Marvel’s Eternals is a groundbreaking entry in the MCU in multiple ways. We’ve known for a while that the movie would feature the franchise’s first openly gay superhero, in Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos, but another first that’s mostly slipped under the radar until more recently is that it also includes Marvel’s first deaf lead, too — namely, speedster Makkari, as played by The Walking Dead‘s Lauren Ridloff.
In fact, there are so many heroes rolling around in Eternals, that it’s hard to keep track of them all. But Ridloff is on hand to introduce you to them in this new promo for the film. As you can see via the tweet below, this promo showcases Ridloff educating viewers — and her co-stars to boot — on how to say the names of the heroes, as well as their key characteristics, in ASL (American Sign Language).
All together, the Eternals are ten in number and can be split into two groups – the fighters and the thinkers. The one with combative powers are Ikaris the “Powerful” (Richard Madden), Thena the “Fierce” (Angelina Jolie), Gilgamesh the “Strong” (Don Lee), Kingo the “Influential” (Kumail Nanjiani), and Makkari the “Daring”.
Meanwhile, the ones with more intellectual abilities are Ajak the “Leader” (Salma Hayek), Sersi the “Selfless” (Gemma Chan), Phastos the “Innovator”, Sprite the “Youthful” (Lia McHugh) and Druig the “Independent” (Barry Keoghan).
It’s interesting that Eternals is coming in the very same month as Disney Plus’ Hawkeye, which has been confirmed to depict Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton as hard-of-hearing. It’ll also feature Alaqua Cox as new heroine Maya Lopez/Echo, who’s set to get her own spinoff series. That’ll make her the MCU’s first deaf solo superhero. So Marvel is certainly making waves in this area all at once.
But first Chloe Zhao’s Eternals opens in theaters this Friday, November 5.