Jonathan Majors was one of the very few aspects of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to have escaped relatively unscathed, but can the same be said of Kang the Conqueror?
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s newest end-of-level boss was hyped up as the most formidable foe Scott Lang has faced yet, which was hardly a glowing assessment when Yellowjacket, Ghost, and Sonny Burch hardly don’t exactly rank among the franchise’s top tier of antagonists.
The 31st installment in the long-running superhero series, the first chapter in Phase Five, and the ignition point for the Multiverse Saga has been drowning under a wave of negativity ever since it first hit theaters last week, with even the most ardent of MCU fans beginning to lose both hope and interest in where the story is heading from here.
While repeating what worked before and hoping nobody noticed isn’t a wise move, it can’t be overlooked that Thanos was drip-fed to audiences over the course of six years, and when he finally made his first major moves in Avengers: Infinity War, he straight-up murdered a handful of fan favorites, kicked the sh*t out of the Hulk, and then eliminated half of all living creatures.
Kang, on the other hand, debuted in one of the MCU’s worst-rated efforts on both Rotten Tomatoes and CinemaScore, and when you break down the plot of Quantumania to its essence, he’s achieved absolutely nothing. By the time the credits roll, every single major character is in exactly the same position they were in at the beginning, with only the mid-credits scene shaking things up.
Even at that, those without an in-depth knowledge of either comic books or the upcoming slate might not have a clue what’s coming down the pipeline, leaving both Phase Five and Kang facing an uphill battle to win over the skeptics. It’s not a great look for the latest big bad, especially when we’re only at the very beginning of a three-year run of film and television content.
