Major spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania follow
Much of the criticisms levied at Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe involved the films not having a clear arc building to a foreseeable climax (i.e. the search for the Infinity Stones across Phases 2 and 3). That’s no longer the case. With the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania—and the start of Phase 5—Marvel has declared who will fill the Thanos-sized void in the MCU: Jonathan Majors’ Kang. but Ant-Man offers a few other breadcrumbs on the larger story direction of this phase and the next, beyond just the Kang of it all. Let’s break all these teases down on a subatomic level and theorize what they mean for the future of the MCU.
A Low-Key Refresher on Loki
First, a quick refresher on the last time we saw a version of Kang, which was in the season finale of Loki. This version of Kang, called “He Who Remains,” makes specific mention of the fact he faced different versions of himself (aka variants) who were all “fighting to preserve their universe and annihilate the others.” This constant conflict between Kang variants ultimately resulted in a Multiversal War, which threatened to destroy the entire world(s). That is, until He Who Remains defeated all of the other Kang variants.
After becoming the only Kang to, well, remain, He established the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and the Sacred Timeline to keep everything from descending into chaos again. The TVA’s main objective is to destroy any person, place, or thing that deviated from the Sacred Timeline so that things wouldn’t dissolve into another massive war.
However, at the end of Loki, a variant of the God of Mischief named Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), whose life was ruined by the TVA’s tyrannical control over the timeline, killed He Who Remains out of revenge. With He Who Remains gone, there’s nothing left to keep the Sacred Timeline going, which meant the return of other Kang variants—a fate hinted at by He Who Remains in his final moments.
Incursion Events Start Coming, and They Don’t Stop Coming
As we saw in last year’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, an incursion occurs when the boundary between two different universes breaks down and collides, destroying one or both realities in the process. Since He Who Remains is no longer present to keep the timeline in order, incursions increased.
We learn in Quantumania that Kang the Conqueror played his fair share of judge, jury, and executioner while protecting his reality from impending incursions. This eventually drew the attention of the Council of Kangs, who exiled the Conqueror to the Quantum Realm—something discussed in the post-credits sequence of the movie. If we’re to believe the Conqueror, he was ostensibly punished for trying to create a cleaner reality, putting him down a similar path to He Who Remains. The Council doesn’t seem particularly keen on protecting anything, happy to function as chaos agents throughout the multiverse.
William Goodman
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