This is truly getting out of hand, folks. Eternals stands as the perfect example of a movie that tries to be bigger and better—not by perfecting its script or story—but by cramming in as many heroes as possible, making them increasingly god-like, and blowing the villain up to planetary proportions. This time, they went all out, making a “baddie” as big as the Earth itself. And, in my opinion (and not just mine), they definitely overstepped.
The Fantastic Four, X-men
I would say that for the non-comic world it all started pretty innocently with Marvel’s Fantastic Four—a tight-knit group of heroes you could actually keep track of. I remember watching their animated series as a kid. Each had a distinct personality, manageable powers, and clear interpersonal dynamics. Then came X-Men, and the roster started to grow. It became a little harder to keep count, but it still worked because the characters, despite their unique abilities, weren’t portrayed as gods. They had flaws, internal conflicts, and personal struggles, which made them relatable and grounded. The powers served the story—not the other way around—and that balance is what kept those films enjoyable to watch.
The Avengers
But then things started to spiral out of control. For reasons still unclear—aside from chasing spectacle—Marvel decided it was a good idea to cram nearly their entire A-list roster into a single film. The Avengers was the turning point: a massive box office hit, no doubt, but one could reasonably argue that it wasn’t the strength of the story that drew the crowds. Rather, it was the sheer novelty of seeing so many beloved characters on screen at once. It felt more like an event, a cinematic party, than a tightly woven narrative. That party effect worked—once, maybe twice—but it also set a dangerous precedent.
The competition with DC
After The Avengers, the floodgates were open. Marvel doubled down on the formula, and soon DC followed suit, launching their own cinematic universe with Justice League and Suicide Squad. But while Marvel had time to build up individual heroes before merging them, DC often rushed the ensemble, trying to catch up in fewer moves. The result? A kind of cinematic arms race, where the number of heroes, their powers, and the scale of threats had to constantly escalate to hold audience attention.
The Avengers – The Infinity War, Endgame
By the time we reached Infinity War and Endgame, the villain wasn’t just trying to destroy a city or a planet anymore—he was out to erase half the universe. Thanos became the ultimate expression of this escalation: a godlike being wielding a cosmic glove, snapping people out of existence like it was a housekeeping chore.
What began as grounded conflicts with human stakes eventually ballooned into abstract, god-tier problems that audiences were increasingly asked to care about. And yet, the higher the stakes went, the harder it became to feel anything. Once you’re dealing with threats so big they’re literally cosmic, it’s easy for characters—and viewers—to get lost in the noise.
The Eternals
Which brings us to Eternals. By this point, Marvel had written itself into a corner. After half the universe was snapped and un-snapped, how do you top that? The only direction left was bigger. So they reached into cosmic mythology and pulled out the Eternals—a group of ageless, godlike beings who had been on Earth for 7,000 years, doing… mostly nothing. And because the bar was already set so astronomically high, Marvel didn’t give themselves much choice but to go even bigger: bigger cast, bigger timeline, and yes, a bigger villain. One so massive it was growing out of the Earth’s core. At that point, you’re not just jumping the shark—you’re using a celestial hand to punt it into another galaxy.
The problem is, no story can bear the weight of this kind of scale. When everyone is a god, nothing feels personal. The characters—though beautifully diverse and occasionally well-acted—rarely connect on a human level. There’s no real intimacy, no grounded stakes. Instead of choices and consequences, we get exposition dumps and sprawling mythology. What was meant to feel epic ends up feeling bloated.
Finishing thoughts
In the end, Eternals is less a movie and more a symptom of a larger issue: the blockbuster arms race, where every studio feels compelled to outdo the last with bigger teams, bigger threats, and increasingly divine heroes. But when everything is grandiose, nothing feels grounded. Marvel (and its competitors) now face a critical question: where can we go from here? How many more gods, multiverses, and planet-sized plot devices can audiences absorb before it all collapses under its own weight? Something will have to give. And if these studios want to keep telling stories that resonate, they’ll need to remember a simple truth: size doesn’t matter. Love does.
Ira
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