While 2023 is currently light in terms of Marvel Studios content, at least for confirmed announcements, the year will kick off in a big way with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in theaters. Taking the story back to Paul Rudd's miniature hero after nearly five years away, the Ant-Man franchise is set to deliver likely its biggest story to date upon its arrival.
One side of the battle will feature Marvel's ever-growing family of size-shifters, including a new powerful player in Kathryn Newton's Cassie Lang as she takes on the superhero mantle of Stature. As it turns out, this team will need every ounce of firepower it can get, as the group will be pitted against possibly the MCU's next supervillain in Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror.
After making a surprise appearance in the Season 1 finale of Loki in Summer 2021, the character formerly known as He Who Remains will be back and ready for more in his big-screen MCU debut.
With a second Variant of Kang now set to make his impact on the story, Majors recently teased exactly how his experience this time will differ from his portrayal on Disney+.
Kang Actor on His Ant-Man Interactions
In an interview with Variety, MCU star Jonathan Majors teased what fans can expect from his interactions with the heroes in 2023's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
When asked about the evolution from He Who Remains to Kang the Conqueror, Majors referenced one of his other recent projects, The Harder They Fall, while explaining how this experience has many differences between the writers and the shooting locale.
He then touched on getting to explore the first Variant of his villain in Episode 6 of Loki, where the narrative set up that "He Who Remains is in the world now." The actor also teased getting the chance to work with a whole new cast of characters and how "it’s a whole different world" with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, and the Ant-Man cast:
"Well, it’s a different script, so there’s that, different writers, and I’m shooting in a different country, so there’s that. And you know, He Who Remains is in the world now, so there’s so much we know about him. You know, there’s 40 minutes of that guy and that narrative, and so it really set me up to tell a story that has another canvas with more players. It’s not the incredible Tom Hiddleston, this time I’m dealing with Paul Rudd and Evangeline and the likes of the Ant-Man family. It’s a whole different world."
Kang Vs. The Ant-Family
Jonathan Majors spent most of Loki Episode 6 in a chair giving Loki and Sylvie an expansive explanation of how the Multiverse worked and how killing him would set the madness in motion. Now, after seemingly taking over the Time Variance Authority and likely realizing his full potential as Kang the Conqueror, his presence will clearly be a tall order for the Ant-Man family in this upcoming movie.
After "40 minutes" of He Who Remains helped set up Majors' evolution as this all-powerful supervillain in front of Tom Hiddleston's Loki, Scott Lang and his team will be in for quite the shock in his next solo movie.
Although Scott helped formulate the plan to defeat Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, his first two villains in Yellowjacket and Ghost now seem like almost nothing compared to someone like Kang the Conqueror. Even with a formidable team as backup, the Ant-Family's journey into the Multiverse will likely give them a bigger challenge this time around than ever before.
No matter what comes of this upcoming confrontation, Majors is ready to make his mark upon the MCU as he continues filming his material for his theatrical arrival.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will debut in theaters on February 17, 2023.
