Kit Harington’s ‘Eternals’ Character Is a Marvel Mainstay

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The following story contains some spoilers for Marvel's Eternals.

• Eternals is now out, and while Kit Harington's role is small, he's got a big tease—and a bigger role to come.

• The movie is directed Academy Award-winner Chloé Zhao, and is the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

• Harington plays Dane Whitman, a longtime Marvel Comics hero with the alter ego of Black Knight.

Kit Harington rose to fame as part of the massive, expansive, action-packed, intrigue-filled world of Game of Thrones. Now that he's entered into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in director Chloé Zhao's Eternals, he's ready to do it all again, this time playing a character by the name of Dane Whitman, a man who eventually becomes the hero known as Black Knight.

Harington's role in Eternals as just Dane—no alter ego yet—is small, but he's charismatic and charming as always in his limited screen time. And the movie is structured, specifically, for viewers to wonder what, exactly, his deal is. Because let's be real: Marvel wasn't hiring Jon Snow to just be a regular guy.

So if you wanted to know a little more about Harington's first post-Thrones blockbuster, we've got you covered. His character goes way back in the comics, but has never reached the popularity of someone like Spider-Man or Captain America. Perhaps his entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe can change that.

Kit Harington plays Dane Whitman/Black Knight in Eternals

When it first leaked in August 2019 that Harington would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it wasn't immediately clear which movie he was signing on for, or which character he would be playing. Some speculation even wondered if perhaps he could be the MCU's new Wolverine; Harington, listed at 5'8'' on IMDB (and that's probably a bit generous) would be a lot closer to the X-Men icon's comic height (in the 5'3'' to 5'5'' range) than Hugh Jackman ever was.

Alas, this wasn't the case; Harington was revealed at the 2019 D23 Expo to be playing Dane Whitman, the third iteration of the Black Knight, in Eternals. While Whitman does sound similar to Harington's turn as Jon Snow, the actor seems to think that outside of some of the more obvious aesthetic similarities, the comparisons should mostly stop there. (Even just broadly, Whitman is a contemporary character, while Thrones is of course set in a different time and setting.)

"Now I'm going with a Marvel movie. I'm going on to play a superhero, which is cool. I don't know what I can say about it, I'm scared to sort of even mention it," Harington said during a panel back in 2019, according to Comic Book. "I'm trying to choose things as far away from Jon Snow as possible, but I'm playing a superhero and he's got a sword."

Dane Whitman's role in Eternals is small, but fruitful.

Whitman only features into a couple scenes in Eternals. We first see him working at the Natural History Museum, where it's revealed that he's now in a relationship with Eternal Sersi (who was previously in a thousands-of-years-long relationship with Richard Madden's Ikaris). The two hang out a bit, along with fellow Eternal Sprite (who appears as a young girl), before Deviants attack, and Sersi, Sprike and Ikaris save Dane and stop the Eternal. Awkward moment when Dane meets Sersi's ex- (and a fun little Thrones reunion between Jon Snow and Robb Stark). Sersi explains her life and being to Dane, who is confused.

We next see Dane just briefly on FaceTime, and then we see him again at the end of the movie, once the main conflict has been resolved. Just as he's about to tell Sersi about some of his complicated family history (more on that below), Sersi is plucked into the sky by Arishem the Judge. They'll pick that conversation up next time, I guess.

Dane is the focus of the second credits scene in Eternals as well. He's getting ready to open the Ebony Blade—the sword at the center of that complicated family history he mentioned—when an off-screen voice asked him if he was ready to do that just yet. The voice has sine been revealed, by director Chloé Zhao, to be that of Blade, the Vampire Hunter and daywalker (voiced here by Mahershala Ali, who will make his live-action debut in the future). “That was the voice of one of my favorite superheroes, Mr. Blade himself," she told Fandom. "Blade, Blade, Blade, yeah!”

Blade doesn't yet have a release date, but it now seems likely that Harington's Dane will be a part of that story—and perhaps find him officially taking on that Black Knight moniker.

Who is Dane Whitman/Black Knight in the comics?

Dane Whitman, who has the superpowered alter ego of Black Knight (and no relation to the 2001 Martin Lawrence comedy of the same name). This is an old Marvel Comics character, having first been introduced in The Avengers #47 way back in December of 1967.

The Dane Whitman Black Knight, who Harington plays in the film, is actually the third version of the character in the traditional Marvel Comics canon; the original Black Knight was a Medieval-era knight, and one of that Black Knight's descendants was a man named Nathan Garrett, who becomes a supervillain under the same name. Garrett, as it turns out, is Whitman's uncle; after he's mortally wounded during a fight with Iron Man, he gives his same gear—particularly, a mystical sword, to Whitman, and tells him to restore honor to the Black Knight name.

While he's gotten and lost some minor abilities over the decades of comics, Whitman traditionally doesn't have any powers—he's just a smart guy who's really good at swordfighting.

The character had been parts of various teams (including different forms of The Avengers, The Defenders, Ultraforce, and Heroes for Hire), but he didn't have his own solo series until 2015.

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