How Eternals Made Makkari's Super Speed Different From DC's the Flash

The Eternals arrive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe this November with their variety of godlike powers. At least one of the characters, the speedster Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), has capabilities comparable to one of DC's Justice League members. Her super-speed could draw comparisons to The Flash, who had a big weekend at DC FanDome ahead of his upcoming solo film. ComicBook.com went to the Eternals set in January 2020 and talked to the film's producer, Nate Moore. He discussed Makkari and some of the other Eternals and their powers. He explained how the movie differentiated Makkari from DC's fastest man alive.

"In another gender swap, Lauren Ridloff plays Makkari, the fastest woman in the universe, who is so fast in fact that she breaks the sound barrier every time she uses her power, which actually doesn't affect her because she also happens to be deaf," Moore explains. "Some of the characters do have powers you've seen before. We've talked about Makkari's super speed. Obviously, there's a very famous DC character who runs very fast. So for us, it's how do we express that visually in ways that are different. And again, we think the notion that each Eternal is powered by cosmic energy can be fun as a visual thing to play with. So, in this case, you see the cosmic energy particle surrounding her. You see sort of that leading edge of the sonic concussive blast that she can use in battle that makes her a bit different than what you've seen before. And again, that motif of cosmic energy that sort of encases our heroes, you'll see in everyone else's powers."

Moore went into more detail about some of the other characters in the film and how their powers appear. For example, Ikaris is another character who could draw comparisons to one of DC's Justice League.

"Ikaris is a character whose powers you have seen before, obviously there's a lot of similarities to Superman," Moore says. "So how do we make his cosmic eye beams something that aren't sort of the red lasers that we've sort of come to know and have become iconic for that character? And again, it's all about for us, the cosmic energy really leaning into that. But our heroes are only as good as our villains and the Deviants are obviously, hugely important in the story, creating villain or frankly creatures who look different than what you've seen before was a real challenge for our design team. We think they've done a really good job of at least from a texture standpoint and a shape standpoint, creating villains that are distinct and unique."

What do you think? Let us know in the comments. Eternals opens in theaters on November 5th.