The Celestials

As they advanced themselves, the Celestials began to lose their physical forms. To keep from completely discorporating into the Universe, they created shells for themselves out of the metal known on Earth as vibranium. The Celestials are now beings of pure energy, thought and will incarnate. Each, however, has a distinctive outer casing.

As a result of their advancement, Celestials cannot reproduce the way lesser species do. To generate offspring, Celestials implant of piece of their essences inside a planet. They then surround the embryonic energy with vibranium, which the offspring will use as a casing when it emerges. Finally, to protect the offspring from alien invaders who might harm the planet, the Celestials modify the indigenous intelligent life of the planet, imlanting a "seed" in its genes that will mutate and give super-powers to them as the embryo nears maturation. The vibranium helps to serve as a catalyst for this change. The guardian life evolves through three levels of mutation before the Celestial emerges and the entire world, including its populace, is converted into vibranium for the newborn's use.

Inside a Celestial

The Celestials have one natural predator: Galactus, a being who also survived the destruction of the previous universe, and knew the Celestials had caused it. He dedicated himself to controlling the Celestials population growth, which he does using sophisticated machinery that absorbs the embryo's energy from its planetary womb. This has the unfortunate side-effect of destroying the planet, which is why Earth heroes have fought Galactus off numerous times.

The Celestials have come to Earth four times so far, and are supposed to return a fifth time, to finally judge humanity's worthiness. (They do this on other planets, as well). The First Host came and carved out a piece of the Earth, which destroyed the dinosaurs. The chunk of Earth they carved out became the moon, where the apparently placed the Watcher, to record all of Earth's history.

A Gatherer

A Gatherer

The Celestials also created a number of Gatherers, large animated humaniforms to collect the creatures who would become humans. They then genetically manipulated them into super-beings, first the rebellious Deviants, and then the more tractable Eternals. The Gatherers would later be fought over by the Damocles Foundation and Selene, and eventually destroyed by Sledge and X-Force. The Celestials returned three more times, once to destroy the Deviant city of Lemuria, then to force the aliens who were seen as gods by humans to stop interacting with them, and finally to receive a group of "Young Gods" from those pantheons as proof of humanity's evolution.

As the Celestials were engaged in their fifth Host visit to a world where widespread mutation had produced factions known as the Chosen (those with a human-like appearance) and the Rejects (those with a nonhuman appearance), the Celestials summoned the Ship they had left on Earth during the second Host so they could study what it had recorded during the centuries. Abandoned by Apocalypse, Ship had become the headquarters of the mutant heroes X-Factor, and they were drawn into the events on the world of the Rejects and Chosen. X-Factor finally drew the Rejects and Chosen together by allying them against the Celestials to defy their judgment. When Arishem attempted to judge against the world, the mutant Jean Grey unleashed the Phoenix Force to destroy its hand, making judgment impossible. They left behind a vessel identical to Ship to record that world’s progress for a later visit.

The Celestials also created Ship and tried to force Franklin Richards to destroy either our world or the world he had created to save the heroes when they sacrificed themselves to defeat Onslaught. Ashema the Listener entered our world in mortal form, tormenting Frankling to force him to choose. However, Ashema’s mortal body took sympathy upon Franklin, and arranged to spare the new Earth, rendering her true form comatose. The new Earth was relocated by Dr. Doom to the opposite side of the sun from Earth-616, and took up the position of Counter-Earth. Ashema’s mortal form remained on Counter-Earth, and had to contend with the Dreaming Celestial, whose spirit had awakened during the planet’s creation and recreated itself on Counter-Earth. Ashema was forced to ally with Doom in order to oppose the Dreaming Celestial, and finally drove it back into slumber.

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