WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Eternals, now in theaters.
Eternals features a team of ageless beings that come to Earth to protect humanity from the monstrous Deviants. Most of the Eternals share names with famous mythological figures, being the inspiration for said figures in-universe. The Eternal Thena, for example, became known as the Goddess of War in Greece and came to be called Athena by the Greeks.
Ikaris, the strongest of the Eternals, also shares his name with a figure from Greek mythology, Icarus. Like his namesake, Ikaris possesses the power of flight and often flies without worry or fear. Unlike the legendary goddess Athena, however, Icarus had a much more troubled ending to his story.
In the original Greek myth, Icarus was the son of craftsman and Labyrinth creator Daedalus. Daedalus and Icarus landed in hot water after Daedalus aided the Greek hero Theseus in surviving the Minotaur. After King Minos of Crete imprisoned the pair, Daedalus made wings out of wax and feathers for him and his son to escape with. Before flying off, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun or risk the wax melting. Overcome by the joy of flying, Icarus did just that. He plummeted into the sea below, where he drowned.
The comic version of Ikaris played a direct part in the myth. While living in ancient Greece, he married a human woman and had a son with her named Ikaris. The Eternal often took his son flying with him, even having Phastos build a flying device so the boy could fly on his own. When the father had to leave to fight Deviants and didn’t return, his son used the flying device to look for his father. Ikaris passed out from soaring too high into the atmosphere. Like his Greek counterpart, the sun burned out his wings and he fell into the sea where he died. When he returned, the Eternal then adopted his son’s name in tribute and his original name has never been revealed.
In Eternals, Sersi stated Sprite made up the story of Icarus based on her favorite Eternal when the group was living in Athens. She seemed to have made up the story as a prank on Ikaris. Instead of having a son also named Ikaris, the flying Eternal simply served as inspiration for the famous myth due to his ability to fly.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ikaris does share a major similarity with his Greek namesake, though. At the end of Eternals, overcome by his killing of Prime Eternal Ajak and his failure to carry out the Celestial Arishem’s design, Ikaris left the Earth in shame. He then flew straight into the sun, ending his own life.
Ikaris and Icarus each ignored the warnings of their parental figures, Ajak and Daedalus respectively. Although Ikaris ended his life purposely instead of by accident like Icarus, his ending still reflects how he symbolically “flew too close to the sun” by betraying his family. Ikaris fought against the other Eternals and nearly destroyed his family and the planet in the process. Although Sprite didn’t know at the time, her story served as an ominous premonition of Ikaris’ fate.
To see Ikaris fulfill his mythological destiny, Eternals is now playing in theaters.
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