When Marvel writer Jeff Loveness (Rick and Morty, Miracle workers) to write the third Ant-Man movie in March 2020 – what a time! — Kevin Feige and company had only a few conditions: the movie had to be a big Quantum Realm adventure movie, and maybe Kang the Conqueror would be the villain. Loveness ran with it… and ran with it and ran with it, all the way past the credits of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania writing to a gig 2025’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Kang (played by Jonathan Majors) wasn’t just some throwaway reference reveal Loki season 1, or a one-time villain Scott Lang must fend off. This was Marvel’s new Big Bad, the Thanos from the “Multiverse Saga”, who will be led by Loveness through some future installments.
But what is the Kang story anyway about when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? A great villain not only terrorizes the heroes, but also interrogates the world around them. And in the MCU there’s even more weight on a man like Kang – he can’t carry just one movie, he has to carry a whole storyis worth telling stories. To give him that weight going in Quantumania, Loveness viewed Kang’s arc as that of a true conqueror, one who “doesn’t accept civilization or the world or the life they have”. History is full of it. The thought experiment led him to frame the role of the villain in the MCU as a high-stakes question: “Are you willing to accept the broken world that is yours and in which you have a life, or are you you brave enough to burn it down to something better?”
For Loveness, it was the opposite energy of what Thanos brought to the table, and exactly what the MCU needed.
“Thanos comes in like a hammer of sorts. He’s single-minded. He has one mission — it’s pretty simple,” Loveness says. “I wanted to introduce Kang the Conqueror almost at the end of his story. There is a past with this man. I like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars because they drop you into a mythology much older than where the story begins. They call Morgoth, but they fight Morgoth’s intern throughout the trilogy! Darth Vader – I think he has a history with this old man? It’s so great. And so I thought it would be great to meet Kang the Conqueror after his great defeat.
Image: Marvel Studios
Loveness says a certain line Quantumania gets to the heart of the character: “If you can see time like I do, you can’t close your eyes.” He considers Kang to be in charge of his crusade, as well as “a very non-linear man.” The idea of bouncing through time and space took Loveness and the Marvel team to a moment of defeat rather than the start of a frenzy, where the writer was able to link Kang to someone like Napoleon Bonaparte.
“I think more of his defeat at Waterloo or his exile or his failure in Russia than of his military campaigns across Italy. I think about what happens in the context of defeat, and how you can humanize that character and give him a revenge arc. Unlike Thanos, Kang doesn’t want to balance the universe – he wants to flatten it to make way for something completely known.
“He’s the Great Gatsby of the multiverse,” Loveness says with a chuckle, “and I’ll leave it at that.”
Loveness says the original script Quantumania had even more backstory for Kang, but like all movies that take shape over the course of development, certain beats and reveals were sanded. A lot of that will find its way in Avengers: The Kang DynastyBut Quantumania leaves fans with the tease of the many Kangs seen in a post-credits scene – and what they ultimately mean for the new film’s Kang.
“I just like the setup of: He’s not a liar,” Loveness points out. “If you go back and watch the movie and listen to what he says, we’re in a lot of trouble because he was the only one who can stop these guys.”
That leaves the Avengers with a huge problem for the future, in terms of all the Kangs they have to face. Loveness couldn’t be more excited.
“I wish Hawkeye the best of luck. I’m sure Daredevil and Moon Knight will be Awesome to those guys.”
