Draft:Kang (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Kang is a fictional character portrayed by Jonathan Majors in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. He is depicted as a powerful time-traveling being who exists in many forms, or "variants", across the multiverse. His variants include the Time Variance Authority creator He Who Remains, the exiled warlord Kang the Conqueror, and the 19th-century industrialist Victor Timely.

Kang's variants serve as key figures in the MCU's "Multiverse Saga", styled as the "next big cross-movie villain" following Thanos in the "Infinity Saga". He Who Remains was introduced in the first-season finale of the Disney+ television series Loki (2021), while Kang the Conqueror debuted in the film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). Timely first appeared in Quantumania post-credits scene before returning in the second season of Loki.

Betrayal of Renslayer and solo reign
Following the end of the multiversal war, He Who Remains and Ravonna Renslayer prepare to rule the Time Variance Authority (TVA) together. As Renslayer leaves, He Who Remains orders Miss Minutes to launch protocol 42, which means the memory wipe of all members of the TVA, including Rensalyer.

Meeting with Loki and Sylvie
He Who Remains greets Loki and Sylvie soon after they arrive at the Citadel at the End of Time. He explains that another variant of himself from Earth in the 31st Century discovered universes upon universes and teamed up with other variants of himself to explore the multiverse. However, some variants disagreed causing a multiversal war. He Who Remains then found and experimented on the creature Alioth which he would then unleash to kill all his variants, ending the multiversal war. He would go on to form the TVA to maintain the flow of time. He then states that if he is killed, the multiverse would break again and new variants of himself would appear across time and the multiverse. Sylvie betrays Loki, sending him back to the TVA headquarters, and kills He Who Remains.

Conversation with the slipping Loki
After reliving the death of He Who Remains over and over again, Loki and He Who Remains himself stop time in Sylvie and have a conversation about how to fix the loom and save the TVA. But He Who Remains reveals to him that the loom was designed to protect only the Sacred Timeline, with no possibility of manipulating it to contain branches. As a remedy, He Who Remains suggests killing Sylvie and preventing the loom from overloading, but Loki rejects the idea.

Exiled to the Quantum Realm
Kang was exiled by the Council of Kangs out of fear to the Quantum Realm where he meets a deserted Janet van Dyne. As the two bond and get to know each other, Kang promises Janet that he will take her back home in exchange for help him to rebuild the multiversal power core that powers his ship. After they repair it after several failed attempts, Janet sees a vision of Kang's future destruction across the multiverse and alternate timelines, she ultimately betrays Kang and uses her Pym Particles to enlarge the core and render it unusable hence trapping them both there.

Planning to escape
In 2025, Scott Lang's daughter Cassie had been working on a communications device to the Quantum Realm with Janet's husband Hank Pym and daughter Hope. However, when Janet tries to turn it off, she accidentally transports them to the realm but the two families are separated along the way. After the Langs encounter a resistance, they are attacked by M.O.D.O.K. who takes them to Kang. Kang threatens Cassie if Scott doesn't use Pym Particles to bring his core back to size. After doing so, Janet's family arrive to help Scott but Janet and Hope are recaptured while Kang destroys the ship Hank came in. After being rescued by his ants, who were also pulled into the Quantum Realm, rapidly evolved, and became hyper-intelligent, Hank helps Scott and Hope as they make their way to Kang while Cassie spreads a message to the Quantum Realm causing an uprising against Kang and his army. M.O.D.O.K dies during the uprising after having switched sides. Janet fixes the power core as she, Hank, Hope, and Cassie jump through a portal home, but Kang attacks Scott, nearly beating him into submission. Hope returns and, together with Scott, destroy the power core and knock Kang into it, causing him to be pulled into oblivion. Cassie reopens the portal on her end for Scott and Hope to return home. As Scott happily resumes his life, he begins to rethink what he was told about Kang's death being the start of something terrible happening, but brushes it off.

Elsewhere, three other variants of Kang discuss the exiled Kang's death and how the heroes of Earth-616 are beginning to touch the multiverse, concerning them. This prompts the elder Kang to have call every Kang from the multiverse.

Time presentation and arrival at the TVA
In 1893, Timely gives a scientific presentation about time to a crowd that includes Loki, Mobius, Renslayer and Miss Minutes, where he shows a prototype of a Temporary Loom. He sells it to a robber baron and they go after him when they realize he is a scammer. Sylvie arrives to kill Timely, but Loki helps him and eventually leaves with Renslayer and Miss Minutes. During the trip to his laboratory in Wisconsin, Timely and Miss Minutes betray Renslayer and go to the laboratory alone. There Miss Minutes tells him her resentment towards He Who Remains for not giving her a body and declares her love for him, causing Timely to shut her down. Then Loki, Mobius and Renslayer arrive and are interrupted by Sylvie ,who ends up sparing his life and Loki and Mobius take him to the TVA. When Timely arrives at the TVA, he meets B-15, Casey and O.B.. When they prepare the device to fix the loom, he is kidnapped by Renslayer, Miss Minutes and X-5, and while they interrogate him, Sylvie, with the charm, makes X-5 depower Renslayer and Miss Minutes is deactivated. Timely's aura is accepted, and when he volunteers to go out and put in the Loom, he is spaghettified due to the radiation.

Attempts with the slipping Loki
After Loki manages to control his time slip, he slips into time where Timely tries to fix the loom so he can learn from each failed attempt. He eventually gets Timely to place the multiplier and keep the loom stable for a few moments, but they learn that there is no way to maintain those branches without overloading the loom. Eventually, Loki takes Timely's position, destroys the loom, magically revives the dying timelines and reorganizes them into a tree-like structure, committing himself to oversee the branches in solitude at the End of Time, saving Timely's life. Some time later, Renslayer is pruned from giving the manual of the TVA to young Timely.

Casting and appearances
In September 2020, Jonathan Majors was cast in a "lead role" for the film, which was reported to be Kang the Conqueror. Because the actor cast as Kang would first portray an alternate version of the character, named He Who Remains, in the Disney+ series Loki, Kate Herron and Michael Waldron—the director and head writer of Loki first season, respectively—were involved in casting Majors in addition to Reed and executives at Marvel Studios; Marvel Studios were eager to work with and cast Majors after seeing his performance in The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), with Reed very supportive of approaching Majors. Majors was approached for the role without an audition, and later noted he had been involved in the film "since the beginning" before joining Loki. Reed was interested in having Ant-Man and the Wasp go up against a formidable foe in the film, believing Kang to be one of Marvel Comics' "all-timers" like Loki and Doctor Doom.

Majors return in the season two of Loki, portraying Victor Timely, another variant of He Who Remains and Kang the Conqueror who was introduced at the end of Quantumania. He was also attached to reprise his role as Kang in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and Avengers: Secret Wars. Marvel was not initially planning to have the "Multiverse Saga" revolve around Kang the Conqueror, but once they saw Majors' performance as He Who Remains in the first season of Loki and Majors' dailies while filming Quantumania, they decided to expand the actor's work with them, making Majors an integral part of the MCU's current saga much like Robert Downey Jr. and Josh Brolin had been as Tony Stark / Iron Man and Thanos in the "Infinity Saga" respectively. In December 2023, Majors was fired by Disney and Marvel Studios following assault and harassment charges from his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari.

Reception
Alan Sepinwall at Rolling Stone was "simultaneously thrilled and dismayed" by the appearance of Majors in "For All Time. Always.", noting introducing a series' main villain in the final episode was "bad dramatic structure", and that "it briefly felt as if everything that had been so special and appealing about Loki was being brushed aside in order to hype up a new bad guy for the big screen". Yet, Majors' "profoundly weird performance" served the material, making "one hell of a debut" for the character. Like Sepinwall, Robinson also felt the Kang reveal should not have worked and noted the large amount of exposition in the episode, stating "There is absolutely zero chance this episode would have worked were it not for Marvel hiring an actor as watchable and unpredictable as Majors". David Opie of Digital Spy criticized the introduction of He Who Remains, saying it "came completely out of nowhere" for non-comics readers. Simon Cardy from IGN said that seeing Majors first appear was an "understated but impactful reveal", praising Majors' acting that exuded the "zany energy of Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka with the underlying terror of Denzel Washington's Detective Alonzo [Harris] in Training Day" (2001). Caroline Siede from The A.V. Club noted that viewers who had not been familiar with Majors' casting as Kang would have been confused throughout the episode, she felt it worked for both those viewers and those who were expecting a Kang appearance in some form, with Majors giving a "wonderfully capricious performance".

Ross Bonaime from Collider praised Majors' performance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, writing he "makes for an excellent villain, who brings nuance and subtlety to his character ... Majors makes this character [Kang] likable in the beginning, but also never hides the menace and terror that he can cause at any moment." Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter commended Majors for "bringing real gravitas" to the film, and investing "his performance with such an arrestingly quiet stillness and ambivalence that you're on edge every moment he's onscreen." Wendy Ide from The Guardian called Majors' performance the film's "magnetic core". Manohla Dargis from The New York Times felt Majors, alongside other two actors, was the "true star of this show".

Merchandise
A He Who Remains Funko Pop was released in July 2022 as part of Funko's annual San Diego Comic-Con wave. Also revealed at SDCC was a Marvel Legends figure of He Who Remains amongst the fourth Disney+ wave.

The first wave of Quantumania Funko Pops were revealed in early December, which included a Kang Pop. In February 2023, a Marvel Legends figure of Kang was announced by Hasbro. Hot Toys unveiled their Quantumania Kang figure in March.

A Victor Timely Funko Pop was revealed in October 2023.