Ant-Man 3 writer teases “top-tier, A-list Avengers villain” Kang

After Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been slowly rebuilding itself with a new generation of heroes; enter Shang-Chi, Kate Bishop, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and so on. And with new heroes there must also be a new overarching villain. Prepare for Kang (Jonathan Majors), who is set to become the next Thanos-level baddie of the MCU.

Kang is one of the most notorious villains in Marvel comics history. Known for his ability to control and manipulate timelines, so far we’ve only seen him in the season finale of Loki on Disney+. Or rather, we saw a slightly nicer variant of him who was keeping his malevolent other selves from wrecking havoc on the multiverse. And Sylvie killed him, so now there’s nothing holding those guys back. Oops.

Next month, Kang will make his big screen debut as the villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Screenwriter Jeff Loveness thinks Kang is more terrifying than Thanos, the guy who killed half of all beings in the universe. “To me it’s all about the humanity,” he told SFX Magazine. “Obviously Thanos is a great, iconic villain, but he’s also a big purple CGI guy. He’s an alien from outer space. The thing I really wanted to lean into is that Kang is a human being.”

"Kang’s also a very lonely character. We’re going to be seeing a lot of him in a lot of different ways going forward, but I really wanted to introduce the humanity and even the vulnerability of this character before he gets to such apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights."

We’ll see Kang’s “vulnerability” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

We’ll get our next Avengers movie in 2025: The Kang Dynasty. “Kang is a top-tier, A-list Avengers villain,” Loveness said. “What do you do when you feel you’re not enough against that? How do you step up to face the challenge of this generation, who is Thanos on an exponential level? He’s almost this infinite Thanos.”

This new generation of heroes certainly has its work cut out for it. If Phase 4 introduced us to them, then Phase 5 is when the battle really starts.

"I think we’re setting things up for a pretty dynamic story. As I’m building to Avengers I want it to feel like a generational struggle. Phase 4 felt like the birth of new characters. You’re giving everyone a little bit of a breath, you’re broadening out the universe, you have fun Disney Plus shows that are elevating characters. And now I think it’s time to put the pedal to the gas again, and really take all these new characters that we like and throw them into the fire."

Phase 5 of the MCU kicks off with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania on February 17. Are you ready for Kang’s reign of terror?

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