And just who are you?
Oh, I've been dubbed many names by many people.
He Who Remains.
A jerk.
This is He Who Remains.
He served as a villainous opening salvo
across the bow of the MCU, a character that was obviously
intended to be a variant of the big bad for the next chapter
of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
There's only one problem.
When we were finally introduced to the real big bad,
Kang the Conqueror, in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania,
he was distinctly more Kang the Disappointment.
Who is Kang?
Who I need to be.
As a disclaimer, this video was produced
prior to the allegations against Jonathan Majors.
We hope that the truth behind the allegations
can be revealed soon.
However, for time being, we're only
focusing on the character Kang the Conqueror and how
he was depicted within the MCU.
The MCU transpires in distinct phases.
And much like how the comics work,
these phases often feature large thematic elements
that bind the films together and give them a sense of momentum.
When the MCU was first announced in 2008,
a slate of films building up to an unthinkable conclusion
was released at Comic-Con-- an Avengers film.
And then in 2012, when this experiment
of building a franchise of interconnected films
succeeded and actually did the unimaginable feat of making it
to the projected Avengers film, the post-credits teaser
featured a hint at where the universe
itself would be building towards.
Thanos, the Mad Titan, in love with death
and primary villain behind the Infinity Gauntlet.
Throughout phases two and three, the MCU expertly
built up Thanos as a brilliant tactician, master manipulator,
and immensely powerful antagonist.
But Marvel approached him intelligently.
They didn't put him in all of their movies.
They just featured him in the first Guardians of the Galaxy
film as well as appearing in a mid-credits sequence
in Avengers Age of Ultron.
When he finally does appear as the principal villain
of Infinity War, the character's ability
is so immense that he defeats the Hulk in the opening
sequence almost single handedly, takes out
every Avenger over the course of the film,
and ultimately succeeds in his quest
to annihilate half of the sentient beings
in the universe.
Now compare this to how the MCU's newest ne'er do well
on the block is being established.
He Who Remains, one of Kang's many multiversal personas,
is ostensibly a solitary guardian of what he refers
to as the sacred timeline.
After this version of Kang is killed by Sylvie,
the timeline is fractured, thus setting in motion
the thematic underpinning of the rest
of the second act of the MCU.
And this act ostensibly screwed up the multiverse bad enough
to allow Kang the Conqueror to take over the Time Variance
Authority, a.k.a. the TVA, as seen in the Loki season one
post-credits scene.
He planned everything.
He's seen everything.
He knows everything.
It's complicated.
OK?
But this just doesn't sit right, does it?
Thanos was used sparingly before his full debut.
The Avengers and the various other MCU teams
usually came into contact with representatives or generals
in his armies, i.e.
Loki, the Chitauri, and Ronan the Accuser.
Narratively, this was done for two reasons--
to make Thanos seem more powerful, like more
of a threat, and also so that the Avengers
didn't have the opportunity to ever defeat him.
You need a narrative suspension of disbelief
when you finally have these characters fight.
We all know the Avengers are going to win,
but what if-- what if they don't?
Which is exactly what Marvel played
with when having Thanos actually able to accomplish his goal
of obtaining all five Infinity Stones.
We don't have the suspension of disbelief
with Kang, because literally in his first appearance,
his variant gets killed.
So here we are, Quantumania.
It's less of an actual Ant-Man and the Wasp film
and more just an extended two hour $150 million trailer
for phase five of the MCU.
In the film, we learn that Janet Van Dyne during her time being
trapped in the Quantum Realm befriended and worked
with Kang in an effort to escape the dimensional plane.
He tricked Janet into thinking he was just a scientist
lost in the quantum realm.
However, over the course of attempting to repair his time
chair, Janet links with it and realizes
that he's a despot who's been imprisoned there.
Entire worlds, entire timelines, gone.
And here's where the film does a massive disservice
to the universe building of Kang as a big bad.
In the third act of the film, Kang
is overpowered by an army of super intelligent ants.
How did those ants end up in the Quantum Realm?
They're hyper evolved from an ant farm that was sent there
in the first movie?
Is that when that happened?
Who can even remember?
This is just the most convenient deus ex
machina to end all day deus ex machinas.
A lot of ants.
Maybe He Who Remains wasn't as physically
intimidating of a Kang.
OK, that's fine.
But then this Kang, the one called Kang the Conqueror,
is the Kang that's going to be awesome.
Right?
No.
He gets taken out by some ants.
And then later he gets punched into the multiversal power
corps by Ant-Man.
That's two appearances by Kang in the MCU and three defeats.
That's a mathematical equation that shouldn't be possible.
But hey, here we are.
During Janet's vision, we literally
see Kang the Conqueror destroying worlds
of people, armies, by himself.
We see him taking apart entire timelines.
But some ants, an ex-con, and an absolutely terrible
adaptation of M.O.D.O.K. are enough to defeat him?
It just feels like such a letdown.
That doesn't make any sense.
But you know what?
Who said life has to make sense?
OK, back to Kang.
This is all to say nothing of the fact
that he's positioned as an all powerful
and literally melts a dude's head in the beginning
of the siege of his citadel.
And then whenever the protagonists are around,
he just seems to forget that he's
capable of firing literally death
inducing lasers from his hands at will.
Thanos's characterization was always on point.
When he showed up in the MCU, every scene
had an immense sense of gravity to it.
And because of his limited screen time in the run
up to Infinity War, the anticipation was compounded.
But with Kang, it feels like Marvel has
forgotten all of those lessons.
They are drunk with power off of selling Thanos lunchboxes,
and they've convinced themselves that people
love the villains, so the more Kangs, the better.
Right?
Just wait till you meet my variants.
Not only that, but Quantumania mania
feels like the wrong movie to debut Kang the Conqueror in.
If you're going to do a universe spanning story
about him jumping between timelines,
then you should introduce him in a Fantastic Four or an Exiles
movie.
They've kind of built an unsolvable puzzle
box for themselves.
How do you make a villain that the audience knows
isn't special because there's an alternate timeline
version of himself coming in the next film feel special?
This narrative conundrum is at the core of everything
wrong with Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania.
It is a story that has completely forgotten
the golden rule of the MCU--
focus on the characters.
Quantumania, despite having lavish special effects
and a theoretically sprawling scope,
actually has a very small scale.
The film's only real idea is that Janet has a dark past
and accidentally aided a war criminal.
But the film never really deals with that
on any meaningful level.
The potential development of Janet is just used as a means
to shoehorn Kang into the MCU.
This film is so disinterested in the primary cast,
one of the titular characters, Wasp, is barely in it.
What's the arc of Scott Lang over the course of the movie?
What lesson does he learn?
What skill does he acquire?
That he's a better dad?
But not even really.
Hi, Hope.
Hey, Dad.
Cassie.
Everything about this film feels like it takes a backseat
to the introduction of Kang, which the film practically
does backflips to incorporate.
And yet, what they accomplish with
him is next to meaningless.
Doesn't set Kang up for future adventures
and provides zero greater connection
for his motivation going forward.
Hey, aren't you excited to see all the new Kangs defeated
the first time they show up?
That's ostensibly what this movie
is informing the audience of.
And to add insult to injury, both post-credit scenes
feature new Kangs.
Multiple of them.
But why should we care?
We know where this is going.
At the end of the day, what does this big screen version of Kang
do best?
Die.
Which if this trend isn't corrected quickly,
could be the fate of the MCU as a whole.
Well, that's all we have for this episode.
What do you think?
Was Kang handled well in Quantuania?
Are you excited for him to show up in Loki season two?
Let us know your comments down below.
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