Kang The Conqueror Is An Even Greater Threat Than Walton Goggins, Says Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania Writer

Peyton Reed's new film "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" is to be the 31st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it seems it's high time the series have a new, outsize supervillain lurking around its edges again. The last big bad, Thanos, appeared in cameos across various MCU movies before becoming the central villain of "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame," some of the most widely seen films of all time. The character of Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors, first appeared in the 2021 TV series "Loki," and will now serve as the central villain of "Quantumania." 

In his original comic book form, Kang was a long-lived, time traveling despot who may or may not be a descendant — or ancestor — of various Marvel characters. Based on the plans that have been announced for the MCU, Kang will become a major, villainous presence in the series moving forward. The 39th film in the series is to be called "Avengers: The Kang Dynasty."

Kang is an unusual choice of antagonist for an Ant-Man film, however. The last two films (released in 2015 and 2018) served largely as low-scale "palate cleansers" after major MCU events; the first was released after "Avengers: Age of Ultron," and the second after "Avengers: Infinity War." The character of Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), a cheery, and affable character, was more involved in low-stakes heists and street-level chases than extinction-level events. The films were a refreshing change of pace from the comic apocalypses of the team-up Avengers movies. But that's about to change.

A mega-villain like Kang is not something a minor character like Ant-Man is used to dealing with — at least, not alone. "Quantumania" screenwriter Jeff Loveness said as much in a recent interview with SFX Magazine. Compared to Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) from "Ant-Man and the Wasp," Kang the Conqueror will be bringing some higher-stakes storytelling.

"[Paul] Rudd does some pretty incredible acting. There's a shift that happens. Once Kang shows up, once Scott realises just who he's dealing with, the movie starts to pivot. You see it in Rudd's eyes. Scott's a goofy, playful guy, but he's been in jail twice, he's fought in these big Avengers things, and you can see his eyes slowly change — 'Oh, I'm not dealing with Walton Goggins from the last movie, this is something else!'"

Sonny Burch, as MCU fans might recall, was a mere human criminal, sans superpowers, who sought to steal superhero technology for sale on the black market. He has no time travel plots or world-conquering plans. He merely wanted to have a lot of money and perhaps to gain respect in the criminal underground. However, Sonny was played by Walton Goggins, the formidable star of "Justified," "The Shield," and "The Righteous Gemstones," whose superpowers include his magnetic charisma and boundless versatility as an actor. Thanos might have collected all six Infinity Stones, but even the Mad Titan himself didn't possess a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

If Kang is, indeed, such a force to be reckoned with that he is completely off the Goggins Scale, this could prove to be Ant-Man's greatest battle yet.

A common criticism one might level at the last several films in the MCU is that they, unlike their predecessors, don't appear to have the same sort of forward momentum. Part of the movies' central appeal is their interconnectivity. The promise of one film's characters interacting with another film's characters in future installments whets fans' appetites for crossover events, and MCU entries famously feature post-credit previews for things to come. 

The so-named Phase 4 films had no similar unifiers. They shared no common villains, and almost all of the crossover shenanigans were reserved for "Spider-Man: No Way Home," a film that united three separate Spider-Man continuities. Oh yes, and the title character from "WandaVision" served as the villain in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." The inclusion of Kang will not only allow Loveness to increase the stakes for the Ant-Man character, but bring a unifying villain into the film series at large. 

The good news for Ant-Man (though not necessarily for fans) is that he won't have to fight a battle on two fronts. Director Peyton Reed confirmed in a recent interview with Legado da Marvel that "Quantumania" will be Goggins-free, though he didn't rule out the possibility of Sonny Burch's return in the future.

"You may have to wait a little bit longer. I love Sonny Burch, I love Walton Goggins [...] But yes, he was definitely sort of working in service of someone. I don't know that we'll answer that in ['Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania'], because we have a lot of story to tell in the Quantum Realm in this movie. But I love that fans have theories about that."

"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" will be released in theaters on February 17, 2023.