Marvel has dropped the first trailer for its upcoming movie Eternals, its first film to feature an openly gay superhero.
The Eternals trailer gave a brief glimpse of Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos, a gay alien inventor who has secretly been helping humanity progress technologically. Actor Haaz Sleiman previously confirmed he will play Phastos’ husband.
Sadly, their relationship isn’t featured in the new trailer, which focuses on the history and civilisation-spanning scope of the epic superhero team.
The official teaser opens with a group of humans at the beginning of human history encountering the Eternals, an immortal race from another world, spaceship.
We then see the members of the alien group living fairly quiet lives on Earth throughout history. It’s unclear from the trailer what pushed the Eternals into hiding, but they eventually reunite in the present day to defend humanity from their adversaries, the Deviants.
The trailer introduces Marvel fans to a host of new superheroes including Angelina Jolie as Thena, a warrior who can create any weapon from cosmic energy, and Salma Hayek as the Eternals’ spiritual leader Ajak. The film also stars Lauren Ridolff as Makkari, who is the first deaf superhero in the MCU and uses her super-speed to scout planets.
Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden is Ikaris – a being who can fly, shoot energy from his eyes and has super strength. The trailer hints that the upcoming film will centre largely on Ikaris’ relationship with another eternal Sersi (Gemma Chan), who can manipulate matter.
Eternals takes place after the events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, in which half of life in the universe was erased by Thanos. At the end of the Eternals trailer, the group jokes that Madden’s character Ikaris could lead the Avengers now that “Captain Rogers and Iron Man are both gone”.
Eternals will be released in cinemas on 5 November.
