Snap Into Marvel!– Time To Learn If Phastos Is As Good As He Looks On Paper

First Comic Book Appearance: The Eternals (vol. 2) #1 (October 1985)

First Multimedia Appearance: Eternals (2021), played by Brian Tyree Henry

Powers & Abilities: In addition to the usual stuff shared by all the Eternals, Phastos possesses a keen engineering mind, including the ability to both craft new things and intuitively understand how existing things work. 

Comic Book Chronicles

Phastos is the first Eternal to be featured in this season of Marvel Snap to not debut in the original Jack Kirby Eternals series. Instead, Phastos was introduced in the mid 80s Eternals series from the recently-departed Peter Gillis and artist Sal Buscema. Perhaps not coincidentally, Phastos is also this season’s Eternal with the thinnest comic book CV. 

Mistaken in ancient times for the Greek god Hephaestus (and the Roman god Vulcan), Phastos is the Eternals’ “tech guy”. After his debut, he appeared alongside the rest of the Eternals in all the usual places. Abhorring war, he refused to join the fight against the Deviants in the miniseries which introduced him. Despite that, he later operated as the superhero “Ceasefire” as part of the copyright-maintaining New Eternals one-shot in 2000.

In the Neil Gaiman miniseries that established Makkari’s connection to the Dreaming Celestial, Phastos was reborn as an automobile engineer in Germany. In an early 2010s X-Men story, Phastos was established as having provided life-saving armor for a race of beings known as the Evolutionaries. Existing before humanity on the evolutionary tree, the Evolutionaries, protected by Phastos’ armor, helped pave the way for the rise of homo sapiens. In a 2014 New Warriors story, Phastos fought alongside the titular heroes and his fellow Eternals against the High Evolutionary.

But Phastos’ comic book heyday is likely in the fifth and latest volume of Eternals, by Kieron Gillen and Essad Ribic. In it, a group of Eternals are devastated to learn that their continual resurrections come at the cost of human lives. Over the course of the story, it is revealed that Phastos is the Eternal who first discovered this secret, having examined the machine which carries out the resurrections.

Furthermore, it is Phastos who resurrects the mad Eternal Thanos in an effort to stop the resurrection process once and for all. Being the in-universe agent of revelation for the biggest reimagining of the Eternals status quo in their history is easily the highlight of Phasto’s comic book history. 

Fit & Finish

Thanks to his relatively light comic book bio, Phastos is the one Eternal this season I don’t terribly mind debuting in Marvel Snap via his MCU form. It also helps that Brian Tyree Henry’s portrayal of Phastos is one of the highlights of the film.

Playing the first superpowered gay character in the MCU, Henry brings a good humor and warmth to his portrayal of Phastos that makes the character one of the more relatable ones in the film. He also plays a key role in the climactic battle between Ikaris and the Eternals unwilling to sacrifice Earth to birth a Celestial. In a fight that plays like a version of Superman vs. the Justice League, Phastos is the Batman to Ikaris’ Superman, using a variety of different tools, gadgets and weapons he’s created to fight a flying, superstrong, eyebeam-wielding foe.  

Yet ironically enough, Marvel Snap Phastos really looks more like his comic book counterpart than Brian Tyree Henry – even as the “off duty” variant seems to be specifically channeling the gag in the film where Ikaris’ breaks Phastos’ IKEA table. Despite having fewer iconic comic book looks than Sersi or Makkari or even Gilgamesh, this is the card that more faithfully represents the character’s comic book look.

Form & Function

While “good at building stuff” is a tough skill to translate into a card game, Phastos’ ability to boost the power of other cards is at least consistent with similar “builds stuff good” cards like Forge. Plus, coin flip outcomes — either boosting the power of each card in your deck or reducing its costs — is of a piece with the more random elements of fellow Eternal Sersi, while also making him more a card that needs other cards to make him worth playing, just like Gilgamesh, Thena, and Sersi. 

Before the season started, Phastos was the card I was most excited to try out. On paper, he looked to be the card to beat this month. Since then, Gilgamesh has revitalized the Zoo archetype, Thena has proven herself a bedrock card in any deck looking to build points early, and Sersi has given a boost to Negative decks while also just being kind of fun (and Makkari, while not as defining as their peers, seems a worthy addition to Silver Surfer decks, as expected).

Ironically, Phastos may turn out to be a good card, but not a definitive one. Like Makkari, as a three cost card, he seems an obvious fit into a Silver Surfer deck, a combo Sera and Nakia that can boost the power or decrease the cost of the remaining cards in your deck while also being able to be boosted by Silver Surfer. 

But the fact is, nearly every deck could benefit from Phastos. Mr. Negative decks. Bounce decks. Zoo decks. Discard and Destroy decks don’t benefit from reduced costs or increased powers to the extent of Surfer deck, but they also aren’t going to mind playing bigger cards or cheaper cards earlier. Which means that, while Phastos may not become a key element of a particular archetype, he could end up being an ever present, archetype-independent card. Someone like Hope, who doesn’t have a particular home, but can be slotted into a lot of decks anytime you want to boost your power or speed up your curve.

At the same time, it remains to be seen if he makes a big enough difference to make him better than whatever card you have to shove out to make room. And outside a Surfer deck (where he could still get boosted), he’s pretty much a dead draw if he waits til turn 5 or 6 to appear. All told, it seems likely that Phastos will end up being a good-not-great card, a useful addition across the game but not the game-busting clear season-winner he appeared to be at first glance.