Marvel learned nothing from The Incredible Hulk — five years on, the Eternals have gone exactly the same way
It took eight years to bring General Ross back after 2008. Kit Harington's Black Knight has had nothing at all since 2021.
Here we are, five years after the release of Eternals, and not a single one of the film's main characters has shown their face in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since. It all feels oddly familiar if you remember the treatment The Incredible Hulk got—once the MCU's resident outcast, now upstaged in that department by Chloe Zhao's star-studded spin on immortal aliens.
Eternals came out in 2021, but its leads haven't popped up anywhere else in the MCU since.
From Hulk to Eternals: The Forgotten Club
Rewind to 2008: Hulk gets a standalone film, then gets all but scrubbed from the MCU tapestry. Outside of the big green guy himself, no one really carried over—until eight years later when Marvel bothered to bring back William Hurt as General Ross in 'Civil War'. Suddenly he became a regular fixture, popping up in 'Infinity War', 'Endgame', and 'Black Widow'. Even after Hurt's passing, Marvel weren't finished—now we've got Harrison Ford stepping into the Ross role for 'Captain America: Brave New World', which is as close as fans have got to a straight-up Hulk sequel after nearly two decades.
- Abomination (the classic Hulk villain) turned up again—first in 'Shang-Chi', then on 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law'.
- Betty Ross and the Leader are finally back too, thanks to 'Brave New World'. But it's hard to say their return lived up to the decade-plus of anticipation.
Where Have All the Eternals Gone?
If you thought Hulk's isolation was odd, Eternals have it worse. Marvel seem to have quietly shelved the entire lot after only one film. You've got a handful of cameos and nods—the Celestial Island appears in 'Brave New World'—but not a single Eternal has actually returned in person. It's what happens when a film is judged a 'flop' by the brass, and Marvel goes cold on what seemed like a major part of their cosmic plans.
What makes the whole thing baffling is that the wider MCU is still pulling in crowds, even when individual projects wobble. And yet nobody at the top seems interested in giving these characters a second chance—no spin-offs, no cameos, no quick supporting roles. It's as if they're content to let the Eternals stay in a supply closet for another ten years, the way they did with Hulk's support cast.
The Black Knight Problem
The most glaring casualty of this radio silence is Kit Harington's Dane Whitman (otherwise known as Black Knight). The last time anyone asked, the actor was suggesting Marvel had no intentions of using the character at all—an odd move, seeing as he'd be a prime fit for the supernatural stories the MCU keeps threatening to launch, especially once Ghost Rider surfaces and the rumoured 'Midnight Sons' project gathers steam.
No sign of a solo film for Black Knight. No handoffs to other crossover extravaganzas. At this stage, even a walk-on in another hero's adventure would at least move things forward—look at how Hulk and Black Widow kept evolving through the ensemble films, even without their own projects dominating the calendar.
Instead, Marvel seem more keen to revisit Fox's old X-Men actors for the hundredth time, rather than take the opportunity to get new blood established ahead of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, both slated to be absolutely mammoth in 2026.