Loki introduced us to Marvel Studios’ next big bad: Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror, one of the most dangerous men in the Multiverse. As of Loki, the damage Kang’s variants caused had been contained by the final variant ‘He Who Remains’ pruning the Sacred Timeline to prevent any further Kangs coming into being.
Now fans on r/MarvelStudios are debating whether this means Kang had to ensure that Thanos was successful in his mission of gathering all the Infinity Stones and executing the Snap, perhaps acting behind the scenes to direct events down this very specific course. This also ties in with Doctor Strange’s vision of “14,000,605 futures” and only one route to success.
Replies point out that – as per Kang himself – He Who Remains is solely concerned with Kang variants. This essentially overrides all other moral concerns, meaning that to get to the situation where He Who Remains sits alone at the end of time the Snap must have happened.
But then the same applies to every major event on the ‘Sacred Timeline’, with a user referencing Judge Renslayer’s comment that everything in Infinity War and Endgame (including the time travel shenanigans) was ‘supposed’ to happen.
However, it’s unlikely that Kang directly intervened in any way to aid Thanos, though timelines in which the Avengers succeeded in stopping him on Titan or in Wakanda were likely pruned to stop Kangs from emerging.
We should learn more about Kang in his next appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania on February 17, 2023.
