Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is here and it isn’t exactly shaping up to be the Phase Four fixer and Phase Five savior it was expected to be. But the biggest disappointment is, without any doubt, the presentation of Kang the Conqueror and how his status as a formidable foe has been dismantled by MCU’s desperate penchant for inducing humor where it is not due — by letting the big bad, who was supposed to trump Thanos in matters of villainy, be overpowered by a bunch of ants.
Yes, it was not enough that a powerless Avenger like Scott is able to defeat the time-traveling all-powerful supervillain, Quantumania adds insult to injury by preceding the conclusion with Kang, who had been unleashing his wrath and vaporizing everyone within his sight with ease, getting swarmed by the giant ant army Hank brings in at the last moment.
The villain visibly struggles to hold his own against them as they relentlessly beat on the shield he throws up to save himself. M.O.D.O.K. joins the chaos, taking the side of the ants, and deals a deadly blow to the shield, finally breaking it, thus allowing the ants to overwhelm Kang, who can’t do anything.
He is overpowered by them for a long time, so long in fact, that Janet is able to power the Time Chair and create a portal back to Earth. Even when he does surface, he is badly battered and thus even Ant-Man is able to eventually overpower him. All-in-all, not a good look for an entity supposed to terrify our very soul.
But that disappointment aside, it is possible that the countless ants might have foreshadowed the multitude of Kangs we are introduced to in the post-credits scene. What’s more, is the insects overwhelming Kang and the villain unable to do anything could be teasing a Phase Five future where the Council of Kangs could attack as a single force, easily suppressing the combined forces of all the superheroes out there — OGs and alternates — who would crumble under the sudden attack.
Think Thanos’ army but with an endless supply of the ruthless and ambitious Kang variants. *shudders* As if the film finally solving a Loki mystery wasn’t enough, it is also possible that the said scene was indeed alluding to the world of pain and chaos the MCU is probably headed toward.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters.
