The latest issue of “Avengers” depicts the latest embarrassing failure of one of the Celestials, who are hailed as Marvel’s god characters.
Warning: The following article contains spoilers from Avengers #40 by Jason Aaron, Javier Garron, David Curiel, and VC’s Cory Petit, on sale now.
The Celestials are one of the Marvel universe’s oldest and most awe inspiring inhabitants. At least, they used to be. It seems that with greater and greater frequency the Celestials are proving incapable of maintaining their spot at the top of Marvel’s hierarchy, occasionally slipping down from the top of the food chain. For a race of cosmic gods who have guided the evolution of near infinite species across countless worlds, there might not be anything more disappointing than being used as a pawn in your greatest nemesis’ army. Then again, the Avengers are nothing if not resourceful, which is yet another unfortunate factor for the Celestials’ reputation.
Responsible for setting in motion the evolution of humanity and all other life on Earth, not to mention crafting the Eternals to cultivate humanity for them, the Celestials are nearly incomprehensible in their power. The Celestials were brought into creation by the first iteration of existence itself, the First Firmament, which existed as the sole universe in Marvel history at a time before time. The Celestials fought their brethren for a chance to see their own creations grow along with the universe, leading to a war that resulted in the birth of the multiverse as we know it.
As the Celestials continued bringing life into existence, the light of their creation disrupted the peaceful and quiet slumbering of Knull within the void, and in retaliation he created the living darkness from his own shadow to slay one of them. A single stroke of his blade is all that it took for Knull to lop the head off of one of Marvel’s greatest gods, turning it into the forge where he would refine his techniques before going on to launch a violent campaign of conquest against the entire universe.
One Celestial would not be enough to satiate Marvel’s King in Black, whose arrival on Earth was announced not only by his army of symbiote dragons, but by three Celestials claimed as his own. As one of the universe’s oldest evils, it’s not necessarily surprising that he was able to overpower something as incredible as the Celestials. Mister Sinister was able to accomplish a similar feat when he gained control of the Dreaming Celestial Tiamut. As bad as all that is, it isn’t just the worst of Marvel’s villains who are repurposing the universe’s greatest gods.