WhileDoomsdayis coming, the next Avengers movie faces a challenge that theMCUhas arguably never tackled before, and an unlikely source may have just solved it quietly. Even beforeJonathan Majors’ firingamid legal issues the narrative direction of the Multiverse Saga was struggling to match the power of his performance. Faced with the weight of replacing Thanos as the MCU’s next Avengers-level threat, Kang the Conqueror simply wasn’t the answer.
Initially cast as He Who Remains in Loki and Kang forAnt-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, Kang had huge potential as a multiversal villain, but MCU audiences simply didn’t connect with him the same way they did Thanos.Quantumania’s well-publicized reception clearly didn’t help, and the very nature of the character basically resetting with each appearance proved a difficult sell. None of that particularly matters now, however, becauseAvengers 5is no longerThe Kang Dynastyand Majors is no longer the next threat. What matters now is how Marvel Studios mops up the mess.
Step forwardRobert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom, and the inspired rug pull of refocusing the now-renamedAvengers: Doomsdayaround the iconic antagonist. It’s the kind of stunt casting that dreams are made of, and bringing back the Russos is equally inspired, but that doesn’t mean the entire audience is going to accept Doomsday opening without any mention of Kang. General audiences will be distracted enough, but for long-term MCU fans, a shiny new villain isn’t enough. But maybe there’s already a solution written into the latest MCU release? Perhaps… if you believe the discourse currently pouring out of MCU socials, anyway.
You Can’t Just Ignore A Villain This Big After So Much Set-Up… Or Can You?
Looking back to 2023,Lokiseason 2’s endingmay have already set up an intriguing solution for the Council of Kangs. The New TVA, who reveal they are monitoring Kang’s innumerate variants provides an in-universe mechanism to at least acknowledge that someone is aware of the threat.If Marvel wanted to leave it there, perhaps with a hand-waving prologue that gives the Kangs a “Poochie” solution, then some might be appeased, but this feels like too big a problem to be flippant about.
InThe Simpsons, hated Itchy & Scratchy side-character Poochie is killed off-screen on the way back to his home planet.
By integrating Loki’s TVA with the larger Avengers storyline, Marvel could bridge the gap between the end of Kang’s arc and Doom’s rise, salvaging the Multiverse Saga’s seeded storyline while acknowledging that the wider audience simply doesn’t care about Kang. Or they could skip it entirely, ignore calls to recast Kang, and waste no screentime bothering to write a complex answer that’s likely to be scrutinized either way. If they do that, they could either use the TVA “solution” or they could lean intowhat Marvel’s vocal fan community sees as a key revelation inWhat If…?’s two-part finale.
Warning: The following section contains SPOILERS for What If…? season 3
What If Season 3 May Have Subtly Solved The Kang Issue, According To One Theory
The MCU’s New Super-Team Could Have Taken Some Big Scalps
In thepenultimate episode ofWhat If…?’s final season, Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter returns with a new Guardians of the Multiverse line-up that also includes an Asgardian Storm, Kahorri, andnew MCU character Byrdie the Duck. It doesn’t necessarily sound it, but it may well be the MCU’s most over-powered team so far.
Their first scenes qualify that the Guardians have basically been traveling the multiverse - partly thanks to Byrdie’s spaceship that can somehow traverse timelines - saving universes from threats that would otherwise wipe them out. They’re then pulled away from that mission by the need to rescue Uatu (Jeffrey Wright) from his fellow Watchers as he is tried as a heretic for breaking his sacred oath and involving himself in the affairs of those he observes.
Every Version Of Kang In The MCU Ahead Of Avengers 5
The MCU already introduced Kang the Conqueror’s main multiversal variants, which will likely be the villains of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
But it’s Captain Carter’s arrival that sets up the solution for the MCU’s Kang problem.She appears in Kang’s Time Sphere, last seen inAnt-Man & The Wasp: Quantumaniaas the MacGuffin that basically drives the entire narrative. In broad strokes, it’s Kang’s multiverse-travelling, super-powerful chair that allows him to travel anywhere and to any time, but which is depowered when he’s banished by his variants to the Quantum Realm.
So how did Captain Carter get it? Well, lots of MCU fans seem to think this isWhat If…?’s backdoor solution to killing off the Kangs who appear inQuantumania’s post-credits sceneoff-screen as one of the multiversal threats the Guardians exist to wipe out. And an equally significant number of those fans aren’t happy with the idea that it might be true.
Marvel Fans React To What If…?’s Kang Easter Egg (But Are They Right?)
What If…’s Kang Easter Egg Is Causing Some… Feelings
Checking through the reactions on X to Kang’s chair appearing inWhat If…?proves some are choosing to read quite a lot into the Sphere’s reappearance. It’s being presented as a concrete fact that Carter and the Guardians killed the Kangs and took the Time Sphere as a useful trophy.
That all, of course, skips over the fact that the only Time Sphere in the MCU belonged to Kang and was decommissioned by the Council before Janet Van Dyne destroyed it. The Council clearly don’t use Spheres to travel in Quantumania’s credits scene, and there’s no reason to suggest Carter’s “trophy” is anything beyond her using useful tech that allows her to easily travel the multiverse.
Butat the same time, the annoyance is understandable: this is the first time Kang has been mentioned in more than a year and there’s a very real inference that Carter has killed at least one of the variants. I personally wouldn’t read too much into it, even if the Guardians of the Multiverse would actually represent an elegant and powerful solution to the Council of Kangs.What If…?has limited ties to the wider narrative of the MCU, and even Captain Carter’s subsequent appearance inDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnesswasn’t the same variant. It’s probably not that deep.
More frustrating is the fact that the multiverse show actually had an opportunity to resolve Kang’s storyline in a tangible way, even with a smaller audience, because Masters could have been easily recast. Instead, all we got was an Easter egg that’s fed into criticism about the show that probably didn’t really need to happen.
What If…?
Cast
What If… ? is an animated anthology series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which features fan-favorite characters, including Peggy Carter, T’Challa, Doctor Strange, Killmonger, Thor, and more. The new series, directed by Bryan Andrews with AC Bradley as head writer, features signature MCU action with a curious twist. The show sees Uatu the Watcher, an omnipotent being that observes the events of multiple universes from afar as they unfold, unable to interfere. However, things shift when an entity peers beyond the veil, jeopardizing the multiverse.
