In the time before, I once wrote about the Eternals. I had a big breakdown that discussed the characters’ origins, powers, and even what direction I thought their upcoming movie would go in. With a particular leaked image of an unreleased toy for a still-unannounced character from the film, I thought it might be time to talk about the Eternals once more. Typically, I don’t discuss toys and what that might mean for upcoming movies because sometimes a toy is just a toy, and I’d rather wait for something with a little bit more meat on the bone. In this particular case, however, this leaked image gives us a pretty good idea at just what to expect when we finally see the big bad on February 12 when the movie releases.

Based on this article’s title, you’re probably wondering where the overreaction is, and to that, I would say, don’t worry; it’s coming. Before I can do that, though, I suppose I should quickly explain just who Kro is. Because everything attached to the Eternals story is pretty insane, I’ll sum him up as fast as I can. A long time ago, the Universe made a group called the Celestials, and then they eventually started traveling the Universe performing experiments on the different races they would come across. On their journey across the stars, the Celestials came across Earth. They started performing Mankind experiments, causing the species to split into three groups: the regular lame people, the Eternals, and the Deviants. While the Eternals are a crew of super hotties, the Deviants are a bunch of Elephant men walking around angry and bummed that they’re not as attractive as the Eternals. These two groups fight for supremacy, while the lame humans are stuck in the middle, just trying not to die. A lot more happens between now and then, but eventually, we land in the modern-day Marvel Universe where no one even knows this stuff ever happened.

Now back to Kro. He’s one of the Deviants I mentioned. Well, not just one of, but THE Deviant. On top of having super strength, Kro can do a little shape-shifting, and because of the different mutations he received at birth, he is a lot older than all of the other Deviants. Kro’s old enough to have seen the Deviant empire fall over 20 thousand years ago. He’s like Batman, but instead of losing his parents, he lost an entire empire.

So, about that, overreaction. Hold on because it’s going to take some turns you probably weren’t expecting. For those of you who may not know, Thanos, at least in the comics, is also a Deviant. Because of this information, when I saw the toy for Kro, I was pretty disappointed with what it potentially meant for the Eternals movie. Before I go any further, let me say that I can’t wait for this movie. Everything I’ve ever read about the Eternals makes it seem like this is going to be the most insane Marvel ever released. Do you remember when I mentioned the Universe making angels who then went on to make humankind? Kro’s possible look gives me flashbacks to the first Avengers movie, where we saw our heroes fighting generic alien creatures. While Thanos isn’t a human turned Deviant, he is a Deviant, and while every Deviant has a distinct look, it would have been great for Kro to keep his appearance from the comics. Doing this would have made the connection to Thanos more apparent. Why is this possible connection meaningful, though?

At the end of Dragon Ball Z’s Namek Saga (I told you this was going places), we saw all of our heroes give their all to defeat the evil Frieza. Even with all of the characters we had grown to care about grew in strength during their time on the alien planet, they were no match for the evil alien. It wasn’t until the loss of a loved one pushed Goku’s rage to a level he’d never experienced before that gave him the power to defeat this foe. To the surprise of every 12-year-old watching Toonami at the time, this wasn’t the end of Frieza. With his nearly lifeless body drifting through the darkness of space, his father discovered his remains and rebuilt his son. Once recovered from the procedure, Frieza and his father prepared for an all-out attack on Earth.

With Goku not having made it back to Earth, the other Z Warriors would be at the mercy of Frieza and his father, that is, until a mysterious time traveler named Trunks arrived. To the surprise of everyone, Trunks was able to defeat Frieza and his father in only a matter of minutes. What once seemed nearly impossible was a walk in the park for this character, which is where my comparisons between Dragon Ball Z and the MCU can finally begin.

The last time we saw our heroes fight a Deviant, it took everything they had to defeat him. Yes, Thanos had the infinity gauntlet, but back to before that ever happened. When Thanos fought the Hulk one on one, he defeated the Hulk with ease and without the Infinity Gauntlet’s help. On top of that, while Kro doesn’t have the gauntlet, he does bring powers and weapons to the table that Thanos couldn’t that would make him a formidable opponent for anyone in the MCU. Now imagine after all of this build-up to this new powerful foe, the Immortals defeated him with ease. This moment would establish a pecking order in the MCU. Audience members who didn’t read the comics would immediately be able to connect the dots. From this moment on, everyone would know that even though Captain Marvel can go super saiyan, the Eternals are the strongest heroes that we’ve seen to date.

With Kro’s potential change to being just a generic alien monster, I worry that this connection will be lost or, even worse, not mentioned at all in the movie. Sure, I’d never heard of Kro before this story broke, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve better. A better Kro today means a better Eternals for tomorrow. With that said, except for a couple of moments, the MCU has never really let me down. I’m sure this movie will be fantastic, and even though I won’t be able to see it in theaters in February because, well, America, I will be waiting with bated breath to see it when it comes to my local streaming service.

Thank you for checking out this article. Hopefully, you aren’t one of those out there taking this story too seriously, since the whole point of comics and comic book movies are to have fun. If you were nice enough to get this far in the article, I’d love to know what you think about the character’s redesign or if you’ve ever even heard of Kro before. Seriously, I did an entire breakdown on the Eternals a while back, and I never saw his name mentioned once. I’d love to hear from people who know who Kro is.