Zuras, the leader of the Eternals, possesses wisdom, patience and experience so vast that time itself bows to his perspective. He guides his people to protect Earth while the Celestials carry out their centuries-long judgements.
A Born Leader
Zuras is one of the Eternals, an evolutionary offshoot of humanity created by experiments performed by the enigmatic Celestials around one million years ago during the Celestials’ First Host. Zuras is raised on Titanos under his father Kronos and mother Daina, and alongside his brother A’Lars. When Kronos isolated the cosmic energy that empowered the Eternals, the containment vessel ruptured and exploded, disintegrating him and destroying Titanos. While Kronos existed as a disembodied cosmic entity whose life force and consciousness expanded throughout the solar system, the remaining Eternals’ powers were increased by the explosion’s energies. Zuras became the Eternals’ leader and exiled A’Lars, who eventually settled on Saturn’s moon Titan becoming known as Mentor. Kronos continues to look after the Eternals for a time, but eventually loses interest as his essence expands and leaves leadership of his people to his sons.
The surviving Eternals discovered that Kronos’ experiment had increased their powers, and Zuras and A’lars led them to unite the Eternals into a collective Uni-Mind, merging into a single form. Within the Uni-Mind, the majority of the people chose Zuras as their new Prime Eternal. Not wishing to divide their people again as their uncle Uranos had done, A’lars decided to exile himself from Earth to Saturn’s planet-sized moon, Titan. Back on Earth, Zuras leads his Eternals to create the new cities of Oceana in the Pacific, Polaria in what is now known as Siberia, and the capital city Olympia in the mountains of Greece.
Cosmic Energy and Matter Manipulation
Like all Eternals, Zuras’ is augmented by cosmic energy which makes him virtually immortal with an enhanced invulnerability to the ravages of aging or disease. He has regeneration capabilities and can resist extreme temperatures.
Zuras can levitate himself by manipulating the subatomic particles around him using only thought and as such can fly using self-levitation.
Having trained and disciplined himself for a millennium, Zuras can project cosmic energy through his hands or eyes looking like lightning bolts. The energy can be electricity, light, heat, electromagnetic and can all be used as a concussive force. He possesses low-level telepathy and can create mental illusions. His psionic abilities extend to matter manipulation and teleportation as well, though he can only teleport himself and others psionically vs. physically transport them to different locations.
Zuras initiated the formation of the Uni-Mind, a collective life form created from merging all Eternals into one consciousness, which was used to solve problems and make important decisions that would impact everyone.
He occasionally employs a curved staff and his physical strength is greater than most other Eternals. He can lift 30 tons without employing his psionic powers.
Eternal Enemies
The Celestials, or Space Gods as the Eternals dub them, are cosmic beings that create the Eternals and Deviants, genetically-engineered offshoots of humanity. They are also responsible for the emergence of super humans, including mutants, on Earth. Zuras and his Eternals often go up against the Celestials when they demand to judge humanity on whether they are worthy of continuing their existence. The Dark Celestial is created from the Horde, insect-like beings that bring balance to the universe, and thus oppose the Celestials. Though when Zuras learns the truth about the Celestials true purpose for the Eternals’, he and his Eternals tear each other apart and seemingly perish.
The Deviants struggle to regain the grandeur they lose thanks to the Celestials, and Zuras and his Eternals become increasingly intertwined in their schemes, often coming to the aid of humanity.
Family Ties and God-Like Allies
Zuras and Cybele raise their daughter Thena who often acts as an advisor to him, even once recommending that he send the Eternal Makkari to deal with the Deviant warlord, Kro.
The King of Asgard, Odin Borson, AKA Odin, is an enemy turned ally. When Odin sides with the Olympian gods against the Eternals, his son Thor Odinson, AKA Thor, aids the Eternals. Zuras battles Zeus and when the battle comes to a head and is called off, Zuras and Odin become allies.
Zeus, ruler of the Olympian gods, forges a noninterference pact between Zuras’s Eternals and Olympians, and Zuras’ daughter Azura changes her name to Thena, after Zeus’ daughter Athena, as a symbol of their friendship.
An Eternal’s History
The Eternals witnessed the arrival of the Second Host of the Celestials circa 18,000 BC, during which a Celestial assault upon the Deviants’ nation Lemuria caused the entire continent to sink, resulting in the massive catastrophe called “the Great Cataclysm.”
While leading the Eternals as Prime Eternal, Zuras has a daughter, Azura, with Cybele. When the ancient Greeks worshipped the Gods of Olympus, Zuras and Azura meet with Zeus and his daughter Athena (Roman name Minerva) to reach an understanding between their peoples, and they agree that the Eternals would sometimes act as the Olympians’ representatives on Earth. To seal their agreement, Azura’s name is changed to Thena, as she would act as Athena’s representative; however, in the ensuing centuries, Thena and other Eternals were thought by humans to be the actual gods themselves, causing resentment between the Olympians and Eternals. The Greeks named their city Athens after Thena, believing her to be Athena.
Around 1000 AD, the Asgardian god Thor aided the Eternals against the Deviant Dromedan, a conflict that cost the life of Ikaris’ father Virako. Following the battle, the Celestials’ Third Host arrived on a mission of cultivation. Ajak formed a special bond to the Celestials, serving as their emissary to others. Zuras and Ajak helped arrange the Celestials’ departure, and Ajak placed himself into suspended animation within the City of the Space Gods, which the Incas had built for the Celestials to await their return as the Fourth Host, to judge the Earth. As the Eternals prepared for the Fourth Host, Zuras assigned Ikaris to attune his senses so that he would be able to sense their coming and revive Ajak to greet them.
As the 20th century progressed, the Deviants renewed their activities, fearing the judgment of the Celestials. When Deviant warlord Kro became involved in World War II and other criminal endeavors, Zuras with Thena’s counsel, sent Makkari to deal with him. Kro attacked Earth hoping to provoke them into assaulting the Celestials. Zuras’s daughter Thena helped bring an end to hostilities.
When the Fourth Host finally came, Eternals Ikaris and Ajak greeted them alongside the human archaeologist Dr. Daniel Damian and his daughter Margo, but the Deviants hoped to turn humanity against the Celestials by tricking them into an attack. The Eternals revealed their existence to humanity for the first time in order to quell the humans’ fear of the Celestials and Deviants, and they made a close friend of anthropologist Dr. Samuel Holden. Warlord Kro introduced Thena to the Deviants Karkas and Ransak while she visited Lemuria, and Thena brought both Deviants back to Olympia with her to escape the prejudices of their own people.
The Eternals formed a Uni-Mind to analyze the Fourth Host, and determined that all people—Eternal, Deviant and human—must become one. Meanwhile, the Deviants assaulted the Celestials’ mothership, but the Forgotten One, exiled by Zuras for ages, came to the rescue, saving the Celestials’ One Above All. The energies the Uni-Mind unleashed empowered a Hulk robot to go on a rampage. Zuras faced the media and revealed the existence of the Eternals to humans offering to exchange knowledge for their mutual benefit. Meanwhile, the Eternals deactivated the robot, with its last action it freed Dromedan, held prisoner beneath New York for centuries. Zuras himself bested Dromedan. Afterward, he offered his expertise and assistance to the United States State Department who was investigating the Celestial threat.
Kro was encountered again when Thena, Karkas and Ransak joined fellow Eternals Ikaris and Sersi in exploring a Deviant outpost beneath New York City, and were aided against the Deviants by the God of Thunder, Thor. Thor returned to Olympia with the Eternals and fought by their side when the Forgotten One attacked, and when his own father Odin sided with the Olympian gods in assaulting Olympia, believing the Eternals to be pawns of the Celestials. Zuras began the Uni-Mind ritual and after an epic with Odin and Zeus, the disagreement was finally called off, and Zuras allied with Odin.
The Eternals subsequently merged into the Uni-Mind to help Odin and the Asgardians confront the Celestials, but when the Celestials destroyed the Uni-Mind, the psychic backlash slew Zuras. The Celestials finally judged in Earth’s favor and departed, removing knowledge of the existence of themselves and the Deviants and Eternals from the minds of most humans. Zuras’ body was returned to Olympia, and eventually his power passed from him to Thena. His last message to Thena was that the Eternals’ destiny lay off-world, and most of Earth’s Eternals departed in the form of a Uni-Mind to explore the cosmos. Thena claimed the full power and title of Prime Eternal in her father’s stead.
When the Eternal Sprite desired to experience aging, he lured the Eternals into a trap using the Dreaming Celestial to recast all of their people into human forms. Zuras was one of the Eternals resurrected into a mortal body, and Sprite was ultimately killed by Zuras. Zuras seemed to spout madness and resorted to drinking on the streets with a dog as a companion, though he eventually regained his true forms and memories, as did a handful of Eternals. Those who had begun a mission to reawaken their comrades in order to prepare for the impending invasion of the Horde, an extraterrestrial species who were enemies to the Celestials. Unfortunately, Druig sought to supplant Zuras as Prime Eternal and strove to bring the missing Eternals over to his side, fostering a division within the Eternals ranks which could spill into a civil war.
As the Final Host of the Dark Celestials marched on Earth, Avengers Tony Star, AKA Iron Man, and Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, visited the mountains of Olympia, Greece but only found death. Among the dead they found Zuras amidst other Eternals. The two Avengers speculated that the deaths of the Celestials may have driven the Eternals mad, they may have turned on one another, but it wasn’t until they found Ikaris near death who revealed that the truth tore the Eternals apart. They were never supposed to protect Earth, they only existed to cultivate humanity’s virulence.
