Origin
Zuras and A’Lars were the eldest sons of Kronos the leader of the first generation of the race now known as the Eternals. Kronos was working in his laboratory in Titanos on experiments to discover the secret of immortality when he grasped a vessel containing an unknown “cosmic force” he had isolated. The vessel ruptured, causing an explosion which demolished Titanos. The explosion scattered Kronos’ atoms throughout the universe, but Kronos’ astral form, now possessing godlike intelligence and perceptions, remained on this plane of reality. The “cosmic force” released by the explosion also altered the other members of Kronos’ race, all of whom survived. Now both they and their descendants would have virtually indefinite life spans compared to those of ordinary humans, and could be killed only by means that would disperse a large proportion of their atoms. Thus the inhabitants of Titanos truly became what they are known as today, Eternals.
Mayor Story Arcs
The Eternals
Zuras and A’Lars together initiated the first creation of the Uni-Mind, a collective melding of the Eternals’ bodies, shortly thereafter. While in the form of the Uni-Mind, the Eternals determined that Zuras should be Kronos’ successor as the leader of their race. To avoid disunity among the Eternals, A’Lars who had different ideas than Zuras about what the Eternals’ goals should be, left for outer space. Eventually A’Lars settled on Saturn’s moon, Titan where he fathered the race of Titanian Eternals and became known as their leader, Mentor.
Zuras directed the construction of the new principal city of the Eternals, Olympia in a mountainous region in Greece. Other Eternals settled elsewhere, but Zuras remained the leader of all of Earth’s Eternals. At some point Zuras married a female Eternal named Cybele and they had a daughter, Azura, now known as Thena. It is not known whether they had other children as well.
When the civilization of ancient Greece began to rise, the Olympian god Zeus decided to make the presence of the Olympian gods known to the Greeks so that they would worship him and the other gods. The principal nexus between the dimension of Olympus and Greece lay atop Greece’s Mount Olympus, near Olympia the capital city of the Eternals Zeus and his daughter Athena held a meeting with Zuras and Azura who had become her father’s principal adviser. Noticing the marked physical resemblance between Zeus and Zuras and between Azura and herself, Athena suggested that the Olympian gods and the Eternals form an alliance in which the Eternals would act as the gods’ representatives on Earth. Zeus, Zuras, and Azura agreed. Azura took the name of Thena as a token of this agreement. Over the many years, many human beings came to think of several Eternals not as representatives of the Olympian gods but as the gods themselves. This confusion led to a growing resentment by the gods towards the Eternals, which recently erupted into a war, during which there was a battle between Zuras and Zeus. However, the war ended the very same day that it began, and the Olympian gods and Eternals are now at peace.
Fighting Asgard
With the arrival of the Fourth Host of the Celestials Zuras knew that if the Fourth Host judged that humanity did not live up to the standards it had set for them, it would destroy the Earth. Deciding to prevent such a fate, Zuras and the Eternals decided to join the Asgardian god Odin in his attempt to drive the Celestials from Earth. So Zuras and the other Eternals of Earth merged once again into the Uni-Mind and advanced into the South American base of the Fourth Host, where they were joined by the Destroyer. The Celestials Gammenon and Jemiah together fired powerful bolts of energy into the Uni-Mind, causing it to turn back into the various individual Eternals, who fell to Earth, temporarily unconscious. However, Zuras, whose consciousness lay at the center of the Uni-Mind, was immediately killed by the force bolt. His corpse fell to the ground with the other Eternals. The Celestials judged in Earth’s favor and left Earth.
Thena assumed leadership of Earth’s Eternals upon the demise of Zuras, and the Eternals brought his body back to Olympia where it lay in state. However, although Zuras had physically died, his consciousness still remained within his physical form. Shortly after the Eternals returned to Olympia, they were captured by the Deviants who used devices called “brain mines” to place them all in catatonic-like states. James Rhodes who was then operating as Iron Man placed Thena’s body near Zuras’ in an effort to free her from this state. Thena and Zuras thereby achieved mental contact, and Thena revived. Shortly thereafter, the Deviants used a machine to disassociate the atoms of Zuras’ body, so that Zuras was now truly dead at last. Rhodes and the Eternals defeated and captured the Deviants shortly afterwards.
Apparently, however, Zuras can still manifest himself on the Earthly plane. His spirit seemingly appeared when the Eternal Ikaris battled Thena, who was then unknowingly under the influence of a Deviant “brain mine,” for the right to be the Prime Eternal of Earth.
Neil Gaiman’s the Eternals
In Neil Gaiman’s minseries “Eternals,” Zuras was revived by the Eternal Sprite from a machine beneath Olympia that reforms the bodies of deceased Eternals with their memories and holds them in stasis. Sprite tricked Zuras and Ajak into forming a Uni-Mind powered by the Dreaming Celestial to rewrite reality making the Eternals all human. By the end of the series, Zuras was restored to his Eternal form and power. He killed Sprite in retribution for his meddling and resumed leadership of the Eternals. Sprite stated Zuras was the most powerful of the Eternals.
Powers
Invulnerability
Like that of all Eternals, Zuras’s life force was augmented by cosmic energy, and, like all Eternals, he had total mental control of his physical form-and bodily processes even when he was asleep or unconscious. As a result, he was virtually immortal, immune to disease and aging (Zuras stopped noticeably aging when he reached adulthood), and invulnerable to conventional forms of injury. If Zuras was injured somehow (apart from the injury that finally killed him), he could regenerate any damaged or missing tissue. As an Eternal Zuras would only die through an injury that dispersed a significant portion of his body molecules, or if he was fatally injured after his mental control over his body was somehow broken. Cosmic energy bolstered Zuras’s metabolism so that he did not tire from any physical exertion. He could resist temperature extremes through mental concentration.
Flight
Like all Eternals Zuras could levitate himself by mentally manipulating gravitons (subatomic particles carrying the force of gravitational attraction between atoms) around himself. He could also levitate other persons and objects while simultaneously levitating himself. Zuras could fly via self-levitation at approximately 850 miles per hour (1.1 times the speed of sound), a rate of speed most other Eternals cannot match.
Cosmic Energy Manipulation
Zuras was more powerful and accomplished in the Eternal discipline of projecting cosmic energy from his body than any other Eternal during his lifetime. He could project cosmic energy in the form of beams from his eyes or beams and flashes from his hands. This cosmic energy, stored in specialized enclaves of cells in his body, could be used as concussive force as well as electricity, heat, light, and possibly other forms of electromagnetic energy. The belts of electrical energy that Zuras fired resembled lightning. Zuras could project a maximum concussive force of at least 350 pounds per square inch. He could project heat of a maximum temperature of at least 4000 degrees fahrenheit. It took about one minute for him to achieve this maximum temperature. Because Zuras’s heat beams could vaporize solid objects, they were often called disintegrator beams. The maximum effective range for his energy beams was at least 300 feet. Zuras could also project cosmic energy around his body so as to form a protective force shield. The expenditure of cosmic energy in the ways listed above continually for several hours would temporarily deplete Zuras’s physical strength, but not his resistance to injury, although it would temporarily increase his sensitivity to pain. He would rapidly return to normal after such lengthy energy expenditure was over. Zuras’s abilities to manipulate cosmic energies allow him to compete on a level close to the Olympian god Zeus.
Matter Manipulation
Zuras could psionically manipulate atoms and molecules so as to transform an object’s shape. He was a fourth-level adept on a five level scale (the fifth being the highest) at this discipline.
Telepathy
Zuras had low-level psychic abilities which allowed him to engage in simple short-range telepathic communication with other persons and to scan the superficial thoughts of any human or Eternal mind less adept than his own. He could mentally create illusions as well.
Teleportation
Zuras could teleport himself or other individuals’ psionically, but, like other Eternals, found the Eternal method of teleportation physically unpleasant. The limit of his teleportational range is unknown.
Initiate Uni-Mind
During his lifetime Zuras was the only Eternal known to be capable of initiating the creation of the Uni-Mind, the collective life form resulting from the physical and mental merging of a significant number of Eternals, by himself. He would do so by causing cosmic energy that took visible form as blue flame to erupt from his head. The “flame” would then envelop his entire body as the body turned to pure psionic energy. The other Eternals would then merge with the “flame,” transforming into psionic energy as they did so, their consciousnesses all merging into one. Thus the Uni-Mind was formed.