At the San Diego Comic-Con this past Saturday, Marvel Studios revealed that we're now in the midst of The Multiverse Saga. Phase 5 will kick off next year with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and if the trailer shown to those in Hall H is any indication, it promises to be a game-changer.
As well as squaring off with M.O.D.O.K., the title heroes will do battle with a Kang the Conqueror Variant it's believed has set his sights on the Quantum Realm. Whether he's the Kang or simply one of many we'll see over the coming years remains to be seen, director Peyton Reed teased major fallout from his Ant-Man threequel during an interview with Access.
"Kicking off Phase 5 is really exciting for us, because we're the Ant-Man movies. It's our third movie. It's this trilogy now," he explained. "But things happen in this movie that are going to change the Marvel Cinematic Universe permanently. And it's fun for us that Scott Lang is at the center of that change."
In a separate interview with ET Canada, Kang himself, Jonathan Majors, shared his excitement to play the MCU's new big bad.
"It feels cool. You know, the whole thing is of cultural significance. And so, to be of titular significance, whatever that means, it's humbling actually," he said. "You know, you just want to get to work, you just want to see the script and start, you know? Start and fail and mess up and memorize the lines and do all the stuff I wanted to do since I was a little boy in Texas."
As well as appearing in this movie, we anticipate seeing a Kang Variant in Loki season 2. The show's first batch of episodes wrapped up with the God of Mischief arriving in a reality where he rules over the Time Variance Authority, so how these stories (and Kangs) all start linking up as we get deeper into Phase 5 promises to be a fun ride.
Marvel Studios took its time setting the stage for Thanos with brief cameos, but it feels like we'll be seeing a lot of Kang ahead of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania arrives in theaters on February 17, 2023.