Yahoo Autos 'Ant Man' Fans Need to Know of Kang the Conqueror and His Connection to He Who Remains
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This story contains spoilers from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Loki.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania just hit the box office, with folks wondering how Paul Rudd's Scott Lang held up after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Between getting his family back and working on the newly-discovered Quantum realm, the superhero now must save his loved ones — not only from the destruction of humanity, but also from other timelines with similar fates. But with this, he meets a villain who has an interesting connection to an important story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Let us explain. During the movie, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), her mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her father Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) find themselves in the crosshairs of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a Thanos-like character who got trapped within the Quantum Realm.
In order for him to move (and take over) within any timeline he wishes, he needs Pym Particles to help him do so. But when viewers meet Kang on the big screen, they realize there's a lot more to the villain than expected ... like the fact that they've seen a version of him before in Loki, called He Who Remains.
While the characters may not be the same, it does lead to some confusion of exactly how the two are connected within Marvel's multiverse. Luckily, we did some sleuthing and we have a breakdown of who is Kang the Conqueror and how he's related to He Who Remains in Loki.
Who is Kang the Conqueror and how is he related to He Who Remains in Loki?
According to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania screenwriter Jeff Loveness, he describes Kang the Conqueror as a "lonely character" who lives in the Quantum Realm and develops the ability to become a multi-dimensional supervillain in Phase 5 of the MCU. This would make sense, given how the element of time allows for multiple versions of the same character to live in various eras simultaneously.
"We’re going to be seeing a lot of [Kang] in a lot of different ways going forward," he told Games Radar. "But I really wanted to introduce the humanity and even the vulnerability of this character before he gets to such apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights."
Despite the unclear trajectory of how Kang will wreak havoc in future Marvel projects, we already saw one way he did so. In the season 1 finale of Loki, the titular character (Tom Hiddleston) tries to take down the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organization who makes sure specific timelines play out according to the will of the group's leader. Turns out, it's He Who Remains that dictates how every person's life in all timelines play out.
When Loki eventually meets He Who Remains, the latter explains the origins of how he came into existence. According to a report from Marvel, a version of himself discovered other multiverses, and passed along information and knowledge to other timelines. It eventually led to a war that almost destroyed every timeline and He Who Remains created the TVA to hopefully keep the other versions from destroying humanity.
But that's not all. As He Who Remains warned Loki, he's not the one to worry about. "If you think I'm evil, well ... just wait till you meet my variants," he cryptically says to the former villain.
Given how Loki and Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) seemingly encounter another variant of Kang during Ant-Man's post-credits scene, He Who Remains may just be onto something. Looks like we'll have to wait for Loki season 2 to find out exactly what the plan will be ...
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