Products You May Like
The Marvel Cinematic Universe just cast its next major villain, as Jonathan Majors joins Ant-Man 3 and word on the web is Majors is playing Kang the Conqueror! Finally some big Marvel news which might be bigger than any of us can predict right now. Just last week, Ant-Man director Peyton Reed was saying that Ant-Man 3 is going to be bigger than we expect, with his exact words being “more sprawling,” and it seems like he wasn’t kidding. Kang the Conqueror could be the next saga of the MCU’s equivalent to Thanos, or at least a major player in the next big interwoven story as other heroes and villains are tied to him, as well.
Kang the Conqueror, real name Nathaniel Richards, is a villain from the future in the Marvel universe — suspected to be a descendant Mr. Fantastic himself Reed Richards. He’s from the 40th century, but travels to so many different times and places that he could pop up anywhere, maybe he will the time traveling Loki saga on Disney+? Maybe he will debut in the Eternals movie, which could span not only centuries in the MCU, but possibly different millenia, as well? We could even see dead characters like Iron Man again in following a Nathaniel Richards story, or maybe visit the moment where Black Widow got a proper funeral after we did just kind of gloss over such a moment in Endgame?
Nathaniel gets some of his villainous inspiration from Dr. Doom, so he develops an alias called Scarlet Centurion, but this alias loses to the Avengers in modern time on the Marvel Comics pages. So, he decides its time for a re-brand and gets some practice in Conquering, so he takes over a war torn 40th century and officially reinvents himself as Kang the Conqueror. This is the guy you’ve probably seen on Twitter that’s all green and purple, maybe you watched him in animated shows, or maybe you know him from the LEGO Marvel video game, it’s his most traditional form.
He can’t live with the fact that the Avengers beat him, so he tries to fight them off again, captures most of the heroes, and even sends Captain America back in time to the 1940s, I don’t know how they’ll do that without Chris Evans but… It comes down to the Wasp and Rick Jones to take him down, with Rick using his Teen Brigade to betray Kang and save the day — but we don’t know if Rick Jones is coming to the MCU. So, maybe the Wasp continues to get bigger roles and has to team up with young heroes like Emma Fuhrmann’s Cassie Lang, or Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, Haile Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, creating Young Avengers vibes to take down Kang in Ant-Man 3?
Of course, this would only be the beginning. Ultimately, his goal becomes beating the Avengers by making sure they never exist, and losing at the end of Ant-Man 3 could be what sets Kang the Conqueror on such a path. Losing to the Avengers forces Nathaniel to come up with more new plans and with every time travel effort he creates divergent versions of himself — like Victor Timely, a version of the character who becomes the mayor of Timely, Wisconsin in the 1920s, or Immortus, a character who serves as an ally to Dr. Doom. Nathaniel also has versions where he becomes Iron Lad or Kid Immortus but ultimately Kang kills them all off and consolidates them into one stream of consciousness as a main Kang the Conqueror.
The MCU might be heading in a different direction, one without a singular villain overarching the entire saga following the Infinity Saga, but Kang is a very worthy contender to wreak havoc in the MCU in the wake of Thanos. It’s also a really fitting villain with ties to the Fantastic Four and Dr. Doom which could reverse engineer their existence in Marvel Studios movies since we all know they’re on the way, its just a matter of time.
Are you ready to see Kang the Conqueror in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram.
Ant-Man 3 is expected to hit theaters in 2022 but does not yet have an official release date.