Marketing is ramping up for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which means a steady stream of new footage. The latest is a promo, released when tickets went on sale yesterday, which reveals some new plot details and confirms an aspect of Kang (Jonathan Majors)’s character that fans have been speculating about for months: Kang is trapped in the Quantum Realm, and needs Scott (Paul Rudd)’s help to get out.
The first Quantumania trailer, which came out in October, featured Kang saying that the Quantum Realm “isn’t what you think it is.” Although the quote was left unfinished in that trailer, Kang finishes the line in the new promo.
Here, Scott tries to calm his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) down after the two of them land in the Quantum Realm. We hear Kang’s voice saying, “This place … it isn’t what you think. It’s a cage. But we can help each other.”
The rest of the promo focuses on the bargain that Scott and Kang will presumably make with each other: Scott will help Kang escape the Quantum Realm, and Kang will give Scott a second chance to watch Cassie grow up. In Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Scott was trapped in the Quantum Realm for five years while everyone else was blipped, and in that time, Cassie aged from a child to a teenager.
What do we know about Kang so far?
Kang is, by a very wide margin, what Marvel fans are most excited about with Quantumania fast approaching. Quantumania will kick off the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 5, which is the second act of its Multiverse Saga. Kang will be the villain in Avengers: the Kang Dynasty, set to release in 2025, and he may also play a major role in Avengers: Secret Wars, due out in 2026.
One major question is what Kang needs from Scott in order to escape the Quantum Realm. At Disney’s D23 Expo, a slightly different version of the trailer revealed that someone has stolen something from Kang, and he needs Scott to get it back. We don’t know what that thing is, though, or who stole it. It’s not even certain that that plot detail has made it into the final cut of the film.
Beyond Quantumania‘s plot, though, we do know some general details about Kang. Unlike Thanos, what makes Kang so formidable isn’t his sheer strength or size (although we can tell from the Quantumania trailers that he’s really strong!). Rather, the multiverse contains infinite variants of Kang. Kill one, and more will pop up. We met Kang’s first variant, He Who Remains, in Loki season 1.
So what does this mean for the Kang we’ll meet in Quantumania? Right now, there are more questions than answers. Who has trapped him in the Quantum Realm? Is he the only Kang down there, or are there more? Are there other Kangs already trying to take over the multiverse, as He Who Remains warned would happen? We’ll find out when the movie comes out on February 17!
(featured image: Marvel Studios)
