Next month’s “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” kicks off not just the fifth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but properly introduces Jonathan Majors’ villain, Kang the Conqueror – the big antagonist for the overall MCU for at least the next few years.
Kang steps into the void left by Thanos (Josh Brolin) after his defeat back in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame”. Four years on, the MCU has been accused of being somewhat rudderless in its fourth phase with little overall cohesion post-Endgame beyond introducing some new faces.
That will likely change with Kang’s presence which will bring things into focus in time for the inevitable team-up to take him down film “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” – the first of two new “Avengers” films in the works.
Jeff Loveness serves as a writer on both ‘Quantumania’ and ‘Kang Dynasty’. Speaking with SFX Magazine (via Games Radar), he says the key to Kang is to dig into how, unlike Thanos, Kang is still very much a human:
“To me it’s all about the humanity. Obviously, Thanos is a great, iconic villain, but he’s also a big purple CGI guy. He’s an alien from outer space. The thing I really wanted to lean into is that Kang is a human being.
Kang’s also a very lonely character. We’re going to be seeing a lot of him in a lot of different ways going forward, but I really wanted to introduce the humanity and even the vulnerability of this character before he gets to such apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights.”
Phase 4 has seen Shang-Chi, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, the Eternals, and new iterations of Hawkeye, Captain America and Black Panther all introduced and at least some of them should finally come together in the next “Avengers” entry. Loveness says:
“Kang is a top-tier, A-list Avengers villain. What do you do when you feel you’re not enough against that? How do you step up to face the challenge of this generation? Who is Thanos on an exponential level? He’s almost this infinite Thanos. I think we’re setting things up for a pretty dynamic story.
As I’m building to ‘Avengers’, I want it to feel like a generational struggle. Phase 4 felt like the birth of new characters. You’re giving everyone a little bit of a breath. You’re broadening out the universe, and you have fun Disney+ shows that are elevating characters. And now I think it’s time to put the pedal to the gas again, and really take all these new characters that we like and throw them into the fire.”
Majors previously played a version of Kang called He Who Remains in the season finale of “Loki”. “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” opens on February 17th, whilst “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” arrives in May 2025.
