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Quote1 He is designated the "One Above All"! Most likely the Celestial name for commander of the Fourth Host! The mission of this Host is to fulfill what these Celestials term as a fifty year judgment, and what we are witnessing now is the beginning of this work! Quote2
Zuras[src]

History

Origin[]

Zuras, like every Eternal, was created by the Celestials one million years ago and has looked after humanity ever since.[9][6]

Around 500,000 years ago,[10] his father Kronos managed to isolate the cosmic energy that empowered the Eternals, but the volatile containment tube shattered and exploded. The explosion transformed Kronos into a cosmic entity, but also killed all the other Eternals and brought the city of Titanos to the ground, almost destroying The Machine, the artificial intelligence that serves the Eternals.[11][6]

After being reborn in the Reactivation Chambers[12][6] the Eternals contained the anomaly generated by the explosion[6] and discovered that Kronos' experiment had increased their powers.[13] With their new abilities, the Eternals then discovered they could join their will and intelligence into one powerful entity, which they called the Uni-Mind.[14]

Leadership[]

Despite being more unified than ever before, the Eternals still disagreed on the core goals of their society. The majority of the Eternals, led by Zuras, believed that they shouldn't tinker with their cosmic potential and no new Eternal should be created. His brother A'Lars and a small fraction of their numbers believed they should keep expanding The Machine and create new Eternals, via biological and technological methods.[15][16]

About 200,000 years ago, the Eternals went to war, but eventually an agreement was reached: one solitary Llarsite was allowed to found a colony as an experiment. A'Lars was chosen and adopted the name "Mentor", before leaving Earth in direction of the lost colony of Titan.[10]

Zuras directed the construction of the new principal city of the Eternals, Olympia, in a mountainous region in Greece. Other Eternals settled elsewhere, but Zuras remained the leader of all of Earth's Eternals. At some point during his long life, Zuras took the Eternal Cybele as his wife.[1][17]

Gods[]

When the civilization of ancient Greece began to rise, the Olympian god Zeus decided to make the presence of the Olympian gods known to the Greeks so that they would worship him and the other gods. The principal nexus between the dimension of Olympus and Greece lay atop Greece's Mount Olympus, near Olympia, the capital city of the Eternals. Zeus and his daughter Athena held a meeting with Zuras and his daughter Azura. Noticing the marked physical resemblance between Zeus and Zuras and between Azura and herself, Athena suggested that the Olympian gods and the Eternals form an alliance in which the Eternals would act as the gods' representatives on Earth. Zeus, Zuras, and Azura agreed. Azura took the name of Thena as a token of this agreement. Over the many years, many human beings came to think of several Eternals not as representatives of the Olympian gods but as the gods themselves. This confusion led to a growing resentment by the gods towards the Eternals, which recently erupted into a war, during which there was a battle between Zuras and Zeus. However, the war ended the very same day that it began, and the Olympian gods and Eternals were now at peace.[18]

The Fourth Host[]

With the arrival of the Fourth Host of the Celestials, the Deviants came out of hiding and attacked New York City.[19] Alerted by Sersi's capture, Zuras ordered Makkari and Thena to defend the city.[1] Zuras knew that if the Fourth Host judged that humanity did not live up to the standards it had set for them, it would destroy the Earth. Deciding to prevent such a fate, Zuras and the Eternals decided to join the Asgardian god Odin in his attempt to drive the Celestials from Earth. So Zuras and the other Eternals of Earth merged once again into the Uni-Mind, and advanced into the South American base of the Fourth Host, where they were joined by the Destroyer. The Celestials Gammenon and Jemiah together fired powerful bolts of energy into the Uni-Mind, causing it to turn back into the various individual Eternals, who fell to Earth, temporarily unconscious. However, Zuras, whose consciousness lay at the center of the Uni-Mind, was immediately killed by the force bolt. His corpse fell to the ground with the other Eternals. The Celestials judged in Earth's favor and left the planet.[20]

Thena assumed leadership of Earth's Eternals upon the demise of Zuras, and the Eternals brought his body back to Olympia where it lay in state. However, although Zuras had physically died, his consciousness still remained within his physical form. Shortly after the Eternals returned to Olympia, they were captured by the Deviants, who used devices called "brain mines" to place them all in catatonic-like states. James Rhodes, who was then operating as Iron Man, placed Thena's body near Zuras' in an effort to free her from this state. Thena and Zuras thereby achieved mental contact, and Thena revived. Shortly thereafter, the Deviants used a machine to disassociate the atoms of Zuras' body, so that Zuras was now truly dead at last. Rhodes and the Eternals defeated and captured the Deviants shortly afterwards.[21]

Apparently, however, Zuras could still manifest himself on the Earthly plane. His spirit seemingly appeared when the Eternal Ikaris battled Thena, who was then unknowingly under the influence of a Deviant "brain mine," for the right to be the Prime Eternal of Earth.[22]

Revival[]

Zuras was revived by the Eternal Sprite from a machine beneath Olympia that reformed the bodies of deceased Eternals with their memories and held them in stasis. Sprite tricked Zuras and Ajak into forming a Uni-Mind powered by the Dreaming Celestial to rewrite reality making the Eternals all human. In the end, Zuras was restored to his Eternal form and power. He killed Sprite in retribution for his meddling and resumed leadership of the Eternals. Sprite stated Zuras was the most powerful of the Eternals.[23]

Death[]

When the countless bodies of Celestials rained down on the Earth to herald the arrival of the Dark Celestials, the Eternals learned a dark truth that drove them mad: that the true purpose of their kind was to cultivate humankind, since the First Host of Celestials allowed humanity to thrive because they saw in their genetic makeup the potential to act as antibodies against the Horde. In their madness, the Eternals either turned against each other or committed suicide, including Zuras.[5]

After the mass suicidal event causing all the Eternals die after learning the truth of their being, they were all rebirthed at once due to their eternal (both species and longevity-wise) nature, including Zuras. After Ikaris was the last to be resurrected, Zuras tasked him with freeing Sprite (now reborn as a young woman). After the pair returned to Olympia, they learned that Zuras had been murdered by having his skull crushed, apparently by the newly resurrected Thanos.[6]

Zuras couldn't be resurrected at first because the resurrection chamber of the Eternals had been secretly damaged by Phastos.[16][24] Ikaris was able to repair the machines through matter manipulation, but it resulted in his death. Zuras and Ikaris were then both resurrected, and Zuras arranged a meeting with the other Eternals and learned that Phastos had set loose Thanos and damaged the chamber in a plot to end Eternals after discovering that every time an Eternal was resurrected, a human life was taken in return. Zuras stated that that the topic would be discussed in the Uni-Mind, but some Eternals doubted that the issue would be resolved.[25]

Zuras later formed the Uni-Mind to debate the issue as well as vote for a new Prime Eternal. To Zuras' surprise, Thanos appeared and joined the Uni-Mind. This allowed Thanos to be voted the new Prime Eternal. After the Uni-Mind dissipated, Zuras fought Thanos but was quickly killed by Thanos.[7]

Zuras was again resurrected by the Machine but Thanos had him temporarily restrained in the Exclusion for his open revolt against the Uni-Mind.[8]

Attributes

Powers

Earth-Eternal Physiology: Zuras possessed the conventional attributes of his race as well as many special abilities developed through millennia of rigorous discipline.

  • Invulnerability: Like that of all Eternals, Zuras' life force was augmented by cosmic energy, and, like all Eternals, he had total mental control of his physical form-and bodily processes even when he was asleep or unconscious. As a result, he was virtually immortal, immune to disease and aging (Zuras stopped noticeably aging when he reached adulthood), and invulnerable to conventional forms of injury. If Zuras was injured somehow (apart from the injury that finally killed him), he could regenerate any damaged or missing tissue. As an Eternal, Zuras would only die through an injury that dispersed a significant portion of his body molecules, or if he was fatally injured after his mental control over his body was somehow broken. Cosmic energy bolstered Zuras' metabolism so that he did not tire from any physical exertion. He could resist temperature extremes through mental concentration.
  • Flight: Like all Eternals, Zuras could levitate himself by mentally manipulating gravitons (subatomic particles carrying the force of gravitational attraction between atoms) around himself. He could also levitate other persons and objects while simultaneously levitating himself. Zuras could fly via self-levitation at approximately 850 miles per hour (1.1 times the speed of sound), a rate of speed most other Eternals cannot match.
  • Cosmic Energy Manipulation: Zuras was more powerful and accomplished in the Eternal discipline of projecting cosmic energy from his body than any other Eternal during his lifetime. He could project cosmic energy in the form of beams from his eyes or beams and flashes from his hands. This cosmic energy, stored in specialized enclaves of cells in his body, could be used as concussive force as well as electricity, heat, light, and possibly other forms of electromagnetic energy. The belts of electrical energy that Zuras fired resembled lightning. Zuras could project a maximum concussive force of at least 350 pounds per square inch. He could project heat of a maximum temperature of at least 4000 Fahrenheit. It took about one minute for him to achieve this maximum temperature. Because Zuras' heat beams could vaporize solid objects, they were often called disintegrator beams. The maximum effective range for his energy beams was at least 300 feet. Zuras could also project cosmic energy around his body so as to form a protective force shield. The expenditure of cosmic energy in the ways listed above continually for several hours would temporarily deplete Zuras' physical strength, but not his resistance to injury, although it would temporarily increase his sensitivity to pain. He would rapidly return to normal after such lengthy energy expenditure was over. Zuras' abilities to manipulate cosmic energies allowed him to compete on a level close to the Olympian god Zeus.
  • Matter Manipulation: Zuras could psionically manipulate atoms and molecules so as to transform an object's shape. He was a fourth-level adept on a five level scale (the fifth being the highest) at this discipline.
  • Telepathy: Zuras had low-level psychic abilities which allowed him to engage in simple short-range telepathic communication with other persons and to scan the superficial thoughts of any human or Eternal mind less adept than his own. He could mentally create illusions as well.
  • Teleportation: Zuras could teleport himself or other individuals' psionically, but, like other Eternals, found the Eternal method of teleportation physically unpleasant. The limit of his teleportation power's range was unknown.
  • Uni-Mind Initiation: As the Prime Eternal, Zuras was capable of initiating the creation of the Uni-Mind, the collective life form resulting from the physical and mental merging of a significant number of Eternals, by himself. He would do so by causing cosmic energy that took visible form as blue flame to erupt from his head. The "flame" would then envelop his entire body as the body turned to pure psionic energy. The other Eternals would then merge with the "flame," transforming into psionic energy as they did so, their consciousnesses all merging into one. Thus the Uni-Mind was formed.

See Also

Links and References

References

Prime Eternal

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