The following contains spoilers for Marvel’s Eternals.Superior strength, functional immortality, illusion casting, manipulation of inorganic matter, and energy blasts are just a few of the powers the audience sees from the new group of characters in Eternals. The ten characters who make up the ancient team of superheroes each have their own unique abilities, but they are clearly more powerful than most of the characters that the audience already knows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When a group lives amongst humans for thousands of years, quietly saving the day, it does make the audience wonder just who the strongest character really is.
It’s easy to speculate that someone with the flashiest powers has to be the strongest. Ikaris, after all, is able to take on Deviants alone in the movie while everyone else works in pairs, but just a few of his teammates are able to subdue him with some ingenuity. Even Hulk is chosen to snap his fingers with an Infinity Gauntlet because of how durable he is in Avengers: Endgame, but he still ends up burned and injured. The strongest character in the MCU has to exhibit similar power and durability.
The Eternals Bring A New Level Of Strength To The MCU
In the MCU the Eternals are, for a time, regarded as god-like figures. Marvel fans who know their Greek and Roman mythology will quickly realize that they have mythical history. Thena with her fighting skills and ability to create weapons out of her energy is Athena, the Greek goddess of war. Phastos, with his brilliance and his affinity for technology is Haephestus. Makkari is the Roman god Mercury. Gilgamesh is a the hero of the epic poem. They have lived and saved people for thousands of years, and the people have elevated them to god-like status as a result.
None of the Eternals are all powerful on their own though. Though many members of the group initially look up to Ikaris and think he should be leading them, he can’t survive a massive battle alone either. Each Eternal has their own specialty despite their long lives and strength. Not one of their abilities is truly superior to the other, and they need one another to defeat the Deviants. It’s easy to see what a hard time they have once Ajak, who brought them together and had the ability to heal, was out of the picture. Without her power, they could succumb to their injuries.
That doesn’t mean the Eternals aren’t one of the strongest groups in the MCU, however, there have been other beings that have similar powers and strength.
Asgardians Are Also Worshipped By Humans
The Asgardians have been present in the MCU since the very beginning. Part of the first chapter of Phase One, known as “Fury’s Big Week,” Thor lands on Earth just as Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk and Tony Stark creates the Iron Man armor. Asgardians as a whole don’t have superpowers in the same way the Eternals do, but the royal family does. It’s the royal family that is said to have inspired Norse myth in the MCU. Odin and Thor are both supposed to have superior strength to their brethren. Frigga is raised by witches and can use actual magic. Heimdall controls the bifrost, a method of transportation between realms.
Fans can argue that Thor is the strongest of the original Avengers. After all, he can use Mjolnir to fly, pummel his enemies, and channel lightning. As demonstrated in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War, however, he doesn’t even really need the hammer to do those things. Thor can literally summon lightning from the sky to use against his enemies without any harm coming to him. That’s certainly one of the strongest Asgardian moves the audience has seen. Thor, however, is an outlier when it comes to power amongst his people. He used to spend some time with at least one of the Eternals. Kingo calls him an old friend who used to follow him around, but now, won’t return his calls.
Like the Eternals, the Asgardians are simply humanoids who come to Earth, demonstrate some impressive power, strength, and durability, and end up revered as gods. Even the Asgardians now have someone stronger than them in the MCU though.
The Celestials Manufactured The Eternals
Though the Celestials were supposed to be an extinct race according to the Guardians of the Galaxy movies (who saw Knowhere built into the skull of a deceased Celestial), Eternals proves that not to be the case. Ajak, and later, Sersi, is actively in communication with Arishem, who claims responsibility for creating the Eternals in the first place.
Not only are the Celestials powerful enough to create the Eternals, but they also use their cosmic energy to help along the births (and deaths) of entire civilizations. A Celestial is born from the death of a planet, literally tearing it apart as they come to life. They began their work thousands of years, potentially even millions, before humans walked the Earth.
They also have the capability of traveling the universe incredibly quickly. Arishem makes his way to Earth quickly once Sersi and her friends defy him. As the audience sees when Arishem comes for Sersi, Kingo, and Phastos, the Celestials are massive beings, the size of an entire planet, who can simply pluck the Eternals from the surface of the Earth like a child picking up a toy. It’s hard to imagine there’s anyone stronger, but there might be.
Magic Users Can Change The Fabric Of Reality
If there’s anyone in the MCU who might be stronger than the Celestials, it’s those characters who wield magic. While Celestials can destroy a world and help to shape new ones, a strong enough magic user can change the very fabric of reality.
Take the characters of Agatha Harkness, Stephen Strange, and Wanda Maximoff as examples of magic users. Agatha has been a witch for centuries, but is limited by her own power. She siphons power from others to keep herself in action. Doctor Strange has traveled between dimensions and in alternate timelines, but he’s done that largely with the help of an Infinity Stone he no longer has. Wanda Maximoff, however, is the least experienced of the three, but she might be the strongest of them all.
Wanda manages to change reality every single day based on her childhood memories of sitcoms in WandaVision. She even creates a facsimile of Vision and gives them two children. She’s able to simultaneously control the entire population of a small town while she does it - and that’s all before she’s actually aware of her magical abilities. It only takes her a single confrontation with Agatha Harkness to apply things Agatha tells her to her own magic, preventing Wanda from taking her power and releasing the small town from her hold. Wanda might be the least experienced, but she’s a fast learner, and her power as the Scarlet Witch appears limitless.
While the Eternals and the Celestials bring some strong firepower to the MCU, Wanda Maximoff is still the strongest character of them all.
Eternals is currently playing in theaters. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness and Thor: Love And Thunder are currently scheduled to land in theaters in 2022.