Kang the Conqueror, Explained: Everything We Know After Ant-Man & The Wasp Quantumania

While the MCU began firing up the multiverse saga all the method again throughout Avengers: Endgame, Marvel has barely touched on the man who was truly no less than not directly chargeable for all the things that occurred not simply throughout Season 1 of Loki, but additionally WandaVision, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Eternals.

I’m speaking about Kang the Conqueror, launched in Loki Season 1, the inadvertent architect of the previous a number of years of MCU tales and the new massive unhealthy that our heroes should take care of for a number of extra.

Warning! This article comprises main spoilers for Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania and different current entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Thanos could also be a tricky act for any cosmic villain to observe, however Kang the Conqueror is greater than outfitted to take action. This man’s very existence is basically not possible for us mortals to understand as a result of he is so previous that he is transcended time. And there are so, so lots of him.

This is in stark distinction with Thanos, who was just about only a actually robust boss alien who punched individuals who opposed him, and who killed half of all life in our universe utilizing the Infinity Stones. Kang is trillions of years previous and has truly destroyed numerous total universes utilizing his personal know-how that he each invented and constructed himself. And, once more, there are lots of him. This is a complete new stage of drawback, and it will require loads of rationalization.

Where Kang the Conqueror started

At the finish of Loki Season 1, we met a personality performed by Jonathan Majors who was known as He Who Remains. This was not Kang, however moderately a person named Nathaniel Richards–yes, he is a descendant of Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. He advised Loki and Sylvie that he was a scientist from the thirty first Century who found the multiverse and shortly met alternate variations of himself from different realities. Quite a lot of these different hims have been good–many others weren’t. War occurred, and He Who Remains ended it, killing each different model of himself and stabilizing his world with a single timeline that he maintained utilizing the Time Variance Authority.

He supplied Loki and Sylvie the option to kill him and discover out if this path is actually the finest course or if they will discover one thing higher. Sylvie, not appreciating having to spend her complete life in distress to arrange for this second, took him up on the provide. He Who Remains is gone, and a special model of Nathaniel Richards, the one generally known as Kang the Conqueror, now controls the multiverse. And whereas he did not particularly orchestrate the occasions of these motion pictures and reveals I discussed above, all the things that has occurred in the MCU since Endgame has occurred as a result of Kang is the one in cost as an alternative of He Who Remains.

I do know what you are pondering: “In Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, there were a lot of Kangs, not just one!” Hold that thought. It’ll make extra sense in a second.

How the multiverse works

The thought behind the multiverse is that it represents each potential factor that would occur in any given state of affairs. So, for instance, if any individual asks you to marry them, the multiverse would have a universe the place you say sure, and a universe the place you say no, and likewise a universe the place you hesitate and may’t make up your thoughts. It’s a naturally occurring phenomenon.

He Who Remains created the TVA to stop these branches from creating new variations of himself that may wreck all the things. As lengthy as there was just one Nathaniel Richards on the market, and so long as that one isn’t one among the unhealthy ones, actuality might stay steady and all these chaotic multiverse issues which have been occurring wouldn’t be potential.

Now, whereas all proof factors to there nonetheless solely being one Nathaniel Richards, he is not one among the good ones.

Kang the Conqueror is the polar reverse of He Who Remains

In our present, post-Loki state of affairs in the MCU, that complete multiversal conflict talked about by He Who Remains would have nonetheless occurred. But this time, Kang was the model of Nathaniel Richards who gained and stood atop the multiverse with the skill to bend it to his will. But as an alternative of stability, he introduced solely chaos. Instead of stabilizing the timeline, he interfered in his personal previous and future numerous occasions.

This spawned a brand new multiverse not primarily based on naturally occurring potentialities, however moderately spawned by his limitless time journey shenanigans. He should nonetheless be utilizing the TVA to maintain these naturally occurring branches in line, though–why else hold the TVA round after He Who Remains was eradicated? Considering he is acquired large statues of himself up at HQ, as seen in the Loki season 1 finale, it is in all probability secure to imagine this Kang is extra enthusiastic about utilizing the TVA to take care of his personal energy than to avoid wasting the multiverse.

So why are there so many Kangs?

He Who Remains, by his personal account, had “lived a million lifetimes,” and he meant that actually, not in the sense that there have been tens of millions of alternate variations of him all through the multiverse. This man was previous. Older than the universe, in all probability, since he wasn’t constrained by time.

Kang is equally previous, and he is consistently doing time journey, and at completely different deadlines he is held completely different identities. And these completely different variations of him from completely different deadlines know one another, and each time they meet and work together, these people turn out to be distinct from one another and separate universes are fashioned. And that is how the many variants of Kang, and the present multiverse, are born.

By the time we get to Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, there are literally thousands of them who’re in a bunch generally known as the Council of Kangs. It’s this group that “banished” the Quantumania Kang to the Quantum Realm. We see these guys in the mid-credits scene, with one particularly, Fantastic Four nemesis Rama-Tut, seemingly taking cost as they’re about to strive to determine what to do about the obvious dying of one among them. Whatever it’s, it will not be good, as a result of they’re fairly upset that anyone was even capable of kill a Kang. But you may wager the Fantastic Four may have their say in it now that Marvel is teasing Rama-Tut.

Not all of those Kangs will likely be villains, although. There’s one in the comics, a teenaged model of Kang generally known as the Iron Lad, who actually does not like the type of stuff Kang is into, and he results in the Young Avengers. Expect to fulfill a few of these good ones in the subsequent couple years. And probably as quickly as Loki season 2.

The subsequent season of Loki is teased in the post-credits scene, which reveals Loki and Owen Wilson’s Mr. Mobius watching a snake oil sort presentation in the Old West offered by a Kang variant named Victor Timely. This is likely to be the similar Kang from Quantumania–in the comics, Kang retreats to the flip of the twentieth Century and adopts the Victor Timely alias after an enormous defeat. On the different hand, the Council of Kangs apparently imagine that the Quantum Realm’s Kang is lifeless. While I’m positive it is potential that they are incorrect, they do not seem to be the kind of people that would make assumptions about whether or not one among their very own is alive or lifeless. They’re scientists, in any case.

Unfortunately, the comics are nearly by no means useful when making an attempt to determine what is going to occur subsequent in the MCU, as a result of the MCU is extra impressed by the comics than really tailored from them–they take the fundamental premises after which go in their very own path with them. So whereas it is laborious to guess particular occasions, you could be positive of two issues: More Kangs are coming, and the Fantastic Four will not be far behind.

GameSpot has all the Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania protection that any fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe may need, together with a spoiler-free overview and a breakdown of the post-credits scenes and what they imply for the Fantastic Four’s future in the MCU.