Iman Vellani Unsure About Harry Styles’ MCU Return as Starfox
It’s not every day that a Marvel superhero actually doubles as one of the franchise’s most vocal super-fans, but Iman Vellani has never been one to follow the usual script. The Ms. Marvel star, who burst onto the scene in 2022, recently turned her attention to a lingering question that’s been nagging at the back of every MCU enthusiast’s mind: Is Harry Styles ever coming back as Eros? Vellani, now twenty-four and a veteran of Marvel’s sprawling interconnected universe by 2026, openly admitted she’s just as puzzled as the rest of us. During a candid chat, she confessed, “I feel so weird about it. I don’t know. It’s strange. I really wonder if they’re going to go ahead and do something with his character or if they just teased it for the sake of it.”
To be fair, the whole situation is a bit of a head-scratcher. Styles first popped up in that mid-credits scene of Eternals back in 2021, playing the cosmic scamp Eros—also known as Starfox—with Pip the Troll (voiced by Seth Rogen) chattering away beside him. For a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, it sent shockwaves through the fandom. Eros isn’t just any space-faring pretty boy; he’s the biological brother of Thanos, the Mad Titan himself. The scene even dropped the family connection like a bomb, and fans immediately began cooking up theories about power levels and sibling confrontations. I mean, come on, if the guy shares genes with Thanos, he’s got to pack some serious punch, right? Yet here we are, five years later, and not a peep about when—or even if—Styles will suit up again.
You’ve got to wonder, as Vellani clearly does, whether it was all just a playful nudge from director Chloé Zhao, a self-confessed Harry Styles fan. Imagine the chaos, she mused, of throwing the Harry Styles faithful into the already passionate MCU melting pot. “How chaotic would that be?!” she laughed, and she’s not wrong. The collision of pop-music stardom and superhero lore could either be a cultural event or a distraction too far. Kevin Feige and his team have been notoriously tight-lipped, leaving even an insider like Vellani in the dark. “I really wonder if they’re going to go ahead... or if they just teased it for the sake of it,” she repeated, sounding a little like the rest of us refreshing Marvel news feeds at midnight.
Despite the radio silence, Eros’s potential in the MCU is huge. In the comics, Starfox has been an Avenger, a Dark Guardian, and a wild card swinging between heroism and self-indulgence. He can manipulate emotions, a power that could work fascinatingly well opposite the Multiverse Saga’s big bad Kang the Conqueror. Time-travel shenanigans might even let Eros face down a variant of his genocidal brother, giving the franchise a truly emotional wallop. For now, though, Styles remains a cosmic question mark, and Vellani’s candid bafflement only makes the silence louder.
Speaking of Vellani, her super-fan credentials are the stuff of legend. Long before she became Kamala Khan, she was the kind of fan who’d send a list of feedback on every MCU movie to Marvel editors. Sana Amanat, co-creator of Ms. Marvel, received that very list prior to the show going into production. And when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness declared the main MCU reality Earth-616, Vellani didn’t just nod along. She politely but firmly corrected the record, insisting it’s really Earth-199999—the designation long used in guidebooks and fan lore. She’s the sort of fan who argues canon in the most charming way possible.
She’s also thrown playful jabs at her own franchise’s spoiler culture. She once joked to Feige that she’d be way better at keeping secrets than Tom Holland, the web-slinger notorious for letting plot details slip. That blend of reverence and irreverence makes her uniquely endearing. And while her show Ms. Marvel faced review-bombing from a loud minority, Vellani shrugged it off publicly, noting that such hate doesn’t bother her. She’s equally unfazed by similar campaigns against She-Hulk or The Marvels, the upcoming team-up with Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris. Vellani’s armor isn’t Kevlar—it’s an unshakeable love for this universe and the diversity it’s finally embracing. By 2026, with projects like Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars on the horizon, that positivity feels more essential than ever.
Honestly, you can’t help but admire how Vellani has become a role model just by being herself. She’s the insider who still fangirls, the star who still questions, and the superhero who’s not afraid to say, “I don’t know, and that’s okay.” As for Harry Styles, well, maybe Eros will swagger back into the spotlight when we least expect it—perhaps during The Kang Dynasty, or in a post-credits tag that finally makes Vellani’s head spin. Until then, the fandom waits, and Vellani waits right alongside them, probably clutching a stack of Marvel comics with a hopeful grin.