Thanos dusted half of the universe into dust with just a snap of his fingers.
This formidable force that shaped the MCU as we know it today was why the avengers were created.
Thanos played a quintessential role in shaping the avengers as we know them.
He proved a formidable foe, and to defeat him and bring back half of the universe required a great sacrifice.
The Death of Iron Man and Black Widow was a great loss for the team, but they eventually defeated Thanos.
But what about Kang?
Can the Avengers defeat him as they defeated Thanos?
Will he pose a greater threat than Thanos?
To answer these questions, we will have to take a look at Nathaniel Richard’s life- the original variant of Kang.
Nathaniel was born in an ideal future(31st Century) in a universe never plagued by the dark ages.
His technology and knowledge are not of the 21st Century, instantly making him unique.
With all his powers and intellect, Thanos was a being of the present time, and thus his expertise in these things is limited by the current atmosphere of the MCU.
With the Death of “He Who Remains” in the last episode of Loki, Kang’s variants are now released into the vast multiverse.
Antman 3 Quantumania also teased a variant of Kang, and there might be several other variants of Kang already plotting a scheme for world domination.
This makes Kang an interesting and mysterious villain.
To uncover the secrets of this mysterious figure, let us dive deep into the life of Nathaniel Richard aka Kang the Conquerer.
Kang’s Origins
Born in the 31st Century, Nathaniel Richard was bored out of his wits within his original Timeline.
It was a utopian future filled with technological advancements that made life peaceful and boring.
Thus Nathaniel decided to travel back to ancient times and rule as Rama Tut(pharaoh of ancient Egypt).
Because of his advanced technology, the citizens of ancient Egypt believed him to be a god, and they worshiped him.
Soon all of this collapses with the arrival of The Fantastic Four in ancient Egypt(Same Timeline as Kang).
Kangs flees from Egypt and meets Dr. Doom in his travels.
Due to a malfunction in his tech, Kang is unwittingly thrown into the 41st Century and is stuck there.
In this post-apocalyptic Timeline, Kang sees his opportunity to shine and, with his technical knowledge, builds himself a suit of armor similar to Dr. Doom.
He conquers the post-apocalyptic Earth and then travels back to an earlier timeline to conquer it, too, and his quest for conquest begins.
With the introduction of yet another mutant (Namor) in Black Panther: Wakanda forever and the introduction of Reed Richards(Fantastic Four) in Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness, we can readily see that Kevin Feige has started to incorporate other marvel properties in the MCU.
It won’t be a stretch to say that Kang might make his debut before Avengers:5 in many other Marvel projects.
Kang’s Motivation Vs Thanos
While Thanos wanted to balance the scale of the universe by killing half the life in the universe, Kang the conqueror’s motivations are more simple.
As the name suggests, Kang is a conqueror.
He simply wants to conquer.
Conquer what?
Not Earth, not even the universe.
Well, Kang wants to be the conqueror of the entire multiverse.
He wants to rule over the entire fabric of reality.
His reason for this is his perverted fantasy to prevent humanity from destruction by making them slaves so he can create genetically enhanced beings.
In Loki season 1, we saw he who remains explaining that there was an ancient multiversal war between the variants of Kang.
He then defeated all of them and created a sacred timeline ruling over it for eternity.
So in a sense, Kang has always been the ruler of the MCU.
This desire to rule the multiverse is extremely selfish.
Unlike Thanos, who had good intentions even if his means of doing them were evil.
This makes Kang a much bigger threat and a much more vicious villain than Thanos ever could be.
Maybe in Avengers 5: Kang Dynasty, we might see some deeper meaning to Kang’s conquest.
Kang’s Technology
Kang is a normal human being.
Unlike Thanos, who was an expert Titan warrior with a deviant gene, Kang can easily be beaten in hand-to-hand combat by a stronger avenger such as Thor or Hulk.
So how can Kang be a threat to our heroes?
Even hawk eye can take care of him.
Well, the story is much more complicated than it seems.
See, Kang is from the future. He is raised in a timeline where technology is far superior.
This gives Kang the upper hand because, with the help of his tech, he can do things that Thanos cannot even imagine.
We saw in Loki that even the infinity stones are rendered useless in Kang’s office(TVA headquarters).
This headquarters could be inside the quantum realm.
Kang uses quantum energy to power his tech.
In Avengers: Endgame, we saw that the quantum world is the key to returning those dusted by Thanos and thus destroying his plan.
And for that reason alone, a villain who can harness quantum energy is to be feared.
Kang’s entire tech is based around quantum tech.
Just imagine the destruction he can cause with it.
For starters, Kang can manipulate gravity and conjure shields, and his perfect suit of armor allows him many other advantages against his foes.
Not to forget-He can Travel through space and Time.
This means that he can easily go throughout the multiverse and kill the avengers whenever and wherever he wants.
We also saw a demo of the Tempad and Time stick used by the TVA(Time Variance Authority).
In Loki season 1, we saw that TVA was assigned to capture variants and prevent the eternal Timeline from branching out.
The branching out of Timeline will result in the multiversal war again.
TemPad allowed them to travel the multiverse and arrest these variants on the go.
The Time stick or the pruning stick was used to prune the variants from existence, resulting in the victim being sent to the Void.
In the Void, Kang’s biggest weapon is waiting.
The Alioth
Alioth is Kang’s pet.
How powerful is Alioth?
Kang used Alioth to win the multiversal war; that’s how powerful Alioth is!
Alioth is a temporal being that looks like a dark cloud.
He causes massive temporal disturbances and engulfs everything it touches.
Everything Alioth touch is instantly destroyed!
Alioth guards the Void, and god knows how the avengers could fight this being.
He is considered the supreme Time being destined to conquer all periods, and he is Kang’s pet.
Surely a man with a dog like that is to be feared!
Kang’s Intellect
Let us face it, Kang is way more intellectual than the mad titan.
With all his knowledge about the infinity stones and the universe, Thanos looks pretty dumb compared to the vast amount of knowledge Kang has gained due to his multiversal travels.
Kang knows of the 31st Century technology, which Thanos knows nothing about.
Unlike us, Time works differently for Kang.
He can see what is happening all through eternity in every Timeline.
Due to his immense knowledge of the multiverse and time travel, Kang knows what will happen even before it happens.
This makes him omnipotent.
Since he can predict the future, fighting Kang becomes more than just a fistfight.
He knows what moves our heroes are going to make in advance.
He is also a distant relative of Reed Richards(Mr. Fantastic).
Mr. Fantastic is considered to be the smartest man in the Marvel universe.
Kang must have been born with a similar DNA as Mr. Fantastic, which further cements that Kang is intellectually superior to Thanos.
Everything in the MCU was Kang’s Masterplan
Did you know that everything that has been happening in the MCU till now(Thanos using the infinity gauntlet to eradicate half of life in the universe, Death of iron man, and black widow) was Kang’s plan?
Well, “He Who Remains” knows everything that happens or will happen and maintains his dominance by pruning away any branch timelines.
That means that everything we have seen in the MCU until the Death of “He who Remains” was part of Kang’s plan.
This surely sheds some new light on these events.
With the Death of Iron Man and Steve Rogers seeming to be retired, how can the avengers stop the inevitable conquest of Kang?
Maybe that was the reason Kang allowed things to turn out this way.
So that he can allow himself to be killed by Loki’s Variant and begin his conquest once again.
Why?
Well, “He who remains” acknowledges the fact to Loki and Sylvie that he is bored of ruling the sacred Timeline for so long.
He has been doing it for eternity.
So most probably, Kang wants to come back to the game as he is an overlord who loves to rage war.
Kang Can’t Be Killed
Thanos was an extremely powerful Titan.
Even without the infinity stones, he was capable of destroying entire civilizations.
Killing him required the entire MCU superheroes to assemble and fight against him.
If not for iron man sacrificing himself, Thanos would have won.
How does that compare to a fight against a mere human like Kang?
Let us look carefully at what the fight between the avengers and Kang might look like.
Technically, you can still kill Kang, but another variant of him is likely to spring back from another universe.
If the avengers manage to kill one variant of Kang, other variants will learn from this event and may travel back in time to alter the actual event that resulted in Kang’s Death.
This would mean that Kang was never killed.
Even if this didn’t happen, there are innumerable variants of Kang capable of traveling the multiverse and timelines.
That means that eventually, the avengers will have to face Kang again.
And if they manage to kill him again, then again, another variant will appear in an infinite loop.
Thus the avengers can’t kill Kang.
He is like a virus, wherein attempts to destroy him teach him valuable lessons, and then he comes back even stronger and wiser.
How will Dr. Strange, Scarlett Witch, and the other remaining Avengers be able to stop Kang then?
There is a way to stop Kang, hopefully!
It is still a hypothesis, but if the avengers manage to pull this off, they might be able to prevent the multiversal war.
Or, at the least, avenge their loss.
Well, the keyword is to stop, not kill!
Since we all know about some of the techs inside Kang’s sleeves, we can understand that killing him will do no good and would still result in him re-emerging to cause havoc.
If Kang wins the multiversal war, it might result in the pruning of all the other timelines and Kang again ends up as the ruler of the sacred Timeline.
Since that has already happened and now the multiversal war has again begun, The best way to stop Kang would be to befriend him somehow.
That sounds ridiculous, but we have already seen a similar scenario in the Dr. Strange movie.
Since it was near impossible for Dr. Stange to kill an immensely powerful being like Dormammu, Dr strange played a neat little trick on him.
To stop Dormammu from consuming the Earth, he manages to put himself with Dormammu in a time prison.
Now both of them are stuck there for all eternity.
Dormammu can’t conquer Earth because of this, and the only way to escape is to bargain with Dr. Strange.
Eventually, Dormammu accepts Dr. Stange’s terms and promises to leave Earth unharmed, and Dr. Strange manages to win in this complex situation.
We might see Dr. Strange again doing something similar against Kang and hope it might work out for the best.
Until then, we can only speculate and slowly bring the puzzle pieces together with each new MCU project.