Ajak

Among the many people seen in the Eternals teaser, there’s also a woman dressed as a cowboy, speaking of the Eternals‘ responsibility to protect humans: that is Ajak, portrayed by Salma Hayek. Ajak is described as the most spiritual of all Eternals, as well as their leader. She’s one of the characters who changed the most in the transition from pages to screen, as the original Ajak is male to begin with, he’s Siberian despite wearing South American garbs, and he’s most definitely not the leader of the Eternals, albeit he is of central importance for all the race. Let’s take a look at the original guy.

Born from the Eternals Rakar and Amaa, Ajak grew up with his brother Arex in the hidden city of Polaria, on the Ural Mountains in Siberia. Ajak and Arex both traveled to the human world from time to time, and in one such occasions they joined a massive army of Greek heroes in what would have been known as the Trojan War: here, they became famous as Ajax the Greater and Ajax the Lesser… albeit it turned out that there really were heroes with such names, thus creating the usual confusion between Eternals and Greek gods and heroes. An occasion in which it was most definitely Ajak and not Ajax to fight was in Babylon, around 500 BC: here, he and the other Polar Eternals assisted their cousins from Olympia in battling the forces of the Deviants, who had found a new and formidable leader in Kro. He never came back to Polaria from Babylon, as he continued to travel the Earth: during one such travels, he aided the Norse god Thor in battling Dromedan, possibly the most powerful Deviant ever. Eventually, he stopped in Central America, where he became the protector and mentor of the local populations. Wanting to guide them to a more advanced and evolved state, Ajak posed as Tecumozin to the Incas, and as Quetzalcoatl to the Mayans, something that kind of offended both deities, but that was of secondary importance when the Third Host came: this was a group of Celestials, the nearly omnipotent beings who had created humans, Eternals and Deviants, and who came from time to time to assess the status of their creation, and to decide whether they had to be allowed to exist or not. In this occasion, Ajak’s importance for all life on Earth was revealed, as he was the one chosen by the Celestials to be their interpreter and communicator, delivering the space gods’ message to both Eternals and Earth’s gods. After mediating between the Eternals and the Third Host, Ajak was approached by Zuras, Earth’s most powerful Eternal.

Never the one to be caught off guard, Zuras was immediately planning his moves for the Fourth Host, the definitive one: he helped Ajak arrange a flight plan to send the Celestials back home, and then started making plans for the centuries ahead. Being the only one who could comprehend the Celestials’ language, and the only one they would speak to to begin with, Ajak accepted to put himself in suspended animation, dispersing himself into his basic atoms and resting in a secret chamber in the City of the Space Gods, hidden in the Andes Mountains. As per his agreement with Zuras, he would have been reawakened as soon as the Fourth Host arrived, so that he could once again mediate between creators and creatures without losing a single moment. Along with him, some loyal assistants were reduced to atoms and stored, waiting for centuries the time of their reawakening. Things went as planned, and centuries later Ajak and his men were awakened by Ikaris, who was accompanied by two humans, Professor Damian and his daughter Margo. Unfortunately, also other people had come to the City: some Deviants, who Ikaris swiftly disposed of, moving the battle far away from Peru, and even three agents of S.H.I.EL.D., Jeffrey Parks, Michael Stevenson and Steven Tyler. The three spies, in their clumsy attempt to stop what they saw as an alien invasion, attacked Ajak, and he was forced to reduce all three of them to atoms, locking them in storage, and concentrating on the Fourth Host as he was supposed to. As Arishem the Judge started monitoring life on Earth, Ajak started communicating with him, and remained in the City as an impenetrable energy barrier enveloped it. Along with him remained only Professor Damian, fascinated by all the knowledge Ajak could disclose to him. Immortal and mortal started an unlikely friendship based on knowledge: they would have had all the time in the world to share it, while under the judgement of the space god.

Unique even among Eternals, Ajak is a wise scholar, a highly intelligent being who consecrated his immortal life to knowledge undisclosed even to his peers. As an Eternal, he’s immortal and virtually invulnerable, he can fly and manipulate cosmic energy to a variety of purposes, including the emission of concussive, light or heat blasts, he has superhuman strength, stamina and durability, and he can manipulate the molecules of objects nearby, even if for a limited time; he’s also an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, a master of several techniques, wrestling in particular. Gifted with the ability to communicate with the Celestials, Ajak is like a prophet to his people, the only one who can hear the voice of the gods and interpret it: he has on his shoulders the responsibility to speak to the ones who can end all life on Earth, may they find it unworthy of existence, a task that could put to the test even the most solid sanity…