This article is going to dive into explanations and spoilers for the end credits scenes of Chloe Zhao’s Eternals. Bail out now if you don’t want to know crucial information, or plan to see the movie for yourself sometime in the next few days.
Chloe Zhao’s Eternals was a big-swing breath of fresh air that opened up the storytelling avenues in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in exciting ways, introducing heroes who have been on our planet (and many other planets) for 7,000 years, then pitting them against villains named Celestials that harvest the energies of entire planets. The stakes are high, and the methods in which Zhao spun this tale are delightfully different than most of the movies we have seen before in the MCU. To that end, Zhao and Marvel kept pushing the envelope in the two end-credits scenes for Eternals, pointing at exciting new directions that the series can go that are both cosmic (hey there, Harry Styles as Thanos’ brother) and grounded (Kit Harington, come on down).
For this piece, I want to explain the Kit Harington scene, and fill in details from the comics on who we expect the Game of Thrones star to play in the MCU at some point in the future. So, let’s dive into some of the top Eternals questions for Kit Harington and try our best to answer them.
Who is Dane Whitman?
In the realm of Chloe Zhao’s story, Dane Whitman (Harington) is a museum worker and expert in ancient artifacts who happens to be dating one of the Eternals, Sersi (Gemma Chan), while she poses as a human. That tweaks the character’s origins from the Marvel Comics, but understandably, so it fits into the world of the Eternals, and not the Avengers, where Whitman first was introduced.
In the comics, Whitman also is highly intelligent, though he’s from Massachusetts, and specializes in Physics. Making him an instructor in Eternals sort of fits his bill, and while he’s present for a Deviant attack in London opposite Sersi and Sprite (Lia McHugh), he essentially takes a back seat to the action once the Eternals begin their quest to reunite. In the comics, Dane Whitman eventually assumes the mantle of The Black Knight, a medieval warrior with exceptional sword skills and enhanced athleticism. But Dane wasn’t the first person to occupy the role. He’ll just be the first to be The Black Knight in the MCU. So let’s talk a bit about the character’s heritage.
Who is The Black Knight?
Dane Whitman was actually the third person to serve as The Black Knight in Marvel’s comics, and the previous two used the powers of the Knight for different reasons.
Sir Percy of Scandia was the first Black Knight, introduced way back in 1955 during the Silver Age of Atlas Comics, a predecessor of Marvel. Percy was the strongest warrior in King Arthur’s court. He’s the first character to wield the Ebony Blade, which is the massive sword that Kit Harington was looking down at during the Eternals end-credits scene. But Percy was killed in the 6th century during the fall of Camelot. The wizard Merlin cast a spell ensuring that Percy’s spirit would live on, and he often counseled Dane Whitman when the hero needed guidance.
The next person to find the Ebony Blade was Nathan Garrett, a biologist and descendant of Sir Percy, but also someone who was deemed unworthy of the Blade by Percy’s spirit. Angered by this decision, Garrett but his scientific knowledge to use to craft high-0tech weaponry and serve as The Black Knight, but being a supervillain. Over the years, Garrett became a member of the Masters of Evil, fighting the likes of Giant-Man, Thor, and Iron Man. When he is mortally wounded in battle, he confesses his true identity and long list of crimes to his nephew, Dane Whitman, who then takes over the Black Knight mantle and becomes a hero once again.
In my opinion, if Marvel is going to move forward with a Black Knight story, it’d be an excellent fit on Disney+, where exciting (but kind of second-tier heroes) explore multi-episode plots. However, there’s a major hint at the end of the Kit Harington scene that points to where we might see The Black Knight make his official debut in the MCU.
Who spoke to Kit Harington off screen?
Right before the scene ends, and Dane Whitman reaches to pick up the Ebony Blade, a voice is heard from off screen asking, “Sure you’re ready for that, Mr. Whitman?” My initial guess was that the voice belonged to Nathan Garrett, Whitman’s uncle, who would explain to Dane the legacy of the Black Knight and his powers… eventually.
But then Chloe Zhao went and let the cat out of the bag that the person speaking was Mahershala Ali, aka Blade! The daywalker has made his official debut in the MCU. Well, his voice did. Zhao told Fandom that she was given the responsibility of setting up Blade’s part in the larger MCU, saying:
You just have to wait for (his movie). I don’t know what they’re doing with the movie, but Mahershala is a treasure. It’s going to be epic.
Mahershala Ali got confirmed as the new Blade way back at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, and the movie has since hired a director (Bassam Tariq) and a writer (Stacy Osei-Kuffour). But even though Marvel has circled several release dates for upcoming projects, Blade is not one of the ones with a date. So we might have to wait a while to learn the fate of The Black Knight, and his relationship with the half-immortal vampire with a taste for revenge.
