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When the first full-length trailer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Eternals dropped, a lot of people were quick to jump on the bandwagon and blast Richard Madden’s Ikaris for being a thinly-veiled imitation of Superman, given his ability to fly and shoot laser beams from his eyes.
While there are definitely a couple of superficial similarities between the two, producer Nate Moore admitted that the creative team were deliberately seeking a way to prevent it from happening during the development process, in an effort to get ahead of the inevitable criticisms that would come from the diehards.
Given the social media activity surrounding his skills, it’s clear the studio didn’t achieve a 100% success rate, but in a set interview with ScreenRant he revealed how they sought to work around the issue.
“Ikaris’ powers you have seen before, obviously there’s a lot of similarities to Superman. So how do we make his cosmic eyebeams that aren’t the red lasers that we’ve come to know and have become iconic for that character? For us, it’s all about the cosmic energy and really leaning into that.”
Plenty of superheroes can fly and shoot frickin’ laser beams from their frickin’ eyeballs, but Superman is one of the most recognizable characters on the face of the planet, so any other comic book figure with even the vaguest resemblance will be held up against the Big Blue Boy Scout.
We’ll see Ikaris in action when Eternals comes to theaters on November 5, where any dismissive comparisons to the Man of Steel will hopefully be consigned to the scrapheap.