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Why The MCU Loves Kingo More Than Other Eternals
Kingo has been referenced in other MCU works since his debut in Eternals, but why is the MCU showing so much love for him and not other Eternals?

Why The MCU Loves Kingo More Than Other Eternals

Eternals introduced a new superhero team of 10 members, though not all of them made it to the end, and while they all play an important role in the story, the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have a preference for Kingo. The MCU continues its expansion now that Thanos has been defeated and the original Avengers team is over, and Phase 4 is introducing new concepts, events, and characters, including a new team of superheroes in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals.

The Eternals are a group of synthetic beings created by the Celestial Arishem the Judge, who sent them to Earth centuries ago to protect it from the Deviants, their evil counterparts. Once the Deviants were defeated, the Eternals stayed on Earth waiting for a sign to return “home” and helped humanity evolve, but they weren’t allowed to interfere in their conflicts. The Eternals ended up parting ways and re-teamed many decades later after the death of their leader, Ajak (Salma Hayek), the return of the Deviants, and the fast approach of an apocalyptic event called “The Emergence”. The Eternals learned the truth about their origin and mission on Earth, which was helping the Celestial Tiamut to be born, which would lead to the destruction of the planet, and joined forces to prevent this – but not all of them took part in this, and Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) chose to return to his life as a movie star.

While they were separated, each Eternals member did their best to blend in with humans, and Kingo chose to do so by becoming a movie star. As the Eternals don’t age, Kingo posed as his own male descendants, all named the same, thus forming a Bollywood familial acting dynasty. Out of all the members of the Eternals, Kingo is the only one who lives a public life, but even though he loves humanity, he wasn’t willing to save Earth. The last time the audience saw Kingo, he was taken away by Arishem along with Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) to judge their actions and if humans were truly worth saving, but the MCU hasn’t forgotten about him, as there have been references to him in other MCU works.

When Will Kingo Return In The MCU?

Kingo was mentioned in episode 2 of Ms. Marvel when Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) is having coffee with Kamran (Rish Shah) and bonding over their love for Bollywood. Kamran asks Kamala if she has a crush on Kingo and they both share that their mothers are big fans of him, and Kamran’s mother still has a crush on Kingo Senior. In addition to this, a photo from the set of Loki season 2 revealed a poster of one of Kingo’s movies from the 1970s. As Kingo is the only Eternal who is a public figure (though his true nature is unknown to the world), it makes sense that he’s the only one who is being referenced in other MCU works, yet it’s still a bit odd that Marvel is showing so much love to just one Eternal. Eternals ended with two massive events: the birth of Tiamut (which was stopped by the rest of the Eternals but still had major consequences) and the abduction of Kingo, Sersi, and Phastos by Arishem, yet none of these have been referenced since Eternals was released.

Eternals ended on a double cliffhanger with Arishem taking the ones on Earth with him and the rest (Thena, Druig, and Makkari) coming across Eros/Starfox (Harry Styles), Thanos’ brother and fellow Eternal, so even though a sequel hasn’t been confirmed, the MCU will have to reunite with them at some point to answer all the questions it left. Kingo, then, will surely continue to appear in posters and maybe a clip of one of his movies in one or more of the MCU’s upcoming projects, but he won’t make a proper appearance again until Eternals 2.