Kang the Conqueror is coming to the Quantum realm. And while MCU audiences may have gotten a glimpse of one of Kang’s many (MANY!) different incarnations in the final episode of Loki — the so-called “He Who Remains”— the man audiences will meet in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is a much different version that will truly earn the name of Conqueror.
“Kang The Conqueror in our movie is a very different character,” the Quantumania director Peyton Reed told Empire. “He’s someone who has dominion over time, and he’s a warrior and a strategist.” He’ll easily be the biggest threat Ant-Man and The Wasp have ever faced. A fitting introduction to the MCU given his comic book version origins.
Kang first appeared in the comics way back in 1964 when he practically showed up on The Avengers’ doorstep and quickly defeated the original team. Though the team is freed afterward and Kang was sent back to the future Earth that he came from, he would return to his past many times and quickly became one of the team’s strongest and most feared opponents.
Going by what we know of the trailer, Kang appears to have a different origin story in Quatumania, encountering Ant-Man and The Wasp in the Quantum Realm where Hope’s mother was once imprisoned. He also seems to be enlisting Ant-Man’s help. According to Reed, the size-shifting hero may be fighting the fight of his life. “That’s interesting to me: to take the tiniest, and in some people’s minds weakest, Avenger, and put them up against this absolute force of nature,” he told Empire.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is scheduled to be released theatrically on February 17.