A new trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder showed us many of the wonders hidden in the highly-anticipated sequel, including Jane’s (Natalie Portman) Mighty Thor upgraded powers, Christian Bale’s villain Gorr, and Chris Hemsworth fully naked. However, a blink-and-you-might-miss moment might also be teasing some of Marvel Comics' most powerful cosmic beings who are ready to jump into theaters. At a particular moment in the upcoming film, Jane will be channeling lightning in a dark hall filled with mysterious statues. Each of the five statues shown in the trailer represents a Marvel Comics cosmic entity, beings so powerful that they can bend reality to their will. But who are the five cosmic entities in the new Thor: Love and Thunder trailer? And what could their appearance mean for the MCU?
Uatu, the Watcher
By now, every MCU fan can recognize Uatu, the Watcher, a cosmic entity responsible for keeping the registry of everything that happens in the different timelines. In Marvel Comics, there’s one separate Watcher for each timeline, a fact that was teased in a post-credits scene from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. In the scene, Marvel legend Stan Lee is seen talking to multiple Watchers on an alien planet. Since then, the MCU retconned the Watchers' origin by giving Uatu a massive upgrade. As we learn in the animated series What If…?, Uatu is a single entity responsible for watching every different timeline simultaneously. While Uatu is not supposed to intervene with the events of each timeline, as tragic as they might be, the cosmic being ends up putting a team together in What If…? to prevent Infinity Ultron from conquering the Multiverse.
The Watchers were created by Lee and Jack Kirby for 1963’s Fantastic Four #13 as a race of advanced aliens who try to gather all the information of the Multiverse. That’s why the Watchers observe the multiple timelines from the Nexus of All Realities. In Earth-616, Uatu’s appearance also signals a significant event is about to happen, as the Watcher can only be seen in the sky when a world-changing conflict is brewing. Now that Uatu is part of MCU canon, thanks to What If…?, we’re bound to see more of the bald alien in future films.
The Living Tribunal
Created by Lee and Marie Severin for 1967’s Strange Tales #157, the Living Tribunal is the cosmic personification of multiversal law. The Living Tribunal is also the direct representative of the One Above All, Marvel Comics’ version of an all-powerful god. While Marvel has hundreds of gods, the One Above All is said to be the creator of all there is, whose power transcends the limits of human (and alien) comprehension. That makes the Living Tribunal the highest authority in the Multiverse. The Living Tribunal has existed as long as the Multiverse itself and is called to solve any conflict that threatens to put reality at risk. Basically, the Living Tribunal is called whenever a big enough threat to the entire Multiverse shows up.
While other cosmic entities of Marvel Comics are representations of a single universe, the Living Tribunal presides over the entire Multiverse, making him practically omnipotent. Just as an example, the Living Tribunal is so powerful that it can nullify the Infinity Stones' effects by his will alone. With the MCU exploring the Multiverse in many films and TV shows, we expect the Living Tribunal to show up soon enough.
Lady Death
Lady Death is a fan-favorite cosmic entity with a long comic book history with both Thanos and Deadpool. In comic books, Thanos is madly in love with Lady Death, which is why he kills half the life in the universe, in her homage. Lady Death, however, is in love with Deadpool. Because of that, Thanos curses Deadpool with eternal life so that he can never truly die and cross dimensions to Death’s domain. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for too long, as Deadpool and Lady Death get married. Yep, things are a lot crazier in comic books.
In the MCU, we already had the film version of the Infinity War, and it didn’t involve Lady Death. However, that doesn’t prevent her from showing up in future Marvel Studios productions. Created by Kirby and Joe Simon for 1941’s Marvel Mystery Comics #21, Death was born alongside the universe and is the embodiment of destruction. While that might sound ominous, destruction is needed to maintain balance, making Lady Death one of the fundamental forces keeping the universe together. In addition, Lady Death is the counterpart of Eternity, another cosmic entity that embodies creation, allowing life to keep existing in the universe.
Infinity
Created by Lee and John Buscema for 1991’s Quasar #24, Infinity is one of the latest cosmic entities in Marvel Comics. Infinity is the sister of Eternity and embodies the expansion of time-space itself. That means Infinity can manipulate reality to her will. Both Infinity and Eternity are considered the most powerful entities of any universe, surpassed only by the multiversal powers of the Living Tribunal. And just like Eternity has Death as his counterpart, Infinity is opposed by Oblivion, another cosmic entity working for forgetfulness and the erasure of the universe. All these cosmic beings keep the universe balanced.
Eon
Eon is an offspring of Eternity and a cosmic being related to the concept of Time. Eon tries to keep the flow of time from its own dimension, the Eonverse, but he frequently chooses Protectors of the Universe to act on its behalf. In the comic books, the original Captain Marvel is one of these Protectors of the Universe, whose powers come from energy-manipulating devices called Quantum Bands. While the MCU retconned the origin of Captain Marvel’s powers, there is still another hero that could show up as Protectors of the Universe: Quasar.
The upcoming Ms. Marvel series also changes the heroine’s powers for the MCU, giving Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) a pair of wristbands that can manipulate light itself. Maybe these artifacts are the MCU version of the Quantum Bands, opening the door for Eon’s introduction. Also, with Loki and the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania dealing with time manipulation, Eon might have to intervene in the MCU sooner than later. Eon was created by Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin for 1974’s Captain Marvel #28.