Marvel’s Cinematic Universe did an excellent job of setting up the showdown between the Avengers and the “inevitable” Thanos. From early on, it wasTony Stark, and his then just forming team, that was warned of the titan coming and his unfathomable machinations of wiping out at least half of the population from existence. And when the time came, the Avengers were not ready.
Avengers: Infinity War saw the team of superheroes, ultimately, lose their battle with Thanos with a fateful snap of a finger. However, five years after the “blip,” as it later became known, the remaining team members of the Avengers found a way to fix what Thanos did, bringing back those that were erased, but not without casualties like Black Widow, who sacrificed her self for the Soul Stone, and Tony Stark himself, who entered martyrdom by snapping another version of Thanos out of existence.
The Infinity Saga Opened All Kinds of Doors
As the Infinity War came to an end, the aftermath became a deluge of potential and possibilities with the differing and various powers unleashed through the Infinity Stones. For the characters and stories within the MCU, time and reality were now something that could be manipulated, and it quickly became apparent that the next phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be a vying for control of both between the heroes and villains.
The credence of this came in the form of “He Who Remains” aka Kang the Conqueror in Phase Four’s Disney Plus streaming service’s Loki, where another version of Kang admitted to having already manipulated and “fixed” different timelines in order for the present 616 Marvel Universe, the reality as the characters know it, to exist. In true form, Loki and an alternate version of himself, a female variant, killed “He Who Remains” but not before he warned them of the worst versions of himself that would come to conquer and destroy everything that he’d built and the world itself.
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Kang’s Variants Are Likely Lurking Everywhere
Since then, it must be assumed that the variants of Kang have been working behind the scenes, lurking in the shadows of the multiverse as more and more characters in the MCU began to explore and tamper with time and varying realities, i.e. Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in Spider-Man: Far From Home and Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
Now with Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the official arrival of one of the villainous variants of Kang will finally make his appearance, as forewarned, in attempt to conquer and rule. This will lead to another Avengers film, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and a follow-up to that movie, Avengers: The Secret Wars. But given the breadth of the MCU now, the question has been asked, has Marvel already set up the next big villain after Kang the Conqueror?
There Could Be Multiple Big Bads After Kang…Including More Kangs
There are several thoughts and theories on the matter, but the majority believe that Galactus is the next major villain after Kang. However, to say “after Kang” could be a misnomer. “He Who Remains” in Loki made it abundantly clear that there are almost infinite variants of himself, all of them bad and evil, bent on conquering and destroying.
This statement by Jonathan Major’s Kang introduced the reality that there would be no end to Kang and his continuous assault on reality. So, even if Galactus is next, he will not be alone, and in theory, the arrival of Galactus could very will part of Kang the Conqueror’s plan. Just because there is another villain does not negate that the catalyst for the next villain could also be an already present villain, like Kang or the many variant versions of him.
The Fantastic Four Will Probably Make Dr. Doom a Contender
Another villain that is undoubtedly going to show up at some point, in addition to Galactus, is Dr. Doom. The Fantastic Four movie is in development and a variant version of Dr. Reed Richards has already been introduced (and killed) in the MCU. That means that Dr. Doom, one of the teams’ main villains in comics, is not too far behind and definitely lurking off-screen somewhere. The MCU’s Phase 4 and beyond has opened the door for a lot of bads and villains to join the fray, and quite possibly instead of the heroes dealing with one at a time, they could be dealing with multiple villains simultaneously.
Ultimately, with Kang the Conqueror’s arrival into the MCU, the landscape of the films and their reality has changed. Through Kang, there are a multitude of possibilities, all of which leads to a plethora of villainous actions. The Avengers, potentially the X-Men later on, and other groups of heroes will have to both fight separate battles and wars while on some occasions joining forces to try to combat the amalgamation of all these villainous intentions. But his has always been the plan, for Kevin Feige and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to create and bring to life a comic book universe that parallels and operates very much like the comic books that they are derived and adapted from.
