Avengers 5 will have MCU fans asking one important question: how will Kang the Conqueror be different from the Thanos franchise when he takes on the Avengers? Now, that question has been answered.
After making his official MCU debut in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, Kang is well on his way to becoming the most potent antagonist in the MCU’s lengthy history. But with Josh Brolin’s superb portrayal of the Mad Titan Thanos in the Infinity Saga, Kang already has some enormous shoes to fill in Avengers 5. Immense villains also come with great responsibility to the larger Marvel Studios story.
Majors hasn’t been allowed to say much about how Kang contrasts with Thanos, but while hinting at his forthcoming task later in the Multiverse Saga, he dubbed it “a totally different planet” and quipped that his “mission is different.”
Now, a significant creative from both Ant-Man 3 and Avengers 5 made an attempt to solve this puzzle on his own, outlining the differences he believes exist between the two A-list villains.
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The MCU’s Thanos vs. Kang
In an interview with GamesRadar, Jeff Loveness, the writer of Avengers 5, discussed how Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors, will measure up to Josh Brolin’s Thanos as the MCU’s villain.
Kang’s humanity is the primary distinction between Loveness and Thanos, who is “a giant purple CGI dude” from space, and the author wants to make that distinction evident by emphasizing Kang’s humanity above all else:
“For me, humanity is what matters most. Of course, Thanos is a fantastic and well-known adversary, but he is also a large, purple CGI character. He is an extraterrestrial being. The fact that Kang is a human being is what I really wanted to focus on.”
Kang was also described as “a very lonely figure,” and Loveness hinted that before he evolves into the next Avengers-level threat, fans will recognize “the humanity and even the fragility” in him:
“Kang is an extremely lonely person. Going forward, we’ll see him a lot in a variety of ways, but I really wanted to establish this character’s compassion and even fragility before he reaches such catastrophic, Avengers-scale heights.
Loveness then returned to the Thanos parallel, exaggerating Kang’s status as “nearly this endless Thanos” and hinting that this new bad guy would be on an “exponential level” of the Mad Titan:
“Kang is a top-tier, A-list villain from the Avengers. What do you do if you believe you can’t do enough to stop that? How can you rise to the exponentially more powerful Thanos, the challenge of this generation? He is practically endless, like Thanos. I believe we’re laying the groundwork for a compelling narrative.
How Kang Achieves New Levels in Avengers 5
According to these comments from Jeff Loveness, Kang, played by Jonathan Majors, has a lot of character traits that will make him the MCU’s next significant nemesis.
Thanos was the exception to the rule that MCU villains are more terrifying when they’re more human and relatable, like the Erik Killmongers and Baron Zemos of the universe, despite the fact that his enormity and alien nature worked brilliantly at the conclusion of the Infinity Saga. Given that Kang’s powers go far beyond what can be seen in his suit and technology, he now has the opportunity to use his humanity to build on what Thanos achieved and possibly make it even better.
Kang may exist as an unlimited number of different versions of himself, allowing him to appear at any point in time and space and add humanity to that.
After He Who Remains launched the action in Season 1 of Loki, Ant-Man 3’s Variant will already be the second one in use, and that will only be the beginning of what Kang is truly capable of. Fans are hopeful that Marvel doesn’t hold back on potential Variants as Majors’ villain goes on his reign of Multiversal terror as his plot expands beyond the upcoming Ant-Man movie and into Phase 6’s pair of Avengers adventures.
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