Published by
Marvel Comics, group of incredibly powerful
aliens who travel the universe
experimenting with various
races and generally messing with the
destinies of entire worlds, which is something you can do if you
are two thousand feet tall.
The Celestials have had a huge impact on the Earth, having visited
it on four known occasions. The first was millions of years ago,
during which the Celestials evaluated the human race's potential.
Finding it worthy of continuing, the Celestials left, but not before
monkeying with humanity to allow it to beneficially mutate and to
create two off-shoot races. One became known as the Eternals, who
were extremely long lived, possessed enormous power, and were
practically unkillable. The other really never had a chance but to
be second rate, having been hung with the label Deviants. The
Deviants were an unsightly group with wildly varying genetic code.
It was quite possible for two Deviant parents to have a child that
shared none of their traits (i.e. warthog man + really ugly woman
with a fin running down her head = little girl that looks like a
cross between a squid and a chihuahua). The Celestials left
the Earth and returned many years later.
Upon the return (which is known as the Second Host of the Celestials),
the Celestials evaluated the Earth and the three groups they had
left. The Eternals and humans got passing grades, but the Deviants
were given a cosmic "does not play well with others." Where in
kindergarten this gets you a time out and no cookies with your juice,
with the Celestials, it gets your continent sunk. In this case, the
continent of Lemuria, but they also threw in sinking Atlantis for free.
The Celestials then departed again to return a mere 1000 years ago.
Upon their third visit, the Celestials were greeted by the Eternals
and the Asgardian gods who informed them that they were tired of
the Celestials showing up every couple of thousand years, making
judgments as to how fit their races were to survive, drinking all
their beer, making some long distance calls and then taking off. The
two groups from Earth challenged them to a showdown, but you don't
get to be a group called the Celestials by putting up with a
bunch of gods lead by a guy with one eye who considers
a couple of ravens pets and a bunch of Greek god wannabees. The
Celestials cleaned the Asgardians clocks and departed again to
finally return for a final time in the modern age.
The Celestials judged the human race after the start of benevolent
mutations, picking people from different eras who they took with
them to teach, giving them special powers and calling them the
Young Gods. The Celestials have since departed to return the next
time the Marvel writers need a really big plot device.
The Celestials appear as two thousand foot armored figures, each of
which has a particular function. Their names are such things as
Arishem the Judge, Exitar the Executioner, and (one of my personal
favorites) Oneg the Prober. One has to wonder if wherever the
Celestials come from if there are Celestials named Poktar the
Security Guard, Nazbeq the Accountant, and Faalooq the
Air Conditioner Repairer who don't get to travel around the
galaxy.