Eternals added a lot of new characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though it wasn't until the movie's mid-credits scene that we met Harry Styles' Eros/Starfox. The comic book hero teleported himself aboard the Domo and revealed that he could help Thena, Druig, and Makkari find their friends after they were taken from Earth by the Celestial Arishem.
Empire Online recently caught up with Eternals director Chloé Zhao and learned more about Starfox's history, including how this take on the character is tied to his brother, Thanos.
"I love the idea of Eros being another Eternal, another Ajak. He's an Eternal, and he was stationed on Titan – 10 of them were, just like the 10 Eternals on Earth, assuming Titan is also a host planet at some point. Now, if you think about that, what influence could Eros have had on the inhabitants of Titan, the way Ajak has influenced people on Earth? And how that has affected Thanos?"
"If you go to the comics, there's some quite beautiful, heartbreaking influence Eros has had on Thanos. And how much does Thanos know? I love him as a character. It makes my imagination go crazy thinking, 'Why does Thanos think this way? Why is he worried about overpopulation and destroying his planet?' Think about the emergence – does Eros know about it? Maybe if he's an advisor, the way Ajak advised kings and queens on Earth?"
"For me, the backstory of Eros is that he deserted, he said, 'I'm not doing this anymore,'" the filmmaker continues. "So he somehow got that sphere, which you saw in his hand, and he ran off and made Pip the troll. They're like Han Solo and Chewie. Arishem's been looking for him, and he's just been a space outlaw. That's the character I had in my mind."
It doesn't sound like Zhao necessarily pictures this Starfox as the biological brother of Thanos, though there's no telling how much her ideas could change by the time we next see these characters. The big reveal that the MCU's Eternals are essentially synthetic beings is almost certainly going to alter how the Mad Titan connects to Eros and (their father) A'Lars, though we do wonder whether he perhaps attempted to create an Eternal child and wound up with the deformed Thanos.
Equally as likely is that an attempted Emergence could be what led to Titan's destruction, so fingers crossed all of these ideas are expanded on when the Eternals sequel eventually rolls around.