Barry Keoghan Makes A Startling Claim About Whether Druig Could Defeat Thanos

It's the question on everyone's minds: If the Eternals are so powerful and have been on Earth for thousands of years, why didn't they fight Thanos? With the addition of the Eternals' power, the Avengers might have stopped The Blip from ever wiping out half of the universe's population.

Marvel's "Eternals" makes sure to answer this question right in the trailer, as Sersi (Gemma Chan) says they were instructed not to interfere with any human conflicts unless the monstrous creatures known as Deviants were involved. The ten immortal Eternals were sent to Earth by the Celestials, and, up until this 2021 movie, they play their part as dutiful soldiers to the cosmic beings while going largely unnoticed by the rest of the MCU. After discovering that a Celestial is about to kill all humans through the Emergence, though, most of the Eternals rebel against their creators.

Now, say that revelation and subsequent rebellion had happened a few years earlier. The Eternals might have felt a little more inclined to hop in with the assist when Thanos arrived on Earth. What would have happened then? Would they have stopped The Blip? Well, "Eternals" actor Barry Keoghan, who plays the mind-controlling Druig, has an answer.

In an interview with Comicbook.com, Barry Keoghan made the bold claim that "[Druig] could beat [Thanos] with his hands. He doesn't need mind control. Druig is a pretty good boxer as well." Thanos, after all, is just another Eternal to Druig and his cohorts. They share the same superhuman strength, agility, and endurance. In a fistfight, they might be on fairly equal grounds.

Druig, however, is best known for his ability to control the minds of others and make them do what he wants. In the movie, he implies that he has the power to control the minds of every human on Earth — if he wanted to do so. Thanos, on the other hand, is made nigh-invincible by the six Infinity Stones he collects and then wields. If Thanos had the Infinity Stones at his disposal, he almost certainly would be able to beat Druig in a fight. Still, the whole point of "Avengers: Infinity War" is trying to stop the purple Eternal from acquiring all of the stones, so Druig and his team likely would have succeeded in stopping him before he collected them all.

Well, we might never see Thanos again. But, with his brother, Eros (played by Harry Styles), stepping into the MCU ring as of the first "Eternals" end credit scene, we'll at least see how his skills stack up against the rest of the Eternals.