Jonathan Majors shared new insight into just how dangerous his Kang the Conqueror will be in the MCU.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will introduce the Multiverse Saga's ultimate big bad in Kang, providing the first look at the prime version of the Multiversal Marvel villain. This will set up Majors' character to be an essential part of the MCU story over the next few years, eventually facing the Avengers in their first team-up movie since the end of the Infinity Saga.
Marvel promised that Kang will live up to the standard set by Josh Brolin's Thanos, even indicating that he'll move past Thanos as the most powerful villain the MCU has ever seen.
But while that power will largely come from a technological source, Majors teased one other aspect about Kang that sets him apart from every other MCU antagonist in history.
Kang's Intelligence Second to None in the MCU
Speaking with Deadline, MCU star Jonathan Majors shared how his Marvel villain, Kang the Conqueror, makes his presence felt upon his arrival in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
When discussing inspirations for the character, Majors pointed out historical leaders like Alexandar the Great and Ghengis Khan when looking at Kang's own place in the universe:
"Inspirations for Kang, he’s a conqueror, right? You look at Alexander the Great, you look at Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, start there. He’s a part of an already established universe…those are inspirations."
But on top of that, Majors noted that Kang's main goal is to make sure that anybody who faces him knows just how smart he is, comparing his own place amongst villains to Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man amongst the MCU's heroes:
"And then, counterpoints, which is also important in creating character, is to figure out how they counter people. You know, ‘You’re smart, but watch how smart I am.’ So you can look at Robert Downey’s Iron Man and say ‘OK, if that’s the superhero’s superhero, et cetera, and I’m to be the supervillain of supervillains, how do I counteract that in the zeitgeist?’ I mean, I could write a book on this at this point, but I’ll close there."
Brains Over Brawn for Kang the Conqueror
In the comics, Kang is known as one of the smartest scientists in all of history, working out the details of time travel before traversing the Multiverse to find and unite with different Variants of himself. This is already confirmed to be the case later in the MCU timeline, with Majors only offering a small tease of how supremely intelligent his supervillain is upon his arrival in Ant-Man 3.
This new movie will see him conning Scott Lang into helping him fix his Time Chair, which will allow him to go anywhere he wants in time and space as he looks to expand his reign over all of reality. This plot point will not only show his intelligence in working his own device, but also his cunning nature in knowing how to manipulate other people in order to get what he wants and needs to accomplish his goals.
Using iconic MCU actors like Robert Downey Jr. as inspiration has only pushed Majors to new limits with what he can do in this role. Should his claim about Kang's intelligence turn out to be accurate, fans are set for one of the deepest and most intricate MCU villains in a long time.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will debut in theaters on Friday, February 17.
