Iman Vellani is a Marvel Comics expert. That much we all know to be true.
In a time when the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in dire need of a miracle, the young Ms. Marvel actress has stepped in to save the day like a real-life Avenger of storytelling and comic book adaptations.
While geeking out with New Rockstars’ Erik Voss, Vellani shared her big theory for how the current MCU will tie into the comics to carry out both the Kang Dynasty and the Secret Wars storylines. Particularly, the 21-year-old is a fan of Jonathan Hickman’s 2015 iteration of the latter and knows exactly how Kevin Feige and co. can adapt it to fit the current Kang-centric direction of the film world. It’s as simple as making all three main players in the lead-up to Secret Wars Kang variants.
The Time Runs Out storyline
For the less versed in Marvel Comics, Hickman’s Secret Wars event is a continuation of the Time Runs Out storyline from the Avengers comics where Doctor Doom pairs up with Molecule Man to take down the Beyonders. Molecule Man finds out there are variants of him in every reality and that they’re essentially bombs placed by the Beyonders to blow up their timelines one by one.
Doom then uses all Molecule Men together to take down the Beyonders and absorb their powers, hoping to stop the destruction of the Multiverse. Most timelines were still destroyed, but Doom managed to take the remains of some of them and create a patchwork universe called Battleworld, which he ruled. Secret Wars then happens in this Battleworld, when basically everyone turned against Doom.
Iman Vellani’s genius proposition
The seeds have all been planted in the MCU to join the Kang Dynasty with this newer version of Secret Wars. In Vellani’s theory, the equivalent of the various Molecule Men from the comics in the MCU are all the Kang variants that are now roaming around the multiverse thanks to Loki’s Tree of Life. The twist is that Doom and the Beyonders are also Kang variants.
The actress/comics super-fan thinks one well-intentioned “Victor Timely-type” Kang could set out to help “Prime Kang” defeat “Beyonder Kang” by rounding up all other variants across the multiverse and using their power to bring down this evil version that is trying to blow the whole thing up (much like He Who Remains prophesized in Loki, and a bit like the conversation the Kang Council was having in the post-credits scene from Quantumania). “Prime Kang,” as Vellani calls him, would then, much like Doom, absorb “Beyonder Kang”‘s time-warping powers, and create Battleworld, setting the ground for a new confrontation against the Avengers that are left in that patchwork world after the multiverse’s collision.
While there are a lot of details to hash out, Vellani’s vision for the future of the MCU is some of the clearest we’ve heard in a while. While the multifaceted actress probably has her plate full at the moment, leading the Young Avengers and authoring her own Ms. Marvel comics issue, it’s time Kevin Feige utilizes her deep comics knowledge and perhaps gives the talented actress an even bigger role.
