Over the past few weeks, we've learned a lot about Eternals, and it came to light that Marvel Studios originally wanted twelve members in the superhero team. Ten was too many, so it was probably for the best that those extra couple of characters were never introduced.
Now, we know who those two characters were. Talking to The Playlist, writer Kaz Firpo revealed: "The Eternal, Zuras, who was the leader in the comics or the canon, and it was the Eternal, Valkin, who was a sort of healer. So what we did - and you can kinda see it pretty clearly in the film - Zuras was folded into, kinda neatly, into Ajak as the leader and in Gilgamesh as the surly, salty older man."
"The same thing happened with Valkin - there were just too many powers to keep track of, too many arcs - and we folded his powers into Ajak’s and his role, a little, into Kingo."
In the comic books, Zuras is the Prime Eternal and Thanos' uncle. As for Valkin, he's Druig's father and the leader of the Polar Eternals, and we can't imagine he'd have brought too much to the table here.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ryan Firpo elaborated on early plans they had for Kang the Conqueror in Eternals. "We’re dealing with immortality. There were even versions in the pitch where we were thinking that Kang could have gotten involved and sort of messed up the Eternals timeline a little bit. But then, you know, we kinda steered away from that."
It's always interesting to think about what might have been with a movie like this one, but it feels like Marvel Studios made the right decision here. Zuras is someone we'd definitely be surprised not to meet down the line, though, especially as he could step up to lead what remains of Earth's Eternals after Ajak's death.
Eternals is now playing in theaters worldwide.