Origins: Kang The Conqueror
From Hugh of @hughv302
On February 17th, Antman and The Wasp Quantumania will be hitting theaters and will have the world’s smallest hero pitted against his greatest threat yet from the pits of the multiverse, Kang the Conqueror. But who is Kang? Why is he such a dangerous threat to Marvel universe and the Marvel multiverse? Is he a greater threat than Thanos? Find out more below!
Origin
Kang has had multiple origins, identities incarnations and adaptations to his character in across multiple timelines and universes but for this overview we are going to focus on his original identity that started it all. Lang’s original name was Nathaniel Richards who was born in the 30th century in the universe Earth-6311 aka Other Earth, a reality where humanity never went into the Dark Ages and technology developed without interruption. Nathaniel Richards is a suspected to be either the descendent of Reed Richards’ time traveling father, also named Nathaniel, or a possible descendent of Victor von Doom. Nathaniel became fascinated with history and discovers time travel technology, which he then uses to ancient Egypt where he establishes himself as a pharaoh under the name Pharaoh Rama-Tut. His rule is cut short when the time-displaced superhero team Fantastic Four, who saw him as a threat to Earth’s timeline, defeats him. He tried to flee back to his own era, but he was caught in a time storm and was forced to appear in the modern era of Earth-616. A chance encounter with his possible ancestor Dr. Doom inspired Nathaniel to abandon his Rama-Tut guise and assume one similar to Doom. In his first attempt, Nathaniel created the identity of the Scarlet Centurion but abandoned this identity after being defeated by the Avengers. Resuming his Rama-Tut guise, Richards attempted once again to return to his native 30th Century. The time-storm caused him to overshoot his own era and he ended up in the war torn 40th Century. There Rama-Tut found a war torn future where barbarians battled with technology from past eras of which they had no knowledge of how they worked. Seeing his own personal knowledge on how these weapons operated, Rama-Tut found it simple to reinvent himself and conquer this era.
Creating the identity of Kang the Conqueror, Richards began to do just that by conquering this era’s Earth, its Galaxy and the empires within it. But even this was not enough and Nathaniel's mind continued to turn back to the modern age of heroes and sought to conquer it as well. This began a long relentless war with the Avengers that would result in battles across multiple timelines and universes. He would be known as the one Avengers’ villain that returns the most. Even after multiple defeats he always comes back in some shape or form and will never stop till he has achieved his goal of conquering time and all within it. However, the Avengers are not the only threats he has encountered on his path to conquer. His other greatest threat is himself or more accurately other variants of himself from the multiverse. Kang is his own worst enemy, constantly trying to prevent the future or undo the past. By doing so, he inadvertently creates variants of himself who sometimes hinder his world-conquering goals either because they wish to conquer for themselves or they are against his goals. Kang would form the Council of Kangs to rid the universe of his redundant variant selves.
Powers & Weaknesses
Kang has no superhuman abilities but like others from his native era, Kang ages at a slightly slower rate than modern humanity and is more resistant to the effects of radiation; though, he can be harmed by concentrated doses. He is an expert in time travel and the manipulation of time, and has mastered his future’s advanced technology. He is an expert strategist, a veteran of armed and unarmed combat, and has an indomitable will to succeed through struggle. Kang’s full-body armor of unknown material enables him to lift 5 tons, and can project a gravito-electromagnetic force field around him that is extendable up to 20 feet and can even shield him from a direct nuclear strike. The suit has its own self-contained atmosphere, food supply and waste disposal system. Its weapons include anti-graviton particle projectors in his gauntlets, rendering weightless objects up to 2.2 tons; concussive force blasters equivalent to up to several thousand pounds of TNT; circuitry accessing his ship’s time machine, allowing him an “automatic recall” of a few seconds, as well as enabling him to peer into various timelines; and various other weapons that are regularly updated. Kang typically carries various weapons, such as an anti-matter defense screen generator, a “vibration-ray” projector, an electromagnetic field- amplifier, neutrino-ray warhead missile launcher, electrical paralysis generator, nerve gas sprayer, and a “molecular expander,” which seemingly enlarges molecules to giant-sized projectiles. Kang’s abilities have made him a difficult opponent to defeat but at the end of the day he is still a man of flesh and blood underneath his tech. He is also susceptible to human emotion as proven when he fell in love with a woman named Ravonna Renslayer and was absolutely devastated when he lost her. Even the time traveling conquerer has a heart.
He Who Remains
Loki Season 1 introduced a variant of Kang known as “He Who Remains”, who was responsible for the creation of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) that for an unknown amount of time was preventing the creation of the multiverse and the existence of multiple timelines. The purpose of this was to prevent the creation of other variants of himself that would start a war for control of the multiverse. He claims it happened once before and that his death would free the multiverse and therefore unleash his more evil variants. Sylvie, the female variant of Loki, chose to kill He Who Remains as revenge for being taken away from her timeline and as a result the multiverse was freed just as he said it would be. And as shown by the end of the season 1 finale it appears that the variants of Kang are already on the loose with one of them having taken control of the TVA.
What to expect?
Based on both of the trailers released so far for the upcoming Antman and the Wasp Quantumania, it seems that this variant of Kang is the Conqueror variant who seeks to control time itself with the assistance of Scott Lang. We also get to see a look at his army and some of his abilities that are based on technology just like in comics. What his exact plans for taking over time and why he needs Scott Lang of all people to help him is unclear but it is clear that he is an extremely dangerous individual that will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Several individuals from Marvel Studios have stated that this film is a major turning point for the MCU’s overall narrative that kicks off the path to the next two Avengers films, Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. It can be assumed that with such a vast army under his control he is preparing for the multiversal war that “He Who Remains” spoke of and it may be the ultimate battle that we may witness in the two Avengers films with the fate of multiple realities being the stakes. This film is likely to establish Kang as a truly powerful foe who may be even more dangerous than Thanos and push Scott Lang to his limits. Will he even be defeated in this film or will he be just temporarily set back by the Ant-Man family only to return later somewhere else? One thing I do know for certain is that even if this variant of Kang happened to die in the film another will take his place, as there are many variants of him still out there in the multiverse wanting to achieve the same goals and are just as dangerous as this one. Kang will return.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters on Friday, February 17th, 2023.