The Ant-Man movies haven’t been the box office juggernauts that many of the other movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have, but Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania nonetheless has quite a weight on its shoulders. The little series that could is kicking off the MCU’s newest phase and announces the arrival of a new main villain for the entire franchise: Kang the Conqueror.
Warning: The following contains Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie and wish to remain unspoiled, stop reading now.
That being the case, Quantumania doesn’t quite take the standard Marvel approach with its mid-credits and post-credits scenes. Typically, one of these scenes (the mid-credits) will be some sort of tease for the future, while the other is more of a funny gag. In Ant-Man & the Wasp, for example, the mid-credits scene showed Scott Lang getting trapped in the Quantum Realm while his family was snapped by Thanos, and the post-credits scene was a jokey clip of a giant ant playing drums.
But Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania is the first movie of the MCU’s Phase 5, meaning it’s setting up a lot of stuff and doesn’t have time to waste on post-credits frivolity. Nope–this movie has two separate teases for upcoming chapters in the MCU.
Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania mid-credits scene explained–who are all these other Kangs?
Unless you’re a comic book expert, the mid-credits scene in Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania will probably raise more questions than it answers.
In this scene we see three new characters all played by Jonathan Majors, who served as the main villain of the film. These other Kangs are talking to each other about what just happened in the Quantum Realm and how the Kang that we spent the whole movie with is dead now. These Kangs were mentioned earlier in the film–they exiled our Kang to the Quantum Realm because they didn’t like what he had planned for the multiverse.
These Kangs are just three of many. As we’re told by one of them, every Kang in the multiverse has been called to assembly to discuss the state of things. This group is known as the Council of Kangs.
There are some really big ramifications to this scene.
First: the primary Kang in this scene, the one who looks like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, is perhaps better known as Fantastic Four nemesis Rama-Tut. This persona was the very first version of Kang introduced in the comics, when he enslaved the Fantastic Four in ancient Egypt. Between the brief cameo by John Krasinski’s Mr. Fantastic and now this, the Fantastic Four’s full entry into the MCU feels like it could happen any day now. Yes, we’re still two years from the actual Fantastic Four movie, but surely the group, or members of the group, will have parts to play elsewhere before then.
Next: the way Kang works in the Marvel comics is paradoxical, and we’re seeing that here. The Council of Kangs is in fact not a bunch of alternate versions of Kang but rather his future and past selves. Kang has lived longer than any other character we’ve met in the MCU, having lived thousands of lives in thousands of different realities. But he’s just one individual. Like I said, it’s paradoxical, so don’t sweat the logic of it too much. The nature of Kang’s existence is beyond our ability to fully comprehend or describe.
What does this scene say about what’s coming? Nothing specific, beyond moving us one step closer to the Fantastic Four. This teaser is akin to the mid-credits scene in The Avengers that revealed Thanos as the mastermind behind Loki’s invasion of Earth–it’s simply establishing that the big pieces are in play.
But that’s not our only bit of bonus Kang at the end of Quantumania.
Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania Post-Credits Scene Explained–Loki meets a new Kang
It’s a little bit frustrating that neither the TVA nor the events of Loki season 1 were ever even alluded to during the course of Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, but if you stick around through the credits, you’ll be rewarded with a brief look at Loki season 2.
The scene shows Jonathan Majors as Kang–a notable one from the comics who goes by Victor Timely–in the Old West delivering a snake oil salesman type of presentation to a small assembled crowd. And in that crowd are Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and Owen Wilson’s Mobius. Loki looks deathly afraid of Kang, while Mobius isn’t impressed… yet. It’s clear that Loki has told Mobius something about what happened with He Who Remains–the alternate version of the man who would become Kang that we met at the end of season 1–but only Loki and Sylvie really know what kind of threat he poses to the multiverse.
This seems like it’s probably a clip from season 2 rather than a scene shot specifically to use as a teaser. But we lack any real context for it, so it’s tough to speculate about specifics. But clearly Loki and Kang are not done with each other just yet. Considering Loki is a villain-turned-hero, it should be noted that there are heroic past and future versions of Kang in the comics, too. And some of those, like the teenaged Iron Lad of the Young Avengers, could certainly be in play in the coming years.
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