Who is Kang the Conqueror? Marvel’s new villain explained

Kang the Conqueror (played by Jonathan Majors) made his first full appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – the first entry in Phase 5 of the Marvel project – but this technically wasn’t the first we've seen of the character, with a variant of Kang named He Who Remains having made a brief appearance in the Loki season 1 finale.

With the Loki season 2 trailer seemingly cementing Kang as a central figure going forward, and giving fans a glimpse of Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief and Owen Wilson’s Mobius as they attempt to deal with the multiversal threat posed by the character, it makes sense to give a brief overview of the character and his history in the comics.

Read on for everything you need to know about Kang the Conquerer.

Who is Kang the Conquerer?

Kang is a long-standing character in the comic books, having first been introduced way back in the 1960s.

Since then, numerous versions of the character have appeared – including one named Immortus and another called Pharaoh Rama-Tut – many of whom now look set to play a crucial role in the events of the MCU.

The most important things to know about Kang are that he is a descendant of a scientist named Nathaniel Richards and that he is a time-traveller who has ventured through various eras of existence, collecting the finest and most powerful weapons he can muster from both the past and the future.

Therefore, although he is not an alien with super-human abilities like Thanos, he does have access to pretty much any weaponry he wants, including perhaps the best weapon of all: time. He's also an expert when it comes to strategising, and so the Avengers certainly won't have an easy time of it as they come up against him in future films.

The variant of Kang we meet in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is an especially powerful one – so much so that he has been exiled to the Quantum Realm by the Council of Kangs (an alliance of all the other variants) because he was considered too dangerous even by their standards.

But he won't be the only version we see in upcoming MCU projects: we've already met He Who Remains in Loki, and based on the events of Quantumania, it looks like other versions including Immortus and Victor Timely are going to play a big part in the future as well.

Whatever happens, we can bank on the fact that Kang will be very prominent for the remainder of the Multiverse Saga, leading up to Avengers films The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars in 2025 and 2026 respectively.

Who plays Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?

The new big bad is played by Jonathan Majors.

Majors broke out with key roles in the 2019 film The Last Black Man in San Francisco and the 2020 HBO series Lovecraft Country, and has since gone on to star in Da 5 Bloods, The Harder They Fall and Devotion.

Meanwhile, the MCU isn't the only big franchise he's joined – he also featured as Damian 'Dame' Anderson in Creed III.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is released in UK cinemas on Friday 17th February. Watch the Marvel movies in order on Disney Plus – sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 for a year

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