Epic new Eternals trailer gives long-awaited tease of Marvel’s first gay superhero Phastos
Fans are given the first full glimps as Phastos, the first-ever openly gay Marvel superhero, in a new trailer for the upcoming movie The Eternals. (YouTube/Marvel Entertainment)
Marvel has dropped a new trailer for its upcoming action-packed movie Eternals, giving eager fans further glimpses of the MCU’s first-ever openly gay superhero.
Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos is a gay alien inventor extraordinaire who has been secretly helping humanity progress technologically from the shadows. Even though he isn’t in the newly-dropped trailer, actor Haaz Sleiman previously confirmed that he will play Phastos’ husband, and the pair will be featured in some capacity in the full-length movie.
In the latest Eternals trailer, Marvel fans learn more about the immortal humanoid aliens, the Eternals, and meet their dangerous counterparts, the Deviants.
The nearly three-minute trailer opens with Salma Hayek as her character Ajak, the powerful spiritual leader, explaining that the movie takes place five years after Thanos’ snap erased half of all life and the Avengers’ subsequent undoing of this in Avengers: Endgame.
"When you love something, you protect it." Watch the brand-new trailer for Marvel Studios' #Eternals. Arriving in theaters November 5. pic.twitter.com/ClywAG421i
— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) August 19, 2021
But Ajak warns that this resurgence of life “provided the necessary energy for the emergence to begin” and brought about the return of the Deviants. It’s presumed that this “emergence” is why the Eternals must now band together to save humanity in an oddly specific seven-day timeframe.
Then viewers are treated to Sersi (Gemma Chan), a museum curator and Eternal, explaining to the human she is dating, Dane Whitman (Kit Harington), about the immortal superhero race. She describes how the group came to Earth “7,000 years ago” to protect humanity from the Deviants, and they’ve lived among humans ever since.
“Why didn’t you guys help fight Thanos? Or any war? Or all the other terrible things throughout history?” Whitman asked, which is a fantastic question.
“We were instructed not to interfere in any human conflicts unless Deviants were involved,” Sersi explained.
Then, almost halfway through the trailer, Phastos finally made his appearance with a snappy line to bring much-needed levity to the movie. From the trailer, it’s clear that he will be providing some killer lines and dry comedy to the film.
“You know what’s never saved the planet? Your sarcasm,” Phastos told one of the young superheroes.
Viewers also saw him wield some sort of device which summoned the Eternals’ spaceship, the one they travelled on thousands of years earlier. He reappeared at the end of the trailer in a hilarious interaction with Ikaris, played by Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden.
Ikaris looked around the room that he and Phastos are in, commenting about how he bet the other man “built the perfect safe house”.
“And what’s this even made of? Vibranium?” He asked, gesturing to the table before punching it.
Taking a beat, Phastos levelled a dead stare of Ikaris before speaking. “Fall collection. IKEA.”
It’s sadly disappointing that Phastos did not get more screen time in the trailer, given that he has been billed as the first openly gay superhero in a Marvel movie. So here’s hoping that the queer hero will be given more of a spotlight in the film, and fans can be given the LGBT+ representation they have been so desperately craving from Marvel.
