Disney+'s Loki introduced a Variant of Jonathan Majors' Kang known as "He Who Remains," but the character we'll meet in next month's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumnia will be the very different beast altogether.
The threequel is expected to establish The Conqueror as the type of potentially world universe-ending threat that Earth's Mightiest Heroes - and some Multiversal allies - will need to (re)assemble to face in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and it sounds like the villain is going to pose an even greater threat than Thanos did in the Infinity Saga.
Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness is also penning the script for the next Avengers movie, and he teased the challenge the team will face during an interview with SFX.
"Kang is a top-tier, A-list Avengers villain. 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."
Fans will obviously get some idea of what to expect from Kang's reign of terror when he faces Scott Lang and co. in Ant-Man 3, but Loveness stresses that even that Variant of the character will retain some of his humanity.
"Kang’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."
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opens in theaters on Feb. 17, 2023. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will be with us on May 2, 2025.