Nathaniel Richards, aka Kang, is a force to be reckoned with.
Since the Marvel multiverse saga is catching up at full speed, we need to dig a little deeper into its main villain Kang the conqueror.
Kang has already made his debut in the MCU as a variant known as “He who remains.”
Don’t let the calm nature of Kang in Loki season 1 fool you; there are many other variants of Kang that are way more dangerous than Thanos-the mad titan.
With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel phase 4 is almost over.
Marvel has recently released the first trailer of its first phase-5 movie Antman 3: Quantumania.
In this trailer, we saw Scott lang(Antman) being pulled into the quantum realm with Hank Pym, Cassandra lang, Hope van dyne, and Janet van dyne.
They seem to be stuck in the quantum realm, and guess who is waiting to welcome them?
Kang, played immaculately by Jonathan Majors, seems to be the antagonist of the next Antman movie.
But the question remains: Which version of Kang is he supposed to be?
If we take a look at the comics, then we find that there are many versions of Kang that can tip the scale of the marvel multiverse.
Let us take a look at some of the variants of Kang that we can expect in the coming MCU movies and TV series.
Rama-Tut
If you ask any Marvel comics fan, the first version of Kang that comes to mind is his avatar of the pharaoh of Egypt-Rama Tut.
This was even teased with the inclusion of a sphinx in the Loki season one finale.
Rama Tut, as you may expect, is an Egyptian Overlord.
He made his debut in the Fantastic For issue 19 comics.
Kang has no innate superpowers, and Rama Tut is no different.
Rather than brute force, he relies on his intellect and his knowledge of technology and time travel to go back to ancient Egypt.
Since the people in ancient Egypt weren’t that technologically advanced, he quickly established himself as the pharaoh.
The Sphinx Rama Tut uses as his time travel machine is one of his arsenal’s most advanced pieces of technology.
Rama Tut is one of many potent versions of Kang. He is a work in progress and soon defeated by The Fantastic 4, who ended up in ancient Egypt.
Also to note here, Nathaniel Richards is a distant relative of Mr. Fantastic (Redd Richards) of the Fantastic Four.
Since Mr. Fantastic has already made his debut in the MCU as a part of the Illuminati in Dr. Strange: Multiverse Of Madness, we can also expect him in future MCU movies.
Since Rama Tut’s story revolves around ancient Egypt, we can also expect him to make an appearance in future Moon Knight series and movies.
Marvel has also acquired the right to the X-Men, which means that Rama Tut might also make his cameo in an X-Men project because of his close connection with the First Mutant-Apocalypse.
Immortus
Nathaniel Richards first encountered Immortus without realizing that he was a future version of himself.
Immortus made his debut in Avengers #10 in 1964.
He is a much wiser version of Kang as he is fed up with all the wars and crimes that he has raged across the multiverse.
Now he wants to travel back in time and stop his younger variants from causing any more havoc.
He is also considered the most knowledgeable version of Kang.
He has deleted innumerable timelines to make himself the ruler of all timelines.
Sounds similar?
Well, we saw something similar happening with the version of Kang(He who remains) in Loki season one.
When talking with Loki and Sylvie, he explains how there was a war against all the versions of Kang, and to stop the destruction of reality, he created a single dominant timeline.
This is the reason why so many variants of multiple characters were captured and pruned by the TVA.
They were trying to maintain a singular timeline, but with the death of “He who Remains,” that timeline branched off, and we entered the Multiverse saga.
Maybe we have already seen the debut of Immortus in the MCU as “he who remains.”
Immortus also proclaims himself to be the Lord of times, and in the comics, he also used to hunt down Nexus beings like Scarlett witch.
He is also popularly known as the master of Limbo (Mcu’s Quantum realm), and we did see in Antman 3 trailer that a variant of Kang is ruling over a city in the quantum realm, most probably Chronopolis(a time-spanning town located in the outskirts of limbo)
Immortus may very well show up in Antman 3: Quantumania, but to know the truth, we will have to wait for the movie to come out.
Iron Lad
Being the founder of The Young Avengers, This version of Kang is very powerful and has distinct abilities from his variants.
Just like Iron Man, this teenage version of Nathaniel Richards also has a suit of armor.
This suit of armor gives him perks like enhanced speed, agility, and endurance, and he can also fly using this suit.
With the help of neurokinetic nanotechnology used in his suit, he can change the shape of his suit to form weapons and shields with just his thoughts.
He does not even need to wear this armor to operate it and can easily manipulate it with his thoughts.
Making his debut in Young Avengers #1, Nathaniel Richards was born on Earth-6311 in the 30th century.
For the sake of clarification, the primary Earth shown in MCU is Earth-616.
This means that our versions of Iron man, Thor, Captain America, etc., are from Earth-616, and as we saw in Dr. Strange: Multiverse Of Madness that there are several alternative versions of the universe with different variants of these characters.
This version of Kang is on the good side and helps prevent many dangers with his team of young avengers.
He eventually realizes he is creating a time paradox, so he returns to the future(his original timeline).
His armor is made up of a special synthetic alloy using future technology, and his armor’s most incredible ability is to create temporal divergence.
This means that he can just put on his suit and travel between space and time whenever he wants.
This suit can also override security systems and project holograms that he uses to hide his true appearance.
Kamala Kang
As we have seen in recent Marvel shows and movies, MCU is slowly starting to incorporate superheroes with different backgrounds and ethnicity.
We even got to see a female version of Thor in “Thor: love and thunder” and a female version of Loki in his series.
Being a female version of Kang, Kamala Kang’s case is not so different.
With the debut of Kamala khan in the series, ms. Marvel, marvel has already planted a seed for a possible future debut of this version of Kang.
Bathed in Chronogen mist, Kamala khan was endowed with the superpowers to stretch her body and have a cosmic intuition.
She can even stretch her body between space and time.
She was in a faulty suit when she was going through this mist and soon realized that this storm ignited her latent inhuman genes.
Inhumans are already established in the MCU, and there was a cameo of Black Bolt(another Inhuman) in the multiverse of madness movie.
Kamala Kang is an amalgamation of two souls, Kang and Kamala khan.
She retains her abilities but also has Kang’s knowledge and technology.
Due to her unique abilities, she is considered to be one of the strongest versions of Kang.
Since this is a rather unique and compelling version of Kang, she could end up in The Marvels Movie (said to release in 2023) or in Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.
The Scarlet Centurion
Making his debut in Fantastic Four Annual #2, The scarlet Centurion is another extremely powerful version of Kang.
Inspired by Dr. Doom’s Armor, Kang creates a new armor for himself and forms a new identity.
Kang has also used this armor to go toe to toe with the avengers.
If you don’t know, Kang has a personal quarrel with the avengers.
The Scarlet Centurian is the first variant of Kang that the avengers faced.
One time he even decided to go back in time to fight the Avengers, and this in itself created a branching timeline.
He then convinced some of the avengers that if there were too many superheroes, then the Earth might collapse.
The avengers were influenced by Kang’s words and decided to imprison all the other superheroes.
The avengers eventually defeated Kang.
With his defeat, Nathaniel Richards decided that his outing as the scarlet Centurion was a complete failure and once again took the guise of Rama Tut.
After many years of war and time travel, Nathaniel Richard took the guise of Kang The Conquerer and fathered a son called Marcus Kang.
When Marcus matured, he took the suit of the scarlet Centurion.
This armor of Kang has many of the usual powers of Kang tech, and it can easily travel through time and space.
Mr. Gryphon
Due to a glitch in the timestream, Kang was split into two distinct versions of himself.
One of these versions of Nathaniel Richards got suck in the 21st century and is unable to go back to his original timeline.
Under the disguise of Mr. Gryphon, he decides to make his empire in the 21st century.
He became the CEO of his company “Qeng Enterprises.”
Quen Enterprises was also teased in one of the episodes of Loki.
This hints that marvel may be planning on using this version of Kang in the upcoming movies, and Mr. Gryphon may end up in Avengers 4- Kang Dynasty.
He also bought the stark towers in the comics, and the easter egg in Loki was a Building resembling the stark tower with the name-Qeng.
The avengers soon realized the true origins of Mr. Gryphon and went to fight him.
He was able to give the avengers a tough fight, and with the help of a reprogrammed Vision, he was able to separate Thor from his hammer.
The Avengers were able to defeat him by rebooting vision’s programming and freeing him from Mr. Gryphon’s control.
With the death of Tony stark, the future of the avengers in the MCU looks bleak.
This might be the best time for Marvel to introduce Mr. Gryphon and put him as the owner of the stark tower.
The Council of cross time Kangs (Multiverse)
This a group of humans and alien creatures that took on the guise of Kang the conqueror.
Kang Prime used to rule the entire multiverse using his robots.
Using the Monster Alioth, True Kang destroyed this council of kangs.
This particular storyline might play an important role in Avengers 4-Kang Dynasty.
We have already heard from “He who remains” that there used to be a council of kangs in the MCU and that he submerged multiple timelines into a single prime timeline.
He used to rule over this timeline for who knows how many years until Sylvie(a female variant of Loki) killed him.
Before dying, he who remains tells Loki and Sylvie that once he dies, the other dangerous version of kangs will be unleashed.
In Antman 3 trailer, we saw another version of Kang, and there may already be a council of kangs being formed.
The council of kangs is different from the council of cross time kangs.
Sounds confusing?
Well, The council of cross time Kangs was formed once the council of kangs was annihilated.
Cross-time Kangs are not Nathaniel Richards variants.
Cross-time kangs killed many versions of Nathaniel Richards and took the seat of Kang for themselves.
The title of Avengers 4 (Kang Dynasty) also seems to hint at this particular storyline, and thus it won’t be far off to speculate that we might end up witnessing the formation of a “council of kangs” or even a “Council of Cross time Kangs” in the MCU in the next few years.
Another fun fact is that “The Council of Kangs” was referenced sarcastically in Rick and Morty Tv series.
Rick, a multiversal genius similar to Nathaniel Richards, forms a “Council of Ricks.”