Buckle up, kids, it’s time travel time.
So the cast for Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is already turning heads. The internet is ablaze with guesses as to who will be playing M.O.D.O.K. and absolutely no one knows who tf Krylar is and why Billy Murray is playing him. Now we’ve been shown that yet another blast from the past Marvel character is slated to rear their ugly head in this film and I JUST CAN’T KEEP UP WITH IT ALL ANYMORE.
I’m talking of course, about Kang The Conqueror.
Who is Kang the Conqueror? Alright so here’s the skinny: Kang the Conqueror was originally a scientist from the 31st century. Yes, the century that will happen ten centuries from now. His name is Nathaniel Richards (not a very 31st century name if you ask me, I was expecting “Blibgar Glibglar” or something) and he was a descendent of both Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic) and Dr. Doom. Don’t ask me how those bloodlines mixed, I have no clue. So lil’ Natty Rich-Rich rediscovers some of his great x 100 grandfather Dr. Doom’s time travel technology, and uses this technology to travel back to ancient Egypt and become a powerful pharaoh named Rama-Tut. You know, like you do. Rama-Tut, unsurprisingly, became an evil villain, and was defeated by The Fantastic Four after they traveled back in time to stop him. When the Fantastic Four sent Blibgar—I mean Rama-Tut—I mean Nathaniel Richards forwards through time, they inadvertently created another aspect to this dude’s already fractured personality: ol’ Kang himself.
Unbeknownst to the Fantastic Four, the gang accidentally overshot their target and sent Nat hundreds of years into the future of his own timeline. Using his knowledge of time travel and technology acquired over thousands and thousands of years, he becomes the “conqueror” this new future world and decides that the name “Kang” would sound pretty good affixed to his new title. Again, should have gone with Blibgar, but that’s beside the point. The newly minted Kang the Conqueror vows to become the ruler of history in its entirety, and sends back multiple versions of himself to different eras of history in order to do so. This guy has so many different identities that there’s an entire organization made up of his different incarnations. And no, NONE of them are named Blibgar and I’m still pissed about it.
Played by actor Jonathan Majors in the MCU, Kang was first seen in Disney+’s Loki series after he introduced himself as He Who Remains. This time-jumpy multiple-incarnations schtick makes Kang the perfect villain for the new “multiverse” era of the MCU, and he is set up to be a major antagonist in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. I bet that our heroes are gonna be fighting different guys are across different realties who all turn out the be the same guy. It’s gonna get really confusing, sure. But it’s comic book movies. This is what you signed up for.
(Featured image: Marvel)
