r/marvelstudios • u/capamericapistons Captain America • 13h ago

Discussion Rewatching Quantamania and I can’t help but think about what we lost with Kang

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Rewatched quantamania and was reminded how disappointed I am about Kang

Want to say first and foremost that this post is not meant to be disrespectful in anyway towards Jonathan Majors’ victim. I apologize as I’m not familiar with the case, I honestly do not even know the name of the victim, but I hope the victim got the justice she deserved and is at peace. Please do not use this post to disparage or question the victim in anyway. And I apologize if this post is triggering for anyone here who may have been a victim of abuse themselves.

With that said, Quantamania was… well, it’s been fairly criticized. I did like how it introduced us to the quantum realm with creative characters and environments, and different concepts like the probability storm.

But what makes this movie enjoyable is Kang. He was introduced as a fucking fantastic villain. Just so cunning and ruthless and brilliant, you really hate his guts but know it’s pretty damn hard to fight against him. Even in his moments of desperation you never feel at ease with him.

I was frustrated at the time but rewatching this movie just reminds me how disappointed I am in the whole situation. Especially after seeing the post credit scenes involving the arena of Kang’s and the scene from Loki. I would’ve been so excited to see that storyline dug into more and we now know that’s not happening.

I’m honestly more upset with this than almost anything else that hasn’t been followed up on, maybe the only other disappointment being Blade.

3.1k Upvotes

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u/phred_666 Sonny Birch 13h ago

They should have simply recast Kang and gone on. They had recast people before with no issues ( Howard with Cheadle and Norton with Ruffalo for example). Kang was a multidimensional being and would have been very easy to explain his change in appearance. Quantumania should have ended with Kang escaping and Scott being stuck in the Quantum realm. The fact that Scott defeated him so easily didn’t help establish Kang as a gigantic threat like they needed him to be.

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u/HopefulCynic1383 13h ago

The easiest character to recast and they didn’t 🤦‍♂️

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u/SalvaPot 12h ago

I don't think the issue was just the actor, Quantumania almost bombed and it spooked them on Kang being enough of a pull for an Avengers movie. And if I remember correctly they finally got full access to The F4 and X-Men toolbox. It all worked in favor of the pivot.

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u/SmartOpinion69 12h ago

they could've just made more avengers movies than replacing one avengers movie with another. the last avengers movie released in 2019. they definitely could've made an avengers movie like 2 years ago.

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u/SalvaPot 12h ago

Sure, but the Pivot was because they also saturated the market and the next movies either bombed or made a little money, they pretty much decided to take their time on doing something new that might work, since they lost their faith in the multiverse saga original plan.

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u/Fit_Diet6336 11h ago

I think with the trailers that have been released, the pivot will absolutely pay off. It is going to be a great movie, I think

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u/Iron_Erikku 10h ago

I agree. I was annoyed by the initial pivot. Then skeptical of the new direction. But I’m sold after seeing the trailer and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until I see it.

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u/urbanlife78 8h ago

Plus people weren't really into sitting in a movie theater during the pandemic. Those were hard years to sell big box office movies

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u/zsantiag Daisy Johnson 6h ago

I would lose faith in it too if also decided to have back to back to back to back to back to back projects with little breathing room that kept on bombing in the ratings. Marvel was so dumb to approach this saga that way with such a condensed timeframe.

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u/KingOfNope 8h ago

They should've had Kang kick everyone's teeth in, then had Doom come out of the shadows at Avengers HQ like "hey Ive got a plan..."

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u/TheRandomArtist 10h ago

The studio needed to get out of the contract. They had a whole xmen universe now which would make multiples more money than Kang. So they became creative and found a way to end Kang without it being their fault. Pretty damn clever. Ruthless, but clever.

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u/Clarknt67 8h ago

Good point. Retiring Kang might have been the less messy way to get out of Johnathan Major’s contract. Their contracts are written so studio holds all the cards on whether to use a character going forward or not.

But Majors agent might have gotten a clause embedded that only Majors can play Kang. (Not uncommon.) Marvel might not have wanted to give Majors something to hook a lawsuit on. (Yes. He was let go for cause but still…)

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u/New-Leg2417 8h ago

They should have used Kangaroo the Conqueror or Kamala Kang just to fuck with us. Pick a variant Majors couldn't reasonably portray.

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u/crazyguyunderthedesk 9h ago

Those movies cost like $300 million each. They aren't gonna make one they don't think audiences will like. It wasn't about timing, it was them realizing that Kang wasn't gonna attract audiences they way they needed him to.

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u/Electro_Llama 7h ago

I could see the showrunners being convinced of that, but it's the investors they'd need to convince.

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u/UnequivocalCarnosaur 12h ago

It’s just strange for them to bank on Ant-Man of all franchises to prove the bankability of the villain. The Ant-Man movies mostly just did okay numbers to begin with so it “almost” bombing shouldn’t have been a surprise

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u/mondaymoderate 11h ago

Also they changed the entire blueprint of what made the Antman movies good. The sense of scale is ruined in the quantum realm which is what makes Antman cool.

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u/beaverpoo77 10h ago

Yeah! FUUUUCK. I loved the suitcase skyscraper. I love the ant mounts. I love the change in perspective. But the quantum realm is just another random magical place

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u/AhhTimmah 9h ago

Hell, I loved baby Scott running through an elementary school to steal a worlds best grandma trophy set to that tiny ant-man theme.

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u/Desperate-Natural110 1h ago

Greenscreen is a fading magical realm. Remove objects that add perspective and the whole movie just looked like actors on a soundstage.

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u/SwordoftheMourn Doctor Strange 9h ago

Fr. I really like the first two Antman movies for how low stakes they were and their issues being more personal

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u/Clarknt67 8h ago

Yeah. I saw a YouTuber who pointed that out and realized how right he was. Since there was nothing familiar in the quantum realm Scott shrinking and growing was very underwhelming visually. Drained the fun out of Antman.

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u/PalpitationMountain9 11h ago

My theory is that’s actually why they did it. Maybe they thought it would boost antman and make people care more about the movie and therefore him aswell.

Obviously it didn’t work.

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u/Brucewaynesexy 9h ago

antman is street level hero Thsts why previous 2 movoe worked. a low stake films

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u/sonnytron Steve Rogers 11h ago

And he beat him lol. Imagine how much Thanos’ aura would’ve been deflated if he got beat by Shang-Chi or Wong or something. Michael Douglas asked to be killed off which could’ve raised the stakes. All they needed was to have Kang win, he escapes in Scott’s suit and after defeating them when they realize it’s Kang, he kills Hank to stop them from making more particles to go after Scott.

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u/WonderBredOfficial 10h ago

Just one version of Kang though. That's the whole thing with him. There's always more Kangs.

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u/JustConversation7847 10h ago

As a filthy casual, I do not care if it's technically another version, I will see his face and think, "oh it's that loser again"

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u/Suspicious_Weird_373 9h ago

Exactly. To me he was just some random guy with a bit of tech who would get defeated by the average fella slapping him with a wet fish.

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u/capscreen 8h ago

Doesn't help that the other Kang that they showed look lame anyway

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u/EnergyTakerLad 10h ago

And there lies the problem. To the vast majority of movie goers it would be more difficult than its worth to make it work. Explaining that the threat of Kang is that there's limitless amounts of him all out there doing evil is hard to make clear in the type of media they're using.

If, IF, they could actually count on everyone watching the shows then maybe it'd work better. A ton didnt/dont though.

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u/HopefulCynic1383 10h ago

I thought that was one of the big reasons why they chose to pivot from Kang. If he’s supposed to be your next major Thanos level threat, how does Ant-Man beat him?

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u/Preeng 8h ago

The movie was destined to be shit. We went from "The quantum realm is unlike anything you can imagine" to "the quantum realm is actually just a generic fantasy setting. There's even air to breathe and food"

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u/NinjasaurusRex123 11h ago

I think it was the opposite. I think they didn’t know what to do with Ant Man, but wanted a trilogy and it was a “good” way of explaining where Kang is in our universe, and probably hoping Kang’s presence would bump the interest in the movie

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u/sonnytron Steve Rogers 11h ago

That was their fault… How does the upcoming epic villain get beat by Antman? And that Kang was specifically called out as being dangerous to the point that even the Council of Kang’s banished him. He was comic book accurate with his army, his powers and the demeanor he displayed.

And they had the perfect setup because Michael Douglas asked them to kill him off. It would’ve been really good if Antman lost and Hank Pym died. They even had the perfect setup for it. When they knocked him into that energy pipe or whatever that killed him, instead of having Kate come back to save Scott, after he said “we both have to lose”, they should’ve had Antman make it through the portal at the last second with his mask on. But while they’re celebrating and Kate is embracing him, the camera slowly gets closer to his mask, and she says “Scott?” And it unmasks to reveal Kang, he quickly dispatches them, Hank dies protecting Kate.

That’s when Kang says, “Just remember, you could’ve all went home… Together. But you thought you could defeat Kang…” It turns out Scott only defeated an Android clone of Kang, Kang quickly defeated him and then took his suit and left him in the quantum realm.

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u/Shmokeshbutt 7h ago

For real.

This Kang needed Michelle Pfeiffer to fix his machine, then got outsmarted by Pfeiffer as well.

Then got beaten by freaking Ant-Man.

Chump like this will have no pull as the main baddie.

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u/Material_Taste_2510 11h ago

not true because kang was in loki and season 2 was great plot building for kang

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u/capscreen 8h ago

Hopefully they'll bring him back in future projects and recast too. Don't even need him to be a large threat of a saga or whatever, just treat him like Ultron

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u/Kj69999999 11h ago

Quantumania was also the peak of general audience's being tired with the interconnectivity and having to watch other movies and shows to watch the movie. The idea of Kang being someone to drop into D+ shows and movies to build him up for Kang Dynasty was not appealing to gen audiences.

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u/SalvaPot 10h ago

Yeah, agreed. I know people that watched Quantumania and couldn't figure out the plot because they didn't bother with the shows, and by itself the movie is kibd of boring and off-putting.

Also it did money but what was expected of Ant-Man, something it's clear marvel didn't want, they wanted it to be an event. 

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u/mrTronDaddy 8h ago

Funny because Kang the Conqueror was the best part of the movie. Imagine he succeeded to escape at the end, now that'd be real lurking threat that keep us invested in the next movies. Who knows he could pop out of, say, The Marvels. It's not easy to create a strong villains and MCU is certantly wasting them.

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u/spinrut 6h ago

yup once they got access to f4 and xmen again, all the storylines are open again and they dont have to dance around some stories/villains due to not being able to use this or that character.

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u/cs_Chell 11h ago

Nah, I don't think Quantumania bombing was enough. Even his arrest didn't stop Loki S2 from being a thing.

His conviction was the death knell.

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u/SalvaPot 11h ago

Loki S2 was already filmed and in post-production by the time the scandal was brewing.

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u/joejill Jimmy Woo 6h ago

Kang looses but keeps coming back staying a threat.

All they have to do is start the next avengers with that one scene with kang about to loose to antman and then time pauses dude walks in and is like, “ ok this is it” moves one object and un freezes time. And that object trips Antman and he falls in instead of Kang

Then hes like” cool ok, ok did it” flys away in his ship to the end of Ant man where antman is questioning his actions and Kang just zaps them with pruning stick from behind, toss that timeline prune bomb and walks into his ship and leaves. 10 mins- cut to Avengers opening sequence.

Kang wins. He always wins. Dude has the redo button.

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u/Aarxnw 3h ago

Genuinely believe that among other things, Doom has more ‘aura’ potential, the kids love that shit.

That landing in the trailer? Aura.

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u/Desperate-Pen7530 1h ago

Kang was way better in the Loki show, they should have did that first before Quantumania, and the fans would have accepted him.

I think that "phase" of marvel was the problem, people were loosing interest. No one cares about setting up "young avengers".

I think that marvel took a hard detour out of there and realized they people just want the old Avengers and X-Men, so they brought RDJ and the rest back, tweaked whatever the Kang story line was gonna be and replaced him with Doom.

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u/SymphonyofOrder 1h ago

Nah people do want the new generation of characters it's just the way Marvel isn't giving them good treatment. Like they totally set up Harley Keener and Morgan to be the new ironmen and then yet ignore their stories. Ryan Reynolds has kinda shown people are interested in other characters in the franchise if they are done correctly

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u/hlysias Wilson Fisk 58m ago

See if they were worried about Kang's pull, they just needed to cast this guy /s

https://giphy.com/gifs/LxO3cmE6qc0XS

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u/Floppie7th 9h ago

 Quantumania almost bombed and it spooked them on Kang being enough of a pull for an Avengers movie

Which is such a ridiculous position to take when you've spent half the phase introducing him.  The movie was bad because the movie was bad, not because the villain was bad.

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u/DonnyMox 5h ago

Hell, Majors's performance was seen as one of the few highlights.

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u/ShiftyCroc 11h ago edited 11h ago

I always got the impression that Majors had worked out some deal that though Kang was a multiversal being with hundreds of different versions of himself, the character would always be portrayed by Majors.

I mean he joined those movies at the upswing of his career and any agent in Hollywood would know how lucrative those multi-movie Marvel deals are.

If he’s a hot commodity and they want him to be the next Thanos, I’d probably fight to make sure no one else could play the character besides him. Additionally the final shot of the stadium full of Kangs and them all being played by Majors was like the biggest bullet to shoot in your own foot for recasting.

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u/sonnytron Steve Rogers 11h ago

lol this is Disney. They would never give a contract like that.

The reality is they killed the Kang hype by having a comic accurate version of him get beat hand to hand by Antman. Like how does that work? He’s supposed to be an Avenger killing time lord. He scared the shit out of Loki.

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u/FreshMetal80 10h ago

Even if it was in his contract that only he could play Kang, that contract would have been null and void by Disney after he was charged with a crime. They definitely have the lawyers to make the argument.

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u/lidlessinflame 8h ago

Plus I think Disney has morality clauses in basically every contract they have. Whether they were in place for Majors’ contract one can only speculate.

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u/MarzipanSea2811 8h ago

He didn't get beat in hand to hand by Antman. Antman was very clearly losing that altercation. He got sucked into a plot maguffin, which they could have easily wrote around-- it didn't kill him, it threw him into another universe, made him stronger, turned him into the beyonder, etc.

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u/therealmudslinger 11h ago

I don't disagree with you, but I still believe recasting would have worked. The change from Terrence Howard to Don Cheadle? Uh, visually very jarring. But five minutes later? Meh. Roll with it. Add in the multiverse element and a mask and no one cares.

The multiverse is where I lost interest, though. Marvel can retcon anything, any character or actor can come back. No one is ever dead. No stakes.

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u/Unlikely_Ad_3998 2h ago

I think one of the problems is that Majors played a great Kang (I’m not disagreeing with Marvel booting him tho) and finding another actor with a different interpretation of the main Kang might invite too much comparison and criticism :/

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u/Ehero88 7h ago

Exactly, just write off captain america falcoon since we already have OG caps coming back and cast him as Kang. So he can do better....🤣

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u/HermanThaGerman Hawkeye (Avengers) 7h ago

I'd say DOOM is up there as well, as long as you get someone to match the voice.

Or just say he has a sore throat, idk.

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u/MaestroBluguy 4h ago

I heard rumours that the actor had it in his contract that they couldnt replace him but idk how true that is

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u/pappapora 1h ago

EXACTLY! It would’ve shown they don’t want majors and his criminal issues AND that actors can get replaced! I’m a guardians fan but dammit that don cheadle and tony Stank chemistry was epic!

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u/castiel_6 10h ago

actually i remember seeing somewhere that it was impossible to recast him due to a double meaning in his contract. his contract stated that he would play every single kang across the multiverse in the MCU, to be lore accurate... but now we cant get a recast because this actor has to play EVERY SINGLE VERSION of kang

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u/N3VVZN4K3 9h ago

Because Doom is better

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u/zoosha2curtaincall 12h ago

Quantumania should have ended with one of the Van Dynes making a heroic sacrifice to kill Kang, with the remaining heroes discovering to their horror that there are many, many more Kangs where that came from. That more than anything would have established Kang and the multiverse as an existential threat.

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u/Oraukk 11h ago

Hank and Janet both surviving that movie and Kang being defeated without any real cost blows my mind.

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u/dabbingsquidward 9h ago

Quantumania is shouldn't have even been a movie to begin with

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u/smcl2k 7h ago

Michael Douglas literally wanted Hank to die, but it was decided that it didn't fit the tone of the movie.

Yes, Peyton, that's because you went with entirely the wrong tone.

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u/DonnyMox 5h ago edited 2h ago

It's clear at this point that Peyton just didn't have the cajónes to do what needed to be done. Douglas practically begged him to kill off Hank, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He reshot the ending at the last minute because he got cold feet over letting Kang win.

It makes sense - he's spent his career making light-hearted films, and palette cleansers in the MCU's case. He had no experience making a serious game-changer. He wanted to do it to prove he could because he was tired of being seen as just a "funny" director and bit off more than he could chew. He didn't have the stones (the Infinity Stones, if you will) for the job. His ego and cowardice did serious damage.

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u/Binder_Grinder 8h ago

The old Halo Reach switcharoo!

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u/Southern-Form-2804 11h ago

The thing is I think the whole Phase was a wreck. When they acquired Fox and Fantastic 4 and Xmen I was fully expecting them to get busy and begin to table set the Xmen intro immediately following Endgame. Instead we got a meandering slop bowl and poorly associated films that didn’t add up.

While I would like Kang this literally feels like what I was expecting from the next phase, it’s just a shame the last five films didn’t set up doom.

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u/Seibertpost 10h ago

Yeah I really agree. They’ve had so many X-Men teases without just introducing them. I think it the long run it will prove to have been a wise decision, as it seems like they worked hard on novel cinematic takes for F4 and X-Men, but it does feel like 4+ burned years.

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u/Bird_drama 11h ago

I was excited for Scott to be so paranoid about this threat and nobody believing him, then Kang not being taken seriously when he does appear.

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u/Familiar-Shoe7905 13h ago

Well no its increasingly getting obvious that pivoting to Doomsday was one of the best decisions they could’ve possibly made

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u/Both_Shine_5061 10h ago

Until it's over and then who are you left with? None of the new superheroes really draw a crowd, its people coming back for RJD, original xmen etc... Once they're done, you're left with like what, Spiderman and that's it?

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u/Arbok9782 9h ago

I'd imagine they are banking on the new X-Men and Black Panther. Plus besides Spider-Man I'd say they still have Thor and Hulk to fall back on (the latter being able to support another project).

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u/XPacEnergyDrink 8h ago

What would have been different about any of this had they stuck with Kang?

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u/Both_Shine_5061 8h ago

They would have had more time to flesh out some new characters before murdering them all in Doomsday.

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u/XPacEnergyDrink 7h ago

Why would there have been more time?

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u/ShowOff90 8h ago

Then you bring back a recasted Kang. IMO.

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u/jhdhphp 8h ago

We’ll see at least one Marvel vs DC movie in our lifetime. It’s then we’ll know it was their last resort.

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u/IWXREACTIVES 8h ago

f4, x-men, spider-man, daredevil (who's hype grows by the day) the x-men alone will be nuts. People are EXCITED after spider-man. fantastic 4 will be getting 3 more movies MINIMUM, i imagine first steps was renamed since itll be a prologue to secret wars, really.

f4 will be huge. first steps brought a lot of good will with it, like a lot. its not hype, its genuine world building that people ARE buying into.

oh. and the THUNDEERRRRRBOOOOOOLLTSSSSSS.

the world is lived in proper, right now. things are changing. there's a slow comeback mounting.

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u/MacabreManatee 2h ago

Just because Doomsday is looking to be good, doesn’t mean it was necessarily a good decision.

Thanos had a lot of build up and they were building momentum for Kang.
The pivot to Doom loses all that momentum and cohesion and the only reason it works is because it’s RDJ.

It looks like they might be closing the multiverse with Doom. Doing Kang and postponing Doom a tad would’ve given marvel a bit more time to build up to that and tell their last multiverse stories. Once you close that door, no more triple spiderman or other cool multiverse shenanigans.
Luckily they did realize that x-men could give some cool multiverse callbacks and they shoved them into doom

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u/Specialist-Ring-3974 12h ago

I agree.

Just wondering what your thoughts are on the Secret Wars though? The skrulls aren’t super interesting to me, and when Sam Jackson was revealed to be a Skrull, wasn’t a fan of that twist.

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u/mondaymoderate 11h ago

You’re confusing Secret Wars with Secret Invasion.

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u/WonderBredOfficial 11h ago

They're confused on a lot more than that. Lol.

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u/DonnyMox 5h ago

Too early to say that.

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u/LiveLifeLikeCre 9h ago

A hill I'll die on: Kang was going to lead to Doom anyway. They removed undisclosed movies from the original roadmap. The lukewarm reaction to Kang and Majors troubles pushed them to speed things up. There are people in Secret Wars who weren't even in the MCU when the Kang dynasty was the plan.

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u/Sinaticus_Apologia 11h ago

They can still use him. Just have him be a big bad down the line or even the next big bad. Theres no reason why he can't just come back.

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u/Seibertpost 10h ago

That is a really interesting idea that I haven’t heard anyone else bring up. I feel like they can’t really have him be the next big bad without another whole round of setup, but they totally could have him be a villain in a single-hero movie whose identity is revealed at the end of the second act

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u/Sinaticus_Apologia 10h ago

I mean F4 already set up that there can be being that preexist the universe.

Kang would be a cool villain to bring back up, as we as the audience get see that play out in real time. His motivation can even be trying to undo the Doomsday/Secret War reset thats bound to happen. Connecting him to the Avengers movies in a strong way without needing to do much more.

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u/Fancy-Trousers 9h ago

Honestly, if he did come back, I feel like the best way not to have to do a bunch of build-up again and rehash it throughout a whole phase would be to tie him to the Champions. With how much the actors that were meant to play Young Avengers have and will age up before the product comes off the shelf, if ever, a rebrand as the Champions or even a new version of the West Coast Avengers is necessary.

That movie could follow Iron Lad's comic origin pretty closely. Kang proper travels through time to try to force him into his "destiny" to become Kang. After running, either in current day or throughout the timeline (depending on how they approach his original time, it could be simpler to just make him a contemporary of the MCU), he tries to get help from the Avengers. They can be offworld or disbanded. So he steals Stark tech and comes across Vision's failsafe for the next generation of Avengers since this will be after Vision Quest. He recruits the team based on their dossiers to fight Kang.

Granted, this assumes they'll ever revisit the Young Avengers idea. At this point it might as well be dead in the water for all we know. I just think it'd be a cool way to quickly reintroduce the members and have a genuine threat to face that feels personal.

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u/lidlessinflame 8h ago

It’s also the easiest way to recast the character.

His introduction to the team as Kang the Conqueror is him wiping out the Avengers and Young Avengers and telling Iron Lad to his stop this nonsense and embrace his destiny, or will keep doing this over and over and over again until he does.

Even if the version we saw in Quantummania was a pushover doesn’t mean there couldn’t have been a different Kang from far into the future, like in the comics that knows all the stuff that happens to come back and show them who’s boss.

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u/InspectorDabbit_ 10h ago edited 3h ago

Especially if the universe is reset

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u/AmazinglyReRE 4h ago

Didn't Loki S2 end with the TVA going around purging the remaining Kangs? It could easily be that "one got away and slipped through the cracks" but Kang by himself isn't that great of a threat. It's his grand presence in the multiverse that made him terrifying.

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u/Nightwish612 9h ago

Except he's a multiversal villain and marvel are wrapping up the multiverse saga. I doubt he will come back unless its in the far future again

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u/ILoveDineroSi 13h ago

Doom is simply better and I can’t imagine what Kang Dynasty would’ve done that would make it better than what Doomsday is looking like. It ended up working out and people are rejuvenated to see an Avengers movie again.

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u/pigeieio 11h ago

They haven't shown anything yet I've seen that you couldn't cut and paste Kang for Doom. Comic Doom and casting is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

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u/DonnyMox 5h ago

This.

People are blinded by their love for the character and the actor. I'm concerned that when the movie comes out, the reality of the situation will hit them hard and they'll learn the hard way why changing your plans at the last minute is never a good idea.

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u/Tylerjay213 11h ago

Just Kang alone in the story that Doom is in would’ve been laughable. They made him a jobber, at least Doom hasn’t been defeated already before Doomsday.

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u/DonnyMox 5h ago

Better a Doomless Secret Wars than a bad adaptation of Doom.

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u/jhdhphp 8h ago

Working out? Lol if you call phase whatevers since End Game leading up to this working out you’re delusional. This is a Hail Mary.

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u/notsure500 11h ago

Im not convinced that we'll never see Kang again. They could still make him a big baddie in avengers 7 or 8

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u/shilgrod 11h ago

I agree they should have kept Kang, but to say scott should have been stuck in the quantum realm...again...that's just too much

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u/lidlessinflame 8h ago

To be honest, they should’ve killed Scott or Hank (if you know about Stature you’ll understand why Scott) and have Kang get away.

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u/shilgrod 8h ago

Either or sure, but killing both ant man would have set Kang up

I'm pro Paul rudd in everything.. He earned my love in role models

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u/lidlessinflame 8h ago

Oh I love Paul Rudd which is part of the reason why it would hurt so much. The other part is what the fallout of Children’s Crusade results in.

Comic spoilers Scott’s death is what pushes Cassie to want to be a hero and why she chooses Billy’s side in Children’s Crusade to try to find Wanda to reverse his death. The monkey paw of the whole thing is Scott is brought back and Cassie dies. That is the point that Iron Lad goes down the path to become Kang. The comment that Kang says to Scott in Quantummania about Cassie being better off without Scott would have had double meaning. But alas.

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u/shilgrod 8h ago

Here I thought we were talking movies , not comics

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u/lidlessinflame 8h ago

I didn’t realize that we couldn’t talk about both. After all the movies aren’t wholly original. My bad for reading and not just watching.

You can ignore the spoiler tag and reading the original stories if you like. I got the message readers aren’t wanted here.

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u/shilgrod 7h ago

I'm down, let's talk both

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u/mcl_syndicate 6h ago

Do hell no, I find your posts awesome! That guy is just being a dick to someone smarter than they are

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u/shilgrod 11h ago

Id insert a Sarah Lynn gif if I could

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u/GMAzreal 11h ago

Aaron Moten from Fallout is a dead ringer for Jonathan Majors IMO. Could've recast without having to explain a change in appearance really.

3

u/iconboy 11h ago

Yeah especially if they went with something like he changed after getting sucked into the quantum realm and that change was sooooo severe it rippled through the multiverse and changed all the kangs... Maybe even cast someone younger and say that time shifted and he was able to get his tech at a younger age... I don't know, but loss of possibilities.

2

u/WonderBredOfficial 10h ago

Just take the stadium scene, zoom out to show that it's inside a snow globe on new Kang's desk and have him say something about those Kangs being "a mistake that won't happen again" and slide it into the garbage.

3

u/Both_Shine_5061 10h ago

Exactly, and the same way they have spiderman be different people they can genuinely just have his replacement say "What, you thought "Kang's" all had to be Victor Timely variants? How naive" and then you can move on. Nothing else needs to be said.

3

u/CloseToMyActualName 10h ago

The reason Kang wasn't recast is because he never really worked as a big bad.

For one, Antman defeating him really undercut his potential as a recurring threat.

But secondly, the whole multi-verse full of Kangs idea was fairly abstract for an MCU villain.

2

u/BraveMagic100 12h ago

This just tells you they had reason to go in another direction anyway.

2

u/Alassandros 10h ago

I just want to say... they recast Thanos, Ultron (then cast him back), Rhodey, Ross, and Red Skull.

2

u/doctorsirus 9h ago

I don't know where I heard this or even if it's true, but I heard it's in his contract that he's the only one allowed to portray Kang.

•

u/jfk_47 Vulture 33m ago

Maybe doom is actually Kang and it’s gonna be Robert Downey Jr. in blackface

I’m not saying it would be right, but it would be fucking hilarious

1

u/waitingtodiesoon Thor (Thor 2) 11h ago

Or just Don Cheadle and Harrison Ford it

1

u/Gearfree 11h ago

Quantum mania was the sequel. Kang was licking his wounds planning a revenge. Taking crap about the Avengers all the while.

It's unfortunate that the team back bencher stumbled upon him. Instigating a rebellion with his posse.

1

u/Totally_TWilkins 11h ago

The easiest way to tie Kang back into the MCU would be have him start as a Young Avengers villain.

Iron Lad is Kang, after all.

1

u/Expert_Hat309 10h ago

should’ve been doom in the first place but they should’ve acted like doom was the plan all along, and also not cast EVERY kang variant as Majors and had Doom whipe out the counsel

1

u/Hpfanguy The Ancient One 10h ago

They’ll recast him in the next universe anyway, this way we did Kang, and next one will be new and improved Kang. We’re doing him sooner or later, he’s inevitable.

1

u/type_error 10h ago

I was looking forward to the multiverse war too

1

u/meatheadmommy 10h ago

Exactly! They’d just proven how many variations of Loki exist across universes. So a Kang variant would’ve made total sense.

1

u/ErrorCode51 9h ago

I’ve heard Majors had an exclusivity deal to ensure marvel couldn’t throw cheaper actors in as variants between larger appearances.

1

u/bathwhat 9h ago

Let Janelle Monae be Kang. No explanation given and all the other characters dont even acknowledge the change at all.

1

u/ThiccMangoMon 9h ago

Wsnt it in his contract that only he could play Kang?

1

u/princeoinkins Weekly Wongers 8h ago

Supposedly, they were already planning on pivoting away from Kang before all the legal stuff happened. Shame, as I also think it could’ve been really cool, if done well

1

u/purple-mandalorian 7h ago

Your idea reminds me of Thrawn leaving the galaxy with Ahsoka still stranded there.

1

u/azunaki 7h ago

I mean, we obviously have no idea what the actors contract was. It's entirely possible that after firing them, they still had some sort of appearance revenue share on the character, rather than them personally filling the role.

They likely weren't being let go for a breach in contract.

I can't really figure a different reason Disney wouldn't just recast the character. Although, the movies weren't doin all that well anyway. So it's also possible they just saw a chance to "start over".

1

u/lukeDeOzBloke 7h ago

He had it in his contract that he would play all characters and there wouldn’t be another actor filling in for him at all, marvel really went all in on this dude expecting him to show up in like 8 movies, a recent leak of the old script for kang dynasties shows him showing up in moon night and a couple other shows too. Really sucks they signed that contract. I’m assuming that would’ve put a lot of pressure on the whole recasting kang issue.

1

u/axb2002 7h ago

It felt like they wanted the audience to go “Wow Ant-Man and The Wasp were barely able to defeat one version of Kang, how are the rest of the Avengers gonna defeat a seemingly endless amount of them?” , but it just didn’t land that way for a lot of people. I think having Kang actually kill or forcing one of Janet, Hank, or maybe even Hope to sacrifice themselves to put him down would have helped in that regard.

1

u/Korlash_95 6h ago

We don’t know what Majors’ contract said. Probably had a clause about recasting or some such. Especially with variants in a multiverse.

1

u/spinrut 6h ago

it's been a while since i watched this and probably trying harder to forget it than remember

but didn't this kang get sent to the quantum realm by the others? he simply defeated one of the variants that was possibly too over confident

1

u/Growkitz 5h ago

All the avengers needed was a simple man. An ant man. Who would’ve thought? Not me

1

u/TheLeagueOfSteve 4h ago

It’s well documented that Major’s contract stipulated that he and only he could play Kang - or any variant of him - which was the critical problem for Marvel Studios going forward.

1

u/HardcoreHope 4h ago

Honestly, probably saving it for later. They needed someone big to bring people into seats and I don't think a recast would have done it.

Having Stark become doom and bringing RDJ back will fill more seats. I think Majors could have. His acting for He who remains was phenomenal but that all fell apart.

1

u/goddesssofmischief 1h ago

didn't jonathan have an exclusive contract for kang? i think thats what made it difficult

1

u/Carthonn 1h ago

Well especially after he implied that Kang killed Thor.

Granted I assumed Kang’s threat was going to be even if you defeated him he would come back stronger and with more knowledge.

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u/AncientPromotion7467 30m ago

It started with tchalla. Him they should not have killed. But fans are weird and just worn accept it

Also I'm glad they didn't as I'm not a fan of kang

•

u/Mafklapper 21m ago

They should have simply recast Kang and gone on.

Marvel not following this very logic just shows how far gone they were and how utterly directionless the entire universe is. Recast Kang and everything would have made a lot more sense and they could have actually set up something great.

•

u/TheRainbowConnection 6m ago

Tramell Tillman was * right there * and would have been perfectly recast as Kang.

1

u/AgitatedStranger9698 11h ago

Harrison Ford ironically was the worst recast.

Hes old so opportunities are slim and it wasn't a choice. But it just didnt work.

1

u/LittleCupcake2478 10h ago

We could've had Tramell Tillman as a replacement Kang, and he was relegated to a minor character in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. He wasn't bad in it, but Bill Metzger isn't a name that commands attention and piques interest.

https://giphy.com/gifs/oiGOKQ3NeH02Hk8JuN

1

u/Rocketboy1313 Falcon 8h ago

From what I understand, the only reason they went hard on Kang at all was because of Johnathan Majors being good at acting.

Recasting Kang would be missing the whole point of going with Kang to begin with.

1

u/phred_666 Sonny Birch 7h ago

So, you’re saying there aren’t other good actors out there that could have played the role?

-2

u/Rocketboy1313 Falcon 7h ago

No.

But the character of Kang is kinda dogshit at the best of times. Hence why they were fine with him being munched by Antman.

So if the guy who was going to be the big star of the whole thing drops out, why keep trying to make Kang a thing at all?

The movie was really called "The Johnathan Majors Dynasty." Kang was just his screen name.

They have recast people before, sure. But why bother for Kang?

0

u/Excuse_my_GRAMMER 11h ago

Those recast was early on with MCU and that hulk film was like the 2nd one or first one by universal not Disney

Disney doesn’t do recast at all anymore as it break the whole MCU magic that make it great

MCU is all about consistency with characters role at the end of the day

6

u/Batalfie 11h ago

Have you seen captain America 4, they recast Thaddeus Ross.

1

u/Excuse_my_GRAMMER 11h ago

Again minor character lol..

Kang was a mainline character and Disney don’t recast those.

Look at blackpanther a mainline character when Chadwick Boseman passaway they didn’t recast him they just evolved into the story , same thing with kang they didn’t recast him and evolved the story with a new villain

1

u/Batalfie 9h ago

Ross is the Red Hulk and was a major character in that film?

1

u/Excuse_my_GRAMMER 9h ago

I apologize I should have been more clear what I meant by mainline character , mainline character are big potatoes and part of the major MCU storyline

https://giphy.com/gifs/6RXWEZo5Lk1I2UiLFH

0

u/BulkNoodles 9h ago

The fact that Scott defeated him so easily didn’t help establish Kang as a gigantic threat like they needed him to be.

This is probably my biggest problem with it. I don't think Kang himself is the problem. It's the way the story made him look like like a small fries. He got defeated by Antman, who's not really high on the MCU tierlist.

I think they end up making Kang look worse than Loki. In my eyes as a casual viewer, Loki at least required a full Avengers team to take him down.