The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, is taking it up a notch and raising the stakes going forward for its heroes. That begins with the introduction of its next big bad, Kang the Conqueror, who is making his - sort of - debut in the franchise, after a cameo appearance two years ago.
Kang, a time-travelling and multiverse-spanning super-villain will appear as the chief rival to Paul Rudd's Scott Lang in the latest Ant-Man film, who appears to be running things down in the Quantum Realm. Having been used to battling corrupt businessmen, and Walton Goggins too, Scott might find himself outmatched this time.
Talking with SFX Magazine, writer Jeff Loveness has been expanding on the differences audiences will find in the character from the initial incarnation they first saw in 2021's Loki, which saw Jonathan Majors appear in the series finale as 'He Who Remains', a man at the end of time:
To me it’s all about the humanity. Obviously Thanos is a great, iconic villain, but he’s also a big purple CGI guy. He’s an alien from outer space. The thing I really wanted to lean into is that Kang is a human being. He’s also a very lonely character. We’re going to be seeing a lot of him in a lot of different ways going forward, but I really wanted to introduce the humanity and even the vulnerability of this character before he gets to such apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights.
Loveness has also been tapped to scribe the next Avengers film, The Kang Dynasty - a sensible approach from Marvel, given that he will be responsible for introducing the character into the MCU - and the writer has also teased the direction with which he will be taking the character the further into his journey we go.
"Kang is a top-tier, A-list Avengers villain," Loveness said. "What do you do when you feel you’re not enough against that? How do you step up to face the challenge of this generation, who is Thanos on an exponential level? He’s almost this infinite Thanos. I think we’re setting things up for a pretty dynamic story."
He continued, "As I’m building to Avengers I want it to feel like a generational struggle. Phase 4 felt like the birth of new characters. You’re giving everyone a little bit of a breath, you’re broadening out the universe, you have fun Disney Plus shows that are elevating characters. And now I think it’s time to put the pedal to the gas again, and really take all these new characters that we like and throw them into the fire."
The Kang Dynasty is scheduled for release in 2025. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opens in theaters on February 17. Check out the trailer down below.