Where Did Kang Come From: Discovering the History of MCU’s “Newest” Villain

Marvel continues to bring new characters to the Silver Screen as each new movie is premiered. My last post brought attention to Namor, the antihero in Black Panther:Wakanda Forever; where we found that Namor was not a new character, but rather one of Marvel Comic’s oldest super villains.

My wife and I recently visited our local theater to see Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Now I can hear some of you already, and I know the critics hated this movie. They said it was Marvel’s worst movie in the entire franchise. I’m going to leave all the opinions to the movie critics. My posts are not about movie quality. I write about the characters and how they fit in to the history of Marvel in general. Between you and me, though, we kind of enjoyed the movie.

In the movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scott Lang’s daughter, along with Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are sucked in to the quantum realm. They find the realm is populated with many creatures, and they come face to face with a new villain – Kang the Conqueror! But here is another character that isn’t really new; Kang has a rich and long history in Marvel Comic’s. So today’s post is going to delve into his history and ask the question, “Where did Kang come from?” Once again, I will do my best not to provide any spoilers for those who still plan to see the movie.

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The movie is not Kang’s first appearance in film.

The character of Kang is very difficult to pin down, because he has so many variants. We will discuss variants a bit later in the post, but there is a variant that has made an appearance in film. In season 1 of the TV series “Loki,” variant of Kang made an appearance in the last 2 episodes. He was the man found at the End of Time and was known as “He Who Remains.” The villain is set to appear in season 2 as the variant Victor Timely.

The End of Time? He Who Remains? If all this sounds confusing, you really should watch the series Loki. Not only will you see a ton of character development for Loki himself, but you will see the introduction of the many variants of the super villain in the new Ant-Man and Wasp movie. Oh and if you watch Loki before you see the movie, the end-of-credits scene will make a lot more sense to you. But in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I’m going to say about that.”

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His first appearance was in the early years of the Marvel Age

There are many variants of the villain who would become known as Kang. The first variant made his appearance in Fantastic Four #19, (October 1963) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Marvel’s first family of super heroes had been accidentally transported to ancient Egypt where they had a run in with Pharaoh Rama-Tut, who was discovered to be a time-traveling criminal from the year 3000. He had traveled back in time and conquered ancient Egypt and was implied to be a descendant or possible future incarnation of the Fantastic Four’s arch enemy Dr. Doom. Rama-Tut made a second appearance in Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964), before making another appearance in Avengers #8 (September 1964). In the Avengers’ story line it was revealed that he had traveled to the year 4000 where he had adopted the name Kang.

In Avenger #10 (November 1964), the character Immortus was introduced. About a decade later, in Giant Size Avengers #3 (February 1975), it was revealed that Immortus was future identity of Kang’s. As the Marvel Universe expanded over the years, the writers were able to morph the character’s identity in many ways because of his time-traveling abilities and the creation of the multiverse. But wait until you hear this next part. Hold on to your hats, readers!

In Fantastic Four #272 (November 1984), it was retroactively established that Kang was a direct descendant of Reed Richard’s father Nathaniel, from one of Reed’s many half-siblings. You remember Reed – aka Mr. Fantastic, the stretchy leader of the Fantastic Four? We haven’t discussed much about this quartet of super heroes. I mentioned them briefly in my first post here. After that relationship announcement, it was further revealed that Kang’s birth name was Nathaniel Richards in What If..? Vol. 2, #39 (July 1992). This name was later accepted into established continuity of the Marvel Universe!

This is enough to make your head spin! Now that we’ve seen a brief history of his appearances in the comics (and there are so many more), let’s take a quick look at his biography that can be established when we stitch together all the comics issues that came out over the decades.

His history can be divided into pre-Kang and Kang

Pre-Kang – As we long at this villain’s history, we will realize that his story is pieced together from comics issues from different super hero volumes and different decades. We try to put together his story from the beginning as it was revealed over the years.

Nathaniel Richards was a 31st-century scholar who was very fascinated with history and discovered time-traveling technology invented by Victor von Doom, another possible ancestor of his. (Avengers #11 (December 1964) and Fantastic Four #273, December 1964). He travels back in time to ancient Egypt and becomes the Pharaoh Rama-Tut. At this time, a variant of Nathaniel’s is recruited by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) as Chronomonitor #616. Have I lost you yet? We really need to discuss “variants” because it has a lot to do with Nathaniel’s story and what happened in the loki series and the Ant-Man movie. If you want to know about the variants, skip now to the next section and then come back to the story line in this section.

The pharaoh’s rule is cut short by our first family of super heroes the Fantastic Four who had been accidentally transported to ancient times (Fantastic Four #19, (September 1963). The not-so-happy Nathaniel then travels to the 20th century where he meets Dr. Doom, who he believes might be his ancestor. He later designed armor like Dr. Doom’s and began calling himself the Scarlet Centurion. The Scarlet Centurion gathers a team of alternate-reality counterparts of himself and battles the Avengers. He wants to destroy them all, but the Avengers eventually force him from the timeline (The Avengers Annual #2, September 1968). When that happens, a divergent version of himself becomes Victorex Prime.

Nathaniel eventually tries to return to the 31st century but overshoots the time by 1,000 years and discovers an Earth that is ripped apart by war. Mankind had developed weapons that they didn’t understand. Nathaniel found it easy to conquer the entire planet and even expanded his authority across the galaxy, reinventing himself as Kang the Conqueror. But what glory can be achieved by ruling a dying planet? So he travels back to a more fertile time and prosperous Earth. (Avengers #8, September 1964).

Kang – As Kang enters the 20th century, he once again battles the Avengers in Avengers #8, (Sept 1964). After an exciting battle which included most of the Avengers being captured by Kang, he is forced to escape when Thor uses his hammer to repel a blast of radiation back at him. Kang later tries to defeat the Avengers with a Spider-Man robot, but the real Spider-Man destroys it (The Avengers #11 Dec. 1964).

There is some time for romance in Kang’s life, which as you can imagine doesn’t go well. Kang becomes hopelessly infatuated with Ravonna, a princess of one of his subject kingdoms in his own timeline. This love story involves the Avengers, whom he had captured to show his power. When the commanders of his army turned against him because he would not execute Ravonna, he releases the Avengers who actually fight with him to put down his rebellious army. They do subdue the rebellion, but Ravonna is mortally wounded when she protected Kang from a blast. Kang then returned the Avengers to their timeline and kept Ravonna in stasis (The Avengers #23–24, Dec. 1965–Jan. 1966).

Nathaniel’s ability to travel through time and in different timelines can really make your head spin! There are many stories that involve Kang, but I think you get the idea that he was everywhere and in every time! He once sent the Hulk back to 1917, with hopes that the green monster would kill the Phantom Eagle before he could destroy a giant German cannon that would have killed Banner’s grandfather. This of course, would have kept Bruce Banner from existing and thus there would be no Hulk. Without the Hulk, there would have been no formation of the Avengers. But alas for Kang, Hulk destroys the cannon which sends him back to the present time (The Incredible Hulk vol. 2 #135, Jan. 1971)

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What’s the deal with all the variants and divergents?

The biggest source of Kang’s super power comes from his extreme intellect stemming from his existence in the 31st century. He has the benefit of a thousand years of technological advances. He was able to develop the technology of time travel and even diverge into other timelines. Marvel writers created the Multiverse with an infinite number of timelines. Theoretically in these timelines, everyone has a variant or divergent of themselves. Kang was able to move within these timelines, and in the recent Ant-Man movie, it was revealed that there were thousands of Kang variants. These variants actually worked together and banished Kang the Conqueror to the Quantum Realm in Ant-Man and the Wasp:Quantumania.

Here are some variations of this super villain:

Pharaoh Rama-Tut – Kang’s original alias when he ruled ancient Egypt.

Immortus – an alternate version of Kang that resides in Limbo. Kang was destined to become Immortus, but a group called The Time Keepers unintentionally separates them.

Iron Lad – an adolescent version of Kang. Young Nathaniel got a glimpse of his future self and didn’t like what he saw. So he traveled back in time to form the Young Avengers to help him stop the future Kang. His attempts to escape his destiny causes the death of Kang, resulting in great destruction from the changes in history. When Iron Lad saw what he had done, he is forced to return to his own time line and undo his changes to the timeline.

Victor Timely – This variant will make an appearance in the Loki series, season 2. This divergent settles in a quiet town of Timely, Wisconsin in 1901 and becomes Mayor Victor Timely. He develops an interest in Phineas Horton, providing insights which led to the creation of the android Human Torch.

Introducing more variants by name only:

Scarlet Centurion, Victorex Prime, Chronomonitor #616, Mister Gryphon, Crosstime Kang Corp

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Kang the Conqueror and his many variants have a wild history

When you have time travel and infinite timelines at your disposal, the stories can make many unexpected twists and turns. I have barely touched the surface of this villain’s appearances throughout Marvel’s comic book history. I think I will need to make another post soon so that we can look closer at his super powers and super intelligence.

We are definitely going to see more of Kang and his variants on TV and the big screen. Kang actor Jonathan Majors is set to be in two major MCU productions. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2025) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2026) will highlight this new Thanos-like super villain. Some say that he will be even mightier and cause more mayhem than Thanos! We shall see!

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. What else would you like to know about Kang the Conqueror? :