San Diego Comic-Con is the place where Marvel Studios is notorious for releasing news for their upcomingMCUprojects. Thisyear at SDCC, Kevin Feige hosted the Marvel Panel in Hall H and announced the upcoming Phases 5 and 6 movies and Disney+ shows. It is one of the biggest announcements since theEndgameera, and the post-Endgameera, and it was needed. PerCollider, many fans were getting restless not knowing how all the new releases of Phase 4 fit together in the Marvel timeline, and who was going to be the next “big bad”, if there even was going to be one. Some fans thought that the method might have ended with Thanos, but they seem to be wrong because we have gotten a hint at our next “big bad” in Kang the Conqueror.
Other than announcing some highly anticipated sequels, likeAntman: Quantumania,Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,and premiering thetrailer forWakanda Forever,Black Panther’s highly anticipated sequel, Feige announced that there will be two newAvengersmovies.Avengers: The Kang Dynastyis set to come out in theaters June 25, 2025 and later that year in November,Avengers: The Secret Wars.
This begs the question: who is Kang the Conqueror, and what is his dynasty?
Marvel Comics: Who is Kang the Conqueror?
The supervillian with a thousand names, most commonly know by Kang the Conqueror, first appeared in the comic book series titlesThe Avengers. He is an originally a scholar called Nathaniel Richards, a 31st Century descendant of Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic. He is from Earth-6311, also known as “Other Earth.” One of his abilities is to time travel, and he sends himself back in time, but goes too far and into the time of Pharaohs, becoming one himself. That brings upon The Fantastic Four, and they fight one another. Richards, now going as Rama-Tut, is defeated by them and begins his hatred for his ancestral team. After their battle, he jumps to the future and he and meets Victor von Doom, aka Doctor Doom, and sides with him, becoming known as The Scarlett Centurion. This is when he first encounters the Avengers team, who kick him back into his original timeline, and he ends up in a dystopia of the future, easily becoming its ruler, gaining the name Kang the Conquerer.
Related:The Avengers 5 and 6: Breaking Down the Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars Announcement
What Are Kang’s Powers?
Other than time travel, Kang has some unique powers, as outlined byGames Radar. Since he is from Other-Earth, and the atmosphere differs from what we would consider our Earth, he has a prolonged life span and ages very slowly. He is also incredible smart. As a Richards decent, he was able to discover his gift of time travel and work with Victor von Doom in harnessing his time travel contraptions. While working with Doom, he also creates an armored suit of his own, increasing his strength and endurance. He hits all the marks to be a well-rounded supervillian: smart, strong, and has a power of his own to harness and control.
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The MCU’s Kang the Conqueror
One other variable that is essential to Kang’s character is his keen awareness of his other Variants. We’ve seen the MCU expand with the Multiverse throughout Phase 4: fromSpider-Man: No Way Home’s union of the threeSpider-Manfranchises andWhat If…?’s exploration of alternate timelines toDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’s foray in the Multiverse and, most notably, inLoki’sintroduction of Variants. Indeed, it was inLokithat Jonathan Majors made his debut as Kang / He Who Remains. He starts the Council of Kang’s in the comic universe, gathering all of his variants across the Multiverse, much like the variants The Watcher talks about inWhat If…?. Some of Kang’s well known variants include Iron Lad, Immortus, Baby Kang, and even Kamala Kang, a version of Ms. Marvel aka Kamala Khan (who has recently debut on screen in her self-titled Disney+ show) and Kang merged into one being for a short time.
Kang the Conqueror goes by many names — Rama-Tut, Lord of the Seven Suns, Victor Timely, and so many more — and has lived throughout the entirety of the Marvel Comics history, fighting against the Avengers and The Fantastic Four, even working with the Eternal Sersi’s son and the mutant Apocalypse. He is an incredibly powerful supervillian from a parallel Earth that specialized in time travel and wears a super suit he created himself. He even fell in love with a princess, who dies saving him, and tears across time trying to save her. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses. Sometimes, he is on the good side, but most times he is a menacing overseer and bringer of destruction. Overall, he is another classic Marvel supervillian and will be getting his own movie coming 2025, so look out: he is watching.
