After a year of MCU Phase 4 stories, it’s clear that Marvel could have done a much better job with the Infinity Saga villains. We needed more than a decade and 20 movies to finally get to Thanos (Josh Brolin). And then we lost Thanos twice in the same film, with Marvel killing two variants of this iconic MCU villain. Comparatively, Phase 4 throws several big villains at us right from the get-go. They’re not just terrifying, they’re bigger and badder than Thanos ever was. The Avengers have no idea what’s coming their way, but we do. And a brand new Ant-Man 3 leak gives us our first look at Thanos’s big successor, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Meyers).
Warning: Some spoilers follow below.
All the new Marvel villains
We explained after Loki — and again after What If…? and Eternals — why Kang is the scariest foe the Avengers might face. It’s not about the sheer power alone because Thanos with the Infinity Stones might be more powerful than Kang. The same goes for the Infinity Ultron in What If…?. Not to mention Strange Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch). And Arishem (David Kaye) seems to be an even more terrifying threat than everyone else combined.
But considering everything we saw so far, it’s Kang who is probably the most difficult villain to beat. And we’re going to get the first real taste of Kang in Ant-Man 3, which is set to be released in 2023. However, before we get to this early Ant-Man 3 leak, I’ll remind you what makes Majors’ character so terrifying.
Kang does something none of the other villains can. He can control time, as the He Who Remains variant from Loki showed us. He can control timelines so that he can nullify all the other villains. Kang can set events in motion that could turn Thanos, Infinity Ultron, and Arishem into puppets.
All of these new Marvel villains could turn out to be even bigger threats to the Avengers than Thanos. We’ll put a pin in Infinity Ultron, however, whom The Ancient One (Jeffery Wright) managed to neutralize in What If…?. But we can add Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) to the list of Phase 4 antagonists, as she’s about to experience some serious madness.
The Ant-Man 3 leak
Technically, we saw Kang already. The He Who Remains version from Loki is what Kang looks like. Not to mention that the TV show’s finale gives us a statue of Kang at the new TVA that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) discovers. But it’s still not the same thing.
Fast-forward to early December, and the following Ant-Man 3 leak started circulating on social media. It’s an image of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania merchandising for the movie’s stunt team.
In it, we see Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) helmet from the Ant-Man suit, with a huge hole on one side. That’s a heartbreaking callback to the broken Iron Man helmet in Endgame.
But what’s more interesting is the reflection on the helmet. We’re probably looking at Kang in that image. As The Cosmic Circus explains, the leak suggests we’ll get a comic-accurate Kang costume in Ant-Man 3. The Loki finale also hinted at Kang’s comic-based suit.
The reflection isn’t enough to reveal any big Quantumania spoilers. But we assume Scott Lang & Co. will embark on another Quantum Realm journey, where they’re likely to face-off against at least one Kang variant. The Quantum Realm is likely the place where the TVA operates, although that’s just speculation at this point.
Ant-Man 3 and Kang aside, the movie opens on July 28th, 2023, after Marvel’s recent calendar reshuffle. That means we’re a long way from seeing Majors play Kang in this particular movie. Needless to say, the character could also appear in Loki season 2 and other productions before then.
