MCU will be giving us one of the strongest villains, after Ultron and Thanos, and he is none other than Kang the Conqueror.
MCU has already begun developing a follow-up on Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). And reports tell us that Jonathan Majors plays the role of the villain Kang the Conqueror. And it only makes sense as both Ant-Man and Kang associate themselves with time-travel. For those of you who do not know how “suit up.”
Kang the Conqueror And The Fantastic Four
Kang the Conqueror is a classic Marvel villain who goes back to the Fantastic Four #19 issue published in 1963. He is a villain who has many names and has waged countless wars against both the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. His ability to travel through time at will makes him a constant threat to humanity. It is because no matter how many times he is defeated, some version of him always turns up from a different reality.
Watch: Jonathan Majors Answers IF He’s Kang the Conqueror in Ant-man 3
Kang’s real name is Nathaniel Richards. A 31st-century historical scholar, he is considered a descendant of Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic). He uses Doctor Doom’s time travel tech to go back in time to ancient Egypt. There, he named himself as Rama-Tut (1st incarnation) and declared himself as a God from the future. Given Marvel President Kevin Feige name-dropped the first family of MCU at the SDCC 2019 Majors’ appearance in Fantastic Four is quite plausible.
Kang And The Mutants
Decades after its original publishing, Marvel added a new layer of events to the Fantastic Four #19 issue. In them, they said that Kang went back in time to Egypt to seek out young En Sabah Nur, the first mutant. En Sabah Nur would later on become Apocalypse, and Kang wanted to crown him as his heir. He couldn’t succeed in it, thanks to the Fantastic Four, who travel back in time and defeat him.
Arriving in the 20th century, he makes use of Doctor Doom’s armor yet again and forms a new identity, the Scarlet Centurion (2nd incarnation). Here again, he is defeated by Earth’s heroes. This time, he escapes to his real timeline.
And thus, Nathaniel Richards becomes Kang the Conqueror. He accidentally travels too far ahead in time and reaches an era when humanity has collapsed. There, Kang is the only person who understands the technology and conquers the timeline very quickly. He even extends his empire beyond Earth.
Kang the Conqueror’s MCU Future
The MCU does have a way to bring Kang the Conqueror into its timeline. Marvel’s 2005 series Young Avengers shows a group of teen heroes modelled after the classic Avengers. But they have different origin stories. The founder of this team is Iron Lad. But he is not a descendant of Iron Man (Tony Stark). He is a teen version of Nathaniel Richards from a different timeline (3rd incarnation). Once, Kang travelled back in time to save his younger self from being bullied that leaves him hospitalized for months. He protects his younger self and gives him a suit of armour to speed up his growth from young Nathaniel to Kang. But this doesn’t happen as Young Nathaniel is horrified at his older self and forms a new team of Avengers instead.
Iron Lad is a great way to introduce Kang into the MCU. After all, we all can see clear signs of the New Avengers. We have already met Scott Lang’s grown-up daughter Cassie. She will become the size-changing Stature. We also have an upcoming Disney+ Hawkeye series that will show Kate Bishop. It seems only a matter of time before we see other members like Wiccan, Hulking, and Patriot on the big screen. All of them together form the Young Avengers. With all the YA in the mix its another way for Majors’ character arc to develop in the MCU.
Jonathan Majors’ In Ant-Man 3
To use Jonathan Majors’ as Kang the Conqueror only in Ant-Man 3 would be to do him an injustice. Marvel has already set the stage for him to enter the MCU. And with the kind of a person he is with his knowledge of time travel, he fits perfectly with the present scenario of events in the MCU.
Thanos’ death will pave the way for Kang’s arrival. Travelling through time is possible via the Quantum Realm now. For this, we need to thank Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and scientific discoveries made by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.). So, it can be that many centuries into the future, Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror can use the technology to travel back in time and arrive at the present day.
But if Kang could travel back in time, why didn’t he do it until now? Like before the time when the Avengers formed (before 2012)? It is because of Thanos. Kang knew that he did not stand a chance again the mad Titan. So he waited for history to take its course. And now that Thanos is no more, the stage is set for his arrival. For the time being, Ant-Man 3 will give us the first glimpse of Kang the Conqueror. And we can only hope to see him as the new villain fighting the Avengers in MCU Phase 5.
Directed by Peyton Reed, Ant-Man 3 will be a part of MCU Phase 5, which also includes Blade and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
