Deviant (comics)

The Changing People, dubbed the Deviants by the Eternals, are a fictional race of humanoids appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. In the Marvel Universe, the Deviants are the end product of a series of DNA tests known as Homo descendus, created by the enigmatic alien Celestials. Their race is largely insensitive and they view all other species as a threat. They even distrust each other and often get in their own way. The Deviants first appeared in The Eternals #1 (July 1976). They are an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth instigated by the alien Celestials, and wage war against their counterparts, the Eternals. While the Eternals possess godlike power and are generally physically beautiful, the Deviants (who sometimes refer to themselves as 'the Changing People') are for the most part hideous, with each member of their race possessing some random physical or cosmetic mutation that is by Celestial design never repeated within the sub-species. Extremely mutated or deformed Deviants are referred to as "mutates" and some of the monsters of myth and legend have in fact been identified as Deviant mutates. Some of these mutations can provide superhuman abilities, but their powers are usually not as great as those of the Eternals. According to the account of one Deviant in the 2006 comic book mini-series, the Deviants were created as a delicacy to be consumed en masse by Celestials at periodic intervals once they multiplied sufficiently. The veracity of this has been revealed untrue as the Deviants and the Eternals were actually created because the Celestials saw the human population as a useful pathogen to act as antibodies against the Horde, so the Deviants and the Eternals were to defend the process under the false impression that they were actually protecting the human race. The Deviants are religious, revering the Dreaming Celestial ("He Who Sleeps in Darkness"). They credit him with their creation and claim that he granted them dominion over the Earth, an agreement they believe was later broken by the treachery of the other Celestials.