Time travel has come a long way in a short time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Bruce Banner’s ham-fisted dabbling at the beginning of Avengers: Endgame swiftly quantum-leaping into Iron Man’s full-blown invention of functioning technology mid-way through the penultimate film of the studio’s phase three. But, with the news that Jonathan Majors has been cast as Kang the Conqueror in the forthcoming Ant-Man 3, it’s all about to get even stranger than Scott Lang zipping from the quantum zone to discover his underwear has inexplicably been soiled by his six-month-old self.
Kang has the potential to connect the Avengers (or what’s left of them) to myriad other inhabitants of the comic-book world that we haven’t yet seen in the MCU, some of them primed and ready for inclusion following Disney’s takeover of 20th Century Fox. That’s because the supervillain has hopped in and out of multiple time lines from the ancient Egyptian era to the 3oth century, and even as far as the 40th century, like a cross between Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout and Doctor Who, finding ways to mix with the likes of the X-Men, Fantastic Four and even the Young Avengers along the way.
How Ant-Man 3 director Peyton Reed deals with him remains to be seen, but Kang could easily be up there with Ultron and Thanos in terms of his impact on the next reel of Marvel movies. The fact he is being introduced in an Ant-Man movie also places Paul Rudd’s size-shifting superhero centre stage, on the mic, as far as the future of the MCU is concerned.
In the comics, Kang is originally 3oth-century scholar Nathaniel Richards who discovers time travel technology invented by Doctor Doom (in his own past) and uses it to wreak havoc. (It’s possible Marvel will go a different route here, given Tony Stark is, as far as we know, the inventor of time travel in the MCU.)
Perhaps the most intriguing version of the supervillain, as far as the current state of play in the post-Avengers universe goes, is the iteration who travelled back in time (in a 2005 comic-book run) to try to avoid his own nefarious future by becoming a hero instead. Once in the modern day, Richards renamed himself Iron Lad and set about helping to create the Young Avengers, a team of fledgling costumed crimefighters with links to the original team of Earth’s mightiest heroes. This was possible because the Avengers themselves had effectively disbanded, a situation conveniently mirroring that of the current movie universe.
Iron Lad even romanced Ant-Man’s daughter, the superhero Stature, before being attacked by his future villain self, who turned out to be none too pleased with his youthful alter ego’s shift to the light. This could turn out to be a useful narrative line for Ant-Man 3, as Stature in the comics is the alter ego of Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie (who conveniently just aged up to a teenager during the mind-boggling events of Endgame).
If that all sounds more complicated than Brexit, suffice to say that, by the end of this particular chapter, there’s also a path towards the resurrection of Paul Bettany’s Vision, one of only a handful of MCU superheroes not to make it back after Thanos’s dastardly behaviour in Infinity War. That’s if Scarlet Witch hasn’t already done the business via the forthcoming Disney+ show WandaVision.
However Kang finds his way into the MCU, it will be the supervillain’s hectic time-travelling shenanigans that make him interesting. Leaping through the centuries is as much a part of the Kang DNA as binary-inspired mass murder is to Thanos, or wreaking robo-justice on mankind is to Ultron. Remove time travel from the equation and he’s just another blue-skinned, ornately-apparelled, helmet-bonced bad guy.
If Marvel Studios sticks with the idea that Doom invented time travel, Kang’s introduction could be even more momentous. Perhaps Kang defeated Doom, stole his technology and wiped him from the timeline, setting up Stark as the new inventor of time travel. In this instance, the finale of Ant-Man could see the gauntlet-wielding supervillain taking his revenge and entering the picture. Maybe he even brings a version of the Fantastic Four that doesn’t make fans of the comic books want to eat their own kidneys out of the void with him.
