns that features Blade and Ghost Rider, alongside other Marvel heroes like Wolverine, Iron Man, Captain America, and Captain Marvel. So it seems entirely feasible that Marvel could be setting the groundwork for some kind of Midnight Suns movie or Disney+ series that would feature Blade, Black Knight, Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, and perhaps a few other characters like Wanda Maximoff.
It could be quite a while until we know Blade’s motives for sure. While Marvel is working on a solo Blade movie for Mahershala Ali, it’s yet to receive an official release date. Despite what that final title card promised, Eternals 2 hasn’t been officially announced yet either. The next Marvel Cinematic Universe movie is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and it also features Wanda Maximoff, so it could provide us the next clues about where all this magic sword stuff is headed. That film is currently scheduled to open in theaters on May 6, 2022.
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Wait, Who Are the Eternals?
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The 2021 MCU entry is finally streaming on Disney+. Here’s what you need to know before hitting play. Art: Marvel
When contract disputes and creative differences sent veteran Marvel comics artist Jack Kirby — the man who co-created Captain America, the Avengers, and the X-Men, among others — into the arms of DC Comics in 1970, New Gods was born. It constituted a thematic continuation of the stories he’d been crafting for the Asgardians in Thor, featuring an original pantheon of characters powerful to the point of godhood. The New Gods were divided into two planets: Genesis, a world of peace led by the Highfather, and Apokolips, a planet of cruelty ruled by the despot Darkseid. The two opposed civilizations had struck a deal: The sons of Highfather and Darkseid would be traded, so Apokolips-born Orion would grow up on Genesis and Genesis-born Scott Free (better known as Mister Miracle) would be raised on Apokolips. The arrangement was part treaty and part experiment; neither world would wage war on the other with a prince in the way, and it could settle the question of the nature versus nurture debate, too.
But the series didn’t perform well at the time and was canceled in 1972, leaving a climactic battle between Orion and his father Darkseid unresolved. There are no New Gods movies currently streaming on HBO Max, although Ava Duvernay nearly adapted it and several of Apokolips’s villains feature in Wonder Woman and Justice League. Still, the story proved to be an influential property in DC’s superheroic canon, with Darkseid going on to fight Superman numerous times and become the central antagonist of the Great Darkness Saga over in Legion of Super Heroes and the Final Crisis miniseries decades later.
More than that, New Gods proved influential across the comics aisle. The story of the Eternals, who feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 2021 entry named after them (which is currently streaming on Disney+), owes a lot to the demise of New Gods. After its end, Kirby bounced around various DC projects before once again growing creatively dissatisfied and jumping ship. By 1975, he was back at Marvel, and one of the first things to spring from his pen was 1976’s The Eternals. Having previously drawn on Norse mythology to build his deities, Kirby drew from Incan history this time around; the gods once worshipped by Incans, he suggested, were in fact a divergent evolution of the “Dawn Ape” — mankind’s progenitor. The Celestials, gigantic and inscrutable ur-gods, created both the Eternals and their nemeses, the Deviants, alongside humanity but distinct from it, from a prehistoric ape. The Eternals were “few in number” and “immune to time and death,” and each of them possessed unique powers, while the Deviants were “ever-changing and destructive,” an unstable species that mutated in new and monstrous ways with each new generation, prone to constant warfare. The Deviants sought out the depths of the Earth to hide, and the Eternals took to mountaintops, forming vast cities like Olympia in Greece and Polaria in Siberia. Eventually even these peaks would prove lacking, and the Eternals took to space, only visiting Earth occasionally to check in on humanity’s progress.
Kirby’s original Eternals story isn’t set in the time of the Inca, but centers around the Eternals’ return to Earth in modern times. His lead is the golden-haired and golden-eyed Ikaris, who, under the alias Ike Harris, leads a father-daughter pair of explorers into an ancient underwater Incan ruin and reignites a beacon that leads the Eternals back to Earth — and right behind them, their creators. The impossibly old Celestials stand in judgment of all intelligent life; if the Eternals (and New Gods and Asgardians) reflect the enormity of polytheistic pantheons, the Celestials rise above even that, with the power to end entire planets. Moviegoers have seen at least a few Celestials on the MCU screen — the colony of Knowhere, featured in Guardians of the Galaxy, exists in the skull of a dead Celestial. Later in the same film, the Collector (Benecio Del Toro) views footage of the Celestial Eson the Searcher. And while he is definitively not a Celestial in the comics, the cinematic version of Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russel) claims to be a Celestial in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
The Celestial Arishem, with the power to judge humanity in the palm of his hand. Art: Marvel
The Celestial Arishem the Judge is the first to appear in the comics. Massive and encased in red armor, he does nothing when he arrives but stand atop a rock and judge Earth’s progress (according to metrics known only to the Celestials themselves). The set-up: If he judges in Earth’s favor, the planet lives, and if not, Earth is to be destroyed. More directly interested in the Earth’s destruction are the Deviants, who are eager to expand an empire, as they once did in the days of pre-history. To this end, they’re ruled by a squat, green Deviant named Tode, who commands an underling named Kro. Kro, a largely human-shaped creature with reddish skin and the ability to manipulate his own atomic structure, would go on to become a central antagonist in the Eternals’ saga. Within the first few issues, he uses his powers to grow a pair of horns, so that he might resemble the Devil and play on humanity’s fears.
After Ikaris, Kirby introduces Ajak (named after the Greek hero Ajax), Sersi (after the Greek figure Circe), Makkari (after the Roman god, Mercury), Zuras and Thena (after Zeus and Athena), and more. While each Eternal’s powers vary — for instance, Ikaris can levitate and shoot energy beams from his eyes, while Makkari has super-speed, and Thena is a masterful hand-to-hand combatant and scholar — all Eternals generally have the same abilities. They include invulnerability, longevity, and immunity to disease, as well as teleportation, some low-level telepathic ability, the ability to project illusions, and complete molecular control over their entire bodies. In crafting their individual and collective storylines, Kirby wove in not just fantastic fiction, but his own ideas about religion and humanity, his feelings about global politics, and even elements of his time serving in World War II. For example, in recounting the ancient history of the Eternals and Deviants, he describes a pre-emptive strike akin to Pearl Harbor followed by a mushroom cloud retaliation that is roughly analogous to his perception of U.S. involvement in World War II. Here, Kirby not so subtly equates his gods with American forces, and the monstrous deviants with the Japanese.
Art: Marvel
But the lines between the Eternals and Deviants did get blurry; within a few issues, two Deviants are shown living under the protection of the Eternals, away from their own kind. Kirby leaned on the idea of “good” people and “evil” people, but he also repeated the same trick he pulled with New Gods, placing paramount importance on a given character’s moral choice in a moment. A character could be born a Deviant, but choose the path of good, and vice versa. Take Druig’s betrayal of his fellow Eternals, culminating in his attempt to destroy one of the Celestials in the book’s final issue.
Unfortunately, like New Gods before them, The Eternals was canceled after 19 issues due to low sales, leaving plotlines unresolved once more. Marvel revived the series a few times throughout the years, and each revival was shorter than the last; as of this writing, there are a grand total of 56 issues starring the group. The second volume of The Eternals was a 12-issue series started by Peter Gillis, finished by Walt Simonson, and released in 1985. It continued the group’s story, with Thena leading the Eternals following the demise of Zuras. The Deviants’ loyalties are split between Kro and a new character, the leader of a religious sect by the name of Priestlord Ghaur. But Ghuar’s ambitions, like Druig’s in the original series, result in his own annihilation. By the end of the series, Ikaris, arguably the main character all along, assumes leadership (after Thena began a love affair with Kro). There wouldn’t be another Eternals series for 20 years, though some of the characters kept busy in the meantime. Several joined the Avengers in various capacities, and a story arc from Avengers #246-248, by Roger Stern and Al Milgrom, established that there were Eternals offshoots known by different names. The most notable of these is familiar to moviegoing audiences: His name is Thanos.
Art: Marvel
So the story goes, Thanos is one of two sons of the Eternal known as A’lars, or Mentor. A’lars was a brother to Zuras, who left Earth to form a civilization on Titan, the moon of Saturn. There, with another Eternal named Sui-san, he fathered both Thanos and his brother, Eros. Thanos and Eros were originally created by Jim Starlin in 1972 for the pages of Iron Man, and were not originally intended to be Eternals, though they were based on Greek myth. It was not until the pages of Avengers nearly a decade later that the link between the Titanians and Eternals was established. By then, Thanos’ brother Eros was known more widely as Starfox, and was a card-carrying member of the Avengers right alongside Sersi.
Marvel finally began publishing a third volume of the Eternals in 2006, penned by Neil Gaiman with art by John Romita Jr. Internecine squabbles were common, resulting in multiple betrayals. For example, Sprite, an Eternal who lives forever in the body of a child, hatches a scheme to kill his fellow Eternals and to render himself mortal so that he might finally age. His plan fails, but not before another Celestial known as the Dreaming Celestial nearly ends the world. In one of the third volume’s final and most disturbing scenes, Zuras catches up with the pint-size trickster turned murderer and quietly snaps his neck aboard a train.
Death, of course, is rarely the end — for Sprite or any of the other Eternals. If Kirby presented the characters as a kind of space-faring, exploratory people, deity impersonators who shaped the course of human history, Gaiman codified the idea even more clearly. He ritualized the idea of Eternals not as simply immortal, but as extremely long-lived super beings who are resurrected by ancient Celestial-designed machinery to continue their work of standing in preservation of Earth. He built on the initial cyclical ideas presented by Kirby’s original work; the Eternals live to defend, maintain, and preserve Earth, then eventually die, only to rise again and repeat the process.
Ikaris explains the Eternals’ role in the grand scheme of things. Art: Marvel
A new Eternals, penned by Charles Knauf with art by Daniel Acuna, began in 2008 focused on continuing Gaiman’s modernization of the franchise. Though it was canceled early, it prompted the Celestials move toward the forefront of Marvel lore. After the Dreaming Celestial of the 2008 volume awoke and stood above San Francisco, he was often seen in the background of X-Men comics set in the Bay Area. Celestials featured prominently in Uncanny Avengers, a mixed team of Avengers and X-Men designed to heal tensions between mutants and superheroes in the aftermath of a large-scale conflict that pitted the two groups against each other. (X-Men-Celestial history goes back further; it was the Celestials who created the Life and Death Seeds, artifacts with the power to jumpstart creation and extinction, and a common tool of the villain Apocalypse.) Most notably, an entire army of Celestials appeared as the antagonists of Jason Aaron’s 2018 run of Avengers, a conflict that once again resulted in the Eternals dying, this time without even the benefit of a book of their own.
But last January they returned with a fifth volume, written by Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribic, the story’s rise and fall forever reflecting the cyclical nature of its narrative conflict. If the post-credits scene of the new Eternals movie is any indication, the Marvel world and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are hardly done with Kirby’s invention.
Harry Styles Dancing Behind The Scenes In Eternals Dressed As Eros Is Everything
Harry Styles Dancing Behind The Scenes In Eternals Dressed As Eros Is Everything
Harry Styles will play Eros in the next Eternals. Picture: Getty / Marvel
By Capital FM
Harry Styles was captured dancing with Angelina Jolie and Lauren Ridloff in a behind-the-scenes clip from Eternals.
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Harry Styles joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe gave us the joy we needed at the end of 2021.
And now Eternals has been added to Disney+ fans who missed out last year are finally getting to see the first glimpse of Harry’s introduction to the film franchise.
What Does Harry Styles Have In Store For 2022 – From New Music To A UK Tour
A behind-the-scenes clip of the ‘Watermelon Sugar’ singer has also surfaced, showing Haz doing what he does best – dancing.
Harry Styles has taken on a lot of acting roles besides being an international pop icon. Picture: Getty
Harry Styles, Angelina Jolie, and Lauren Ridloff behind the scenes of #Eternals pic.twitter.com/3USBbM0s7O — harry styles gifs (@HRRYGIF) January 11, 2022
Co-star Angelina Jolie and Lauren Ridloff are also in the clip, with Lauren and Harry snapping their fingers while Angelina elegantly waves her hands above her head.
It’s not a video we expected to see but we’re grateful nonetheless.
Harry is playing Eros (aka Starfox), Royal Prince of Titan and brother of Thanos in the upcoming movie.
The first poster starring the former One Directioner was released in November and fans completely lost it over the dazzling debut.
Harry Styles as Eros in #Eternals pic.twitter.com/u7BVzZ7UVg — harry styles gifs (@HRRYGIF) January 11, 2022
The pop star’s role was kept under wraps for over a year, with little clues he would be joining the MCU occasionally popping up on the internet.
His news was let slip when a film reporter tweeted in response to Harry’s Don’t Worry, Darling casting, which was his first movie role since Dunkirk: “Second if we’re counting the Marvel movie no one knows he’s in.”
Fans also noticed he was following stars of the film Gemma Chan and Richard Madden.
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Is Thanos an Eternal? Post-credits scene sparks questions
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The Eternals has not one but two post-credits scenes for fans to feast on, the first of which has got Marvel audiences curious about the common ancestry of Thanos and Eros.
Thanos and Eros are brothers, yes, and yet they couldn’t be much more different. Eros is conspicuously non-purple; Thanos is conspicuously evil; and yet, both have Eternal blood.
But it’s not quite as simple as that. So, is Thanos an Eternal like his brother Eros, and why are they so different from each other?
Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
Is Thanos an Eternal?
In terms of his comic book biography, Thanos’ mother and father are the Eternals Sui-San and A’lars. He was born on Saturn’s moon, Titan.
So in this respect, yes, Thanos is indeed an Eternal.
However, Thanos also carries a recessive Deviant gene. As a result, he shares the physical appearance – you may have noticed that he’s a sort of purplish blue colour – of the Eternals’ cousin race.
The Deviants are another Celestial-created race. But, unlike the Eternals, who are generally quite attractive, the Deviants are largely hideous. They represent the Celestials’ first attempt to manipulate the DNA of a terrestrial species, the purpose of which was to protect gestating Celestials contained within planets.
On seeing him, Thanos’ mother Sui-San thought he would destroy all life in the universe. She tried to kill him, but A’lars intervened. As it happens, she wasn’t far wrong.
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How are Thanos and Eros related?
Thanos and Eros are brothers. Note: Eros also goes by Starfox, and joins Earth’s Avengers under this moniker.
From birth, Eros has the ability to stimulate pleasure in others. But this doesn’t work on his older brother, whose Deviant Syndrome makes him physically repulsive to others.
In its breakdown of The Eternals’ post-credit scenes, Screen Rant describes Eros as a “fun-loving, carefree womaniser”. He’s the one everyone wants to hang out with – Thanos, by contrast, is exiled from Titan for proposing a genocidal solution to overpopulation.
In other words, despite being brothers, Thanos and Eros could not be much more different.
Source: YouTube [Marvel Entertainment]
What happens in The Eternals’ post-credit scenes?
In The Eternals’ first post-credit scene, Eros – played by Harry Styles – warns the trio of Thena, Druig and Makkari that their friends are in trouble.
(Given that the end text contains the message, “The Eternals will return”, it’s conceivable that a future movie will explore more of this.)
In the second post-credits scene, we see Kit Harington, aka Black Knight, open up a chest. Inside is the Ebony Blade, and a message – “death is my reward”.
In other news, Is Keanu Reeves actually in Eternals after casting rumours?