Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is on its way, and details are starting to trickle out about Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) journey to the Quantum Realm. One character that has fans revved up is Jonathan Majors’s Kang the Conquerer. In a recent interview with Empire, director Peyton Reed promised that Kang will be an “all-timer antagonist”—and casually dropped an intriguing connection to one of Kang’s alternate selves, He Who Remains.
The interview points out that while Ant-Man’s previous villains have been “lower-level threats,” in Quantumania he’ll be taking on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next Thanos-level bad guy. Reed says that what interested him about Quantumania was the opportunity “to take the tiniest, and in some people’s minds weakest, Avenger, and put them up against this absolute force of nature.”
In Quantumania, Scott gets sucked into the Quantum Realm along with Hope, Hank, Janet, and Scott’s daughter Cassie, and discovers a hidden civilization there.
Kang the Conquerer has “dominion over time”
Reed says that the iteration of Kang we meet in Quantumania will be very different than the Kang variant we met in Loki. That version of Kang goes by He Who Remains, and has a goofy and seemingly well-meaning personality. “Kang The Conqueror in our movie is a very different character” than He Who Remains, Reed explains. “He’s someone who has dominion over time, and he’s a warrior and a strategist.”
Dominion over time? That’s an interesting detail to include. He Who Remains also had dominion over time, seeing as he ran the Time Variance Authority in Loki season 1 and controlled the flow of time in order to prevent his variants from starting a multiversal war.
At the end of Loki season 1, we find out that Kang is now running the TVA as himself instead of hiding behind the illusion of the fictional Time-Keepers. Will the Kang who fights Scott in Quantumania be the same Kang who takes over the TVA? Could we even see the TVA in Quantumania, since some fan theories posit that it’s located in the Quantum Realm? It’s hard to say, especially since Kang has infinite variants, so any number of them could have discovered how to control time.
Audiences got their first look at Kang when the teaser trailer for Quantumania dropped a few weeks ago. In the trailer, Kang looks to be the ruler of a vast city in the Quantum Realm, complete with a large army and a futuristic-looking fortress. Unlike He Who Remains, Kang is dressed in full body armor, and has scars running down each side of his face. His demeanor is colder and more ruthless than his variant.
While Kang may return in Loki Season 2, and will almost definitely play a big role in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, it’s not clear yet whether those appearances will be the same Kang that we meet in Quantumania. For now, though, it’s clear that Scott Lang is in serious trouble.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania comes out in theatures on February 17, 2023.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
