When Marvel Studios brings Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to theaters on February 17, audiences will be learning a lot more about the main villain who will threaten the Avengers – and the state of the Multiverse that we have been hearing about in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness. Kang the Conqueror (played by Jonathan Majors) will be waiting for Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) when they enter the quantum realm, and will begin to enact his massive plan to overtake the MCU. And Peyton Reed has offered up some clues about this madman’s scheme ahead of the movie’s release. With that in mind, AMC Theatres, in partnership with CinemaBlend, hosted Reed at the AMC Theatres Century City location in Los Angeles for a deeper dive into this complex character, and what audiences might expect from him thanks to Majors’ portrayal.
AMC already has a helpful guide on the history of Kang, and what you need to know about him from the issues of Marvel Comics, as well as Season 1 of the Disney+ series Loki. In that show, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) encountered one of Kang’s variants – or, alternate identities – in the room found at the end of time. Dubbed “He Who Remains,” this Kang variant spoke of a massive Multiversal war that he alone was helping to prevent by pruning timelines and keeping his other Kang variants in check.
That speech from Loki is important, as Peyton Reed told AMC and CinemaBlend that it plays deeper into what Kang from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has in mind for our heroes. Reed said:
“Kang the Conqueror in Season 1 of Loki, who Jonathan of course played He Who Remains, he sort of implied that there’s someone else out there who you may not want to meet. Kang the Conqueror, I think, is the most feared of all the Kang variants. And as you know from the comics, there are a lot of different Kang variants. But Kang the Conqueror is a very, very different character than He Who Remains. Kang has a grand plan for the Multiverse. He has a very clear idea of how things should be run. One of the cool things about Kang, to me, is that he’s not only battling our heroes, but there’s the idea that he might also be battling his variants.”
You can see how this becomes a massive problem for the Marvel heroes who currently are occupying the MCU. At the moment, there is no clear-cut Avengers team, just a scattered band of heroes waiting to meet various threats. As we learned at the end of Doctor Strange In the Multiverse Of Madness, the Sorcerer Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch) was heading into the Dark Dimension with Clea (Charlize Theron) to confront a new danger. Wakanda just addressed the presence of Namor (Tenoch Huerta), and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) lives by himself in New York City, having been forgotten by all of his loved ones.
Not the mightiest team on Earth, if you ask us.
But all of that will start to change once Peyton Reed unveils the action that’s pending in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Yes, audiences will follow Scott and Hope into the quantum realm, where they will fight Kang in order to rescue Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton). But by meeting this banished variant of Kang, MCU fans likely will get a better sense of the powers this villain wields, and the dangers he can bring to the MCU if he ever managed to free himself from the bonds of the quantum realm.
Peyton Reed digs deeper into Kang, his role in the new movie, and the history of the Ant-Man franchise in our full sit-down interview conducted by AMC Theatres and CinemaBlend at the AMC Century City. Watch it now!
Thanos the Mad Titan (Josh Brolin) was a singular threat lording over the first three Phases of Marvel Studios movies. Sometimes he was pulling strings from the background, like sending the Chitari to Earth in the first Avengers movie. And then he decided he’d take care of the Avengers himself, which culminated in Avengers: Endgame. The MCU still has been picking up the pieces from The Snap that Thanos used to eliminate half of the world’s population.
You might be asking how Kang the Conqueror can be more lethal than Thanos. But when you consider that there are multiple versions of Kang who all exist in different universes, and have the ability to come together at any moment to overwhelm an opponent, you begin to realize the type of danger the MCU might be in. And that will merit the formation of a new Avengers team for the already promised Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.
We have a while to wait until those team-up movies reach theaters. While you are waiting patiently, make sure that you have your tickets for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It marks the official launch of Marvel’s Phase 5, which also will include Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, The Marvels and much more!
