Warning! Spoilers for Eternals: The Heretic #1 ahead!
The Eternals are all-powerful creatures, gifted with immortality and superhuman faculties. One of them, however, ascended way above the level of the rest of his species and became similar to a god. Finally, Marvel has unveiled the details of Kronos‘ past and his origins.
A race of superhuman immortal beings created by the space gods known as Celestials, the Eternals’ purpose is to watch over humanity and ensure its continued survival and evolution. The Celestials created only one hundred Eternals on Earth, but due to internal conflict, some of them migrated to other planets. The most important Eternal colony off-Earth is on Titan, where the Eternal A’lars took refuge after a schism that put him in contrast with his brother Zuras. However, when the Titans were first introduced in Marvel Comics in 1972, in Iron Man vol. 1 #55 by Jim Starlin and Mike Friedrich, they were not related to the Eternals. They were a highly advanced alien civilization that had spawned one dangerous individual, Thanos, the son of A’lars. To stop him, the leader of the Titans petitioned his god, a mysterious figure known as Kronos, who created Drax the Destroyer with the purpose of ending Thanos’ threat.
Over the years it would be established that Kronos is actually an Eternal, and now Eternals: The Heretic #1 by Kieron Gillen, Ryan Bodenheim, Edgar Salazar, and Chris O’Halloran reveals that he is one of the most important and powerful Eternals in history. Kronos was revealed to be an Eternal in”The First Eternals,” a story by Ralph Macchio, Rich Buckler, and Chic Stone, appearing in What If…? vol. 1 #24 in 1980. He led his people together with his brother Uranos, but the two disagreed on the course the Eternals should take on Earth, and war broke out. After Uranos’ defeat, Kronos became the sole leader of the Eternals and devoted himself to scientific research until an experiment with cosmic energy went wrong. The capital city of Titanos was destroyed, together with Kronos’ body, but his spirit ascended to a higher state, becoming one with the concept of time.
In Avengers vol. 1 #247 by Roger Stern, Allen Milgrom, and Christie Scheele, the connection between the Eternals and the Titans was finally established, revealing that A’lars was Kronos’ son and Zuras’ brother, which explained how Kronos ended up being the god of Titan. A’lars left Earth to avoid conflict with his brother, arrived on Titan where he found Sui-San, a follower of Uranos and the last survivor of a destroyed civilization, and married her. Together they used their genetic material to found a new species of Eternal-derived beings, the Titans, and with the help of Kronos conceived two children, Eros and Thanos.
A new wrinkle to the history has been added. It is revealed in Eternals: The Heretic #1 that originally there were three patriarchs for the Eternals: Kronos, Uranos, and Oceanus. Each of them possessed powers and faculties above those of their fellow Eternals, and each led a dynasty of their “descendants.” Uranos wanted to purge all non-Eternal life in the Universe, so his brothers went to war and imprisoned him. After that, Kronos’ incident occurred and he became a godlike being, but his original form was resurrected by the Eternals and punished for the crime of “auto-deification.” Kronos now exists both as a cosmic entity and as a regular Eternal, imprisoned in the Exclusion (the Eternals’ prison).
When Jim Starlin created Thanos, Kronos, and A’lars for his first Marvel story back in 1972, he could not imagine that the Titans’ backstory could become so intricate and connected to that of the Eternals, who were created by Jack Kirby only four years later. Kronos started as an unfathomable cosmic god, and has now become one of the Three Patriarchs and, thanks to his ascension, the most powerful Eternal to ever exist.
