Characters / Kang the Conqueror

Versions of Nathaniel Richards

Kang the Conqueror

Kang the Conqueror

"History is not written, scholar— and neither is destiny! History is made! Made by the deeds of the strong! The brave! And destiny is forged! The historians, the students, the gray-beards— they come in the wake of the strong and write down what the brave have done! But it is the conquerors who change the world."

Alter Ego: Nathaniel Richards

Notable Aliases: Iron Lad, Rama-Tut, Victor Timely, Scarlet Centurion, Immortus, Kid Immortus, Mister Gryphon, Doctor Doom

First Appearance: Fantastic Four #19 (October, 1963) ^note As Rama-Tut; The Avengers #8 (September, 1964) ^note As Kang; The Avengers #10 (November, 1964) ^note As Immortus; Avengers Annual #2 (July, 1968) ^note As Scarlet Centurion; Young Avengers #1 (April, 2005) ^note As Iron Lad; FF #8 (June, 2013) ^note As Kid Immortus; All-New, All-Different Avengers #1 (November, 2015) ^note As Mister Gryphon

A time-traveling conqueror with vast powers and technological supremacy, Kang has amassed an empire with a citizenry of millions, and cut a swath of terror through the ages. A strong contender for the title of Arch-Enemy of the Avengers as a whole, with Ultron being the only real challenger to that claim. In addition, several alternate versions of Kang have appeared throughout Marvel's titles over the years, including his respective future and past heroic selves, Immortus and Iron Lad.

Kang first appeared in The Avengers #8 (September, 1964), and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. Rama-Tut first appeared earlier in Fantastic Four #19 (October, 1963). Immortus first appeared in Avengers #10 (November, 1964), while Iron Lad first appeared in Young Avengers #1 (April, 2005).

Kang made his cinematic debut, portrayed by Jonathan Majors, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. An alternate version of the character — a composite of Immortus and He Who Remains taking the name of the latter — appeared in the Season 1 finale of Loki.

Not to be confused with the Simpsons character of the same name.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: To Ravonna, at least at first. Sometimes, it's the other way around.
• Abusive Parents:
  • To Marcus, eventually culminating in killing him. At which point it's revealed he was just the latest in a long line of Marcii, all of whom fell short of Kang's vision.
  • And the Apocalypse Twins (Uriel and Eimin), all of whom end up various degrees of screwed up as a results. He dumped the Twins in the concentration camps of Days of Future Past, dangled hope under their noses repeatedly and snatched it away, then ended up making Uriel cut out his sister's eyes when he wasn't even ten.
• Alliance of Alternates: Kang was part of the Council of Cross-Time Kangs, made from his alternate versions from other timelines. They tried several times to control reality and clashed with the Avengers while doing so. Their Legion of Doom-like alliance lasted until the "original" Kang killed them all off. He still occasionally used alternate versions later, without reforming the Council.
• Alternate Self: Thanks to the rules of Marvel time-travel, Kang's life has branched, with alternate versions bedeviling Marvel's heroes. Not even Kang's absolutely sure which Kang did what anymore, but basically the divergence starts somewhere in the 60s... then...
  • One Kang tried using the Hulk as a pawn, winding up apparently lost in the timestream, though he cheated that via body-backup.
  • Another Kang went after Mantis and the Scarlet Witch, trying to determine which was the Celestial Madonna, wound up getting into a fight with Rama-Tut, then got into a fight with Thor that ended with him supposedly being killed by an overloaded forcefield. He also escaped that death.
  • Kang's fight with Immortus in Avengers #269 split him in two. The first Kang stuck around in Chronopolis for a while. The second teamed up with the Cross-Time Kangs until he got dissipated in the timestream. The former is the Kang who is still around today, the last Kang standing.
• Ambiguous Situation: Kang's most narrow successes leave his associated and enemies scratching their heads as to whether he genuinely planned for such events to transpire with his technology and tactics, or if he was just really lucky.
• Anachronic Order: The simplest way of describing Kang and his younger and older counterparts. They are all the same guy, but on account of each having their own ever-expanding history before inevitably adopting their next alias, they are functionally separate characters. Then there is the large number of times they have met and/or fought one another, disguised as each other... keeping track of Nathaniel Richards's story is complicated.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • If Ultron is the Avenger's #1 greatest enemy, then Kang is safely #2. He's faced the Avengers quite a few times over the years, and, unlike Ultron, (barring an alternate universe) actually took over the world. Of course, the Avengers managed to take it back, but it was still quite an accomplishment.
  • Kang has a habit of getting into ongoing rivalries with other villains. There's Zarrko, his main competitor in the "time-traveling conqueror" game; Apocalypse (it's complicated- they knew each other back in Ancient Egypt); and of course, Immortus... who is his future self (it's even more complicated).
  • Kang is also quite literally his own worst enemy. Many of the different versions of Kang end up hating what he will become and intentionally go out of their way to stop him. Immortus and Iron Lad are perfect examples of this, with Iron Lad even comparing Prime Kang to Hitler and doing everything in his power to stop himself from becoming that.
• Army of The Ages: The Anachronauts, his elite fighting force.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: The opening arc of Avengers vol 4 has the team having to deal with (a) Kang picking a fight with an Ultron in a Bad Future which he can't win, using time-travel to try and undo this, causing a Time Crash of epic proportions.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: He's the ruler of a number of empires across space and time, and is easily capable of going toe-to-toe with the entire Avengers at once.
• Badass Normal: He has no powers of his own. All of his abilities come from his technology, but he's more than capable of putting up a fight against a whole team of Avengers even without his more advanced tech.
• Beard of Evil: Sometimes sports one as Kang. Always sports one as Immortus. The chairman of the Council of Cross-Time Kangs also has one.
• BFG: He typically tends to wield impressively large futuristic guns. In both hands, naturally.
• Big Bad: Kang is this in The Celestial Madonna Saga, The Last Avengers Story, The Crossing (though this was later retconned to be Immortus pretending to be Kang), and The Kang Dynasty.
• Blood Knight: He became a Multiversal Conqueror because he was bored with living in a utopia.
• Body Backup Drive: Kang has a device built into his armor that allows him to automatically transfer his mind into a clone upon death. Eventually, he got rid of it, thinking it was clouding his judgement, and robbing him of the thrill of potential death.
• Boxed Crook: Immortus was originally presented as being one, but Avengers Forever retconned it so he was retired before he was recruited by the Time Keepers.
• Brought Down to Badass: More than once has his suit been disabled or destroyed in some way, but that doesn't stop him from being a dangerous warrior, tactician, and fighter with eons of battle experience, who's still naturally stronger than the average 21st century super soldier. Best exemplified with his exchange with a pre-Super-Soldier Serum-enhanced Patriot:
  Patriot: Without his armor, Kang's...
  Kang: [instantly does a Punch Catch and counterattack in response] Powerless? You underestimate me, child.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Doesn't object to being called a supervillain so long as he's considered the best and most influential of all supervillains by those pointing the finger at him.
• Challenge Seeker: His main Drama-Preserving Handicap. His time-travel abilities, experience, and incredibly advanced technology would mean that every victory for him would be incredibly easy if he didn't strongly dislike easy victories. Instead, he constantly seeks out the most difficult approach possible for a man of his means in order to get some actual excitement and satisfaction out of the whole business. To put it another way, the heroes always stand a chance of beating him because he always wants to stand a chance of experiencing defeat - and it's to the universe's immense fortune that this is one thing in his long, complicated life that he never quite changes his mind on.
• Conqueror from the Future: The Trope Codifier. He wants to use his superior technology to create techno-dictatorships in all time periods.
• Continuity Snarl: Kang himself is very much this trope personified. The strangest point being that in so many years and so many offered explanations and events it's become insanely hard to tell if any given action is something that is helping him achieve his destiny or is evidence he is defying his destiny. It is also possible because so much of his life has involved him dealing with himself at alternate points, all the snarls and paradoxes are supposed to be confusing to the reader all for the sake one day the whole thing could eventually make sense if put chronologically from his perspective. Avengers: Forever made a valiant effort at explaining the whole thing... but that was two decades ago, and Kang's history has grown since then.
• Cool Chair: A floating cushion made of invisible force fields.
• The Corruptor: Kang travelled back to his teenaged years and told himself about his destiny so it'd happen faster. While Iron Lad became determined never to become Kang, it looks like he's screwed, and Kang is not above giving him nudges to make sure of it.
• Death Is Cheap: In the latter days of Steve Englehart's run, Kang used an excessive amount of an energy to power his force-field belt and in doing so, wiped himself out. And in doing that, also wiped out Rama Tut and Immortus, both of which were future versions of himself. None of this quite stuck...
• Defector from Paradise: As seen in the Blood Knight entry, Kang was born in an alternative 31st century Earth timeline where mankind was living in a utopia, but resented the complacency of the society and its people and left to become a conqueror because he sought adventure and power.
• Depending on the Writer: Steve Englehart writes Kang as being obsessed with forcing Mantis to marry him and bear his children. Pretty much every other writer tends to ignore this.
• Emperor Scientist: His genius is nothing short of super-human by modern standards. He commands technology beyond the most sophisticated designs of Stark Industries and Doctor Doom, and has made breakthroughs in time travel and robotics.
• Enemy Mine: Immortus and Rama Tut team up with the Avengers to stop Kang in The Celestial Madonna Saga...and then Kang teams up with the Avengers to defeat Immortus in Avengers Forever.
  Kang: I'm trying to save the universe!
  Spider-Man: And why would you be trying to save the universe?
  Kang: Because I live within it, you idiot!
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • On top of his willingness to help save the universe, in Fantastic Four (2018) Kang expressed distaste when the Scion- his apparent future incarnation- claimed to have killed Franklin and Valeria during his attack on the Fantastic Four as he disapproves of the idea of killing children and is disturbed that he might become capable of such a thing (although the Scion is later revealed to be Reed Richards in disguise and the attack was faked).
  • While it could be considered his Fatal Flaw, Kang has a strong sense of honor and finds it highly unsporting to use time travel to kill or defeat opponents without giving them a fair chance (which everyone should be thankful for; if he didn't have this standard the Avengers would have probably been dead years ago).
• Evil Sounds Deep: Pretty typical of Kang's speaking depictions is he's got a deep voice. Such as Jonathan Adams in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Steve Blum gives him a commanding baritone in Avengers Assemble and Marvel Future Avengers.
• Evil Versus Evil: He doesn't just fight the Avengers. In his years, Kang has also picked fights with Ultron, the Universal Church of Truth, the Badoon and, uh, himself.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: A good way of getting Kang to help, because as mentioned above, he lives in the universe too. It's pretty hard to rule an empire of nothing.
• Expressive Mask: His mask moves along with his face. Somewhat justified in that it's advanced technology, presumably designed to do so.
• Fusion Dance: During Infinity War (the 2019 version) he got forcibly merged with Kamala Khan to make Kamala Kang.
• Future Me Scares Me: Rama-Tut hates Kang. Kang despises Immortus. His younger self, Iron Lad, feels the same way about him, although for different reasons. Although it is possible, his experiencing this trope that is what actually allows him to live the full life that the reader gets to experience way out of order. However, all three have been known to work together when necessary.
• Galactic Conqueror: One coming from the future.
• Greater-Scope Villain: While he is far from the only thing that made Apocalypse become what he is, it would be accurate to say that he is the primary direct and indirect cause of Apocalypse's slide into villainy. Between causing the deaths of his entire adoptive family, trying to get him to join him, and giving him a Curb-Stomp Battle after Apocalypse understandably attacked him, he did an awful lot to push him off the edge - by all accounts, Apocalypse was a genuinely nice and kind child before the weight of Kang's actions crushed every last shred of decency in him.
• Has a Type: Curiously, near every woman he (or his alternates) have gone after has been blond. Sue Storm, Cassie Lang, some Ravonnas... they also, even more curiously, tend to be Action Women, despite Kang's extreme sexism - a trait that he seems to both grow into, from Iron Lad, and grow out of, by Immortus. It could be the whole 'conquest' thing.
• Hates Being Touched: Especially by "primitives" (meaning, everyone who is not Kang).
• Heroic Lineage: He is a distant descendant of Mister Fantastic's time-traveling father, Nathaniel Richards. And also inverted, as he's implied to be a descendant (or maybe ancestor, or both) of Dr. Doom, as well.
• He's Back!: During Avengers: Forever, he starts to get into a funk over his old age, and it looks like he's on the path to becoming Immortus pretty soon. At the end of that story, he gets his mojo back.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Literally, as a combination of Future Me Scares Me and I Hate Past Me permeating his lifespan. Many of the different versions of Kang end up hating what he will become and intentionally go out of their way to stop him. Immortus and Iron Lad are perfect examples of this, with Iron Lad even comparing Prime Kang to Hitler and doing everything in his power to stop himself from becoming that.
• Honor Before Reason: The Kang Dynasty confirms that Kang could use his time travel abilities to win every battle (for example, by hopping away, regrouping and rearming, and then returning at the exact second he left), but he doesn't because it wouldn't be sporting.
• I Have Many Names: Rama-Tut, Kang, Scarlet Centurion, Immortus, Victor Timely, Iron Lad and Kid Immortus.
• It Amused Me: Some of Kang's antics have been for no more or less a reason than he was really bored, such as his involvement in Infinity War.
• It's All About Me: The Kang who saves the 2008 Guardians of the Galaxy from a Bad Future does so only because the Magus' actions are threatening him.
• Jerkass: If you're someone Kang respects, and that's a vanishingly small list, he'll be polite to you. Otherwise, he's more likely to just be an utter asshole.
• Large Ham: Just look at the quote at the top of the Avengers Forever page.
• Like a Duck Takes to Water: Bored with his utopic 30th century of origin, Kang became Kang proper when he time jumped to the 40th century to find it a war-torn wasteland. Kang leapt at the opportunity to reinvent himself as a warlord, and the rest, as it were, was history.
• The Lost Lenore: Princess Ravonna. Sometimes. Not that Kang was terribly broken up when she died in Avengers: Forever.
• The Magnificent: That's Kang the Conqueror to you.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • At one point, Kang manipulated Ravonna into betraying him and taking over his empire, knowing it would put her at risk of being killed by any of the nasties he routinely picks fights with so she would learn to appreciate him. Somehow, despite knowing there was a chance of not living through this, he didn't think Ravonna would mind. She stabs him in the back.
  • He kidnapped the Apocalypse Twins shortly after their birth, and put them through horrific scenarios as they grew (such as sending them to the mutant internment camps of an alternate timeline). He did all that to make them think all humans were mutant-hating monsters, so the Twins would ultimately remove all the mutants (whom he heavily disliked) from Earth. Unfortunately for Kang, the Twins decided to destroy the Earth afterwards, as revenge for what he put them through. Unfortunately for the Twins, Kang was several steps ahead of them, and both undergo a total Villainous Breakdown when they realise that even when Earth is gone and they have their own mutant planet in a personal nebula, complete with a massive Tachyon Dam to prevent Kang intervening, he still out-gambits them, using their plans to fulfil his own scheme to claim the power of a Celestial. As everything falls apart, he mocks them, saying that yes, they took Earth away from him... and then, he took it back. He's just disappointed they didn't put up more of a challenge.
• The Masochism Tango: His complicated relationship with Ravonna, which has included more than once instance of literally being stabbed in the back.
• Multiversal Conqueror: He's conquered several realities already.
• My Grandson, Myself: The Kang living in the 1900s as Victor Timely occasionally ducks out and reappears pretending to be the next Victor Timely, who just looks identical to dear old dad. At last visit, he was up to Victor Timely the Third.
  • Kang believes himself to be a descendant of Dr Doom, and Doom believes himself to be a descendant of...Rama-Tut, a younger version of Kang.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Once, he and Immortus got into a fight that ended with Immortus zapping him with the information of all his other selves. It, and the fact that knowledge included the moments of their death, drove Kang insane.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His name is both The Dreaded and he's feared throughout history.
  Kang: Greater men than you have trembled at my name — Lesser men have fainted at its mention!
• Nerd in Evil's Helmet: Kang's origins amount to being a history nerd who happened to have access to advanced technology and a time-machine that allowed him to basically larp as a time-travelling conqueror. His primary motivation is boredom as he disdains the peaceful, conflict-free future he actually comes from, and further he has near-limitless resources and opportunities to win most battles easily but often deliberately handicaps himself to make it more challenging. To Kang, his inter-chronal wars with superheroes, alien races, gods, titans and his own alternate selves may as well be nothing more than a game, much to the embarrassment of his past and future selfs as much as anyone else.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: In The Kang Dynasty, he claims his attack on the 21st century is to stop any number of Bad Futures, but his real motivation is, of course, to conquer.
• Older Than He Looks: Kang is over 70 years old chronologically, but has managed to stop his aging completely using his far-flung futuristic technology. Thus he appears to be a man in his mid-40s.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Kang hates the Council of Kangs, regarding them as a bunch of idiots. At one point, he quite gladly sacrificed the lot of them to defeat an Eldritch Abomination. And, of course, there's Immortus. He's not impressed with the older Rama-Tut either, taking him for a flabby has-been.
• One-Man Army: In several appearances, Kang has attempted to take over the world all by himself. He's never succeeded, but he makes a good showing.
• Order Versus Chaos: The Forever War between Immortus and Kang is presented as being this in Avengers Forever.
• Out-Gambitted: The Apocalypse Twins think that they have everything neatly sewn up; Earth destroyed, Kang trapped in a dying future by a massive Tachyon Dam, and their own 'Planet X' of mutants. A neat vengeance on their abusive foster father. Then, Kang neatly undoes everything they've done, erasing Planet X, restoring Earth, and revealing that he was actually disappointed in how little challenge they'd proven, on the way to using their plans to consume the life-force of a Celestial.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: One of his plots had him hanging around in the Old West, in his usual purple and green outfit. If anyone asked about it, he just claimed it was covering up old war injuries. This worked. Though the Hypno Ray helped.
• Place Beyond Time: His former headquarters, Chronopolis. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in Avengers Forever.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: For a guy from a utopian future, he really is a sexist bastard - a trait that, curiously, neither his younger nor older selves demonstrate. Possibly because he romanticizes and admires to become like the politically incorrect conquering warlords of the past eras.
• Powered Armor: Kang wears highly advanced battle armor produced from a rare synthetic alloy from the 40th century. It is neuro-kinetic, meaning it responds to his subconscious thoughts. Though Kang has no powers, his armor endows him with rough equivalents of super-human abilities.
  • Barrier Warrior: The armor generates a force field that can stop a direct hit from Mjolnir.
  • Hand Blast: Kang can fire concussive blasts from the fingertips of his gauntlets; these blasts have the force of several tons of dynamite.
  • Shock and Awe: By flexing his muscles, Kang can activate a powerful electric shock.
  • Summon to Hand: By cracking his fingers, Kang can summon any number of weapons that are transported to him through the time-stream instantly.
  • Super-Strength: He can lift about five tons (though this has increased significantly over time).
  • Time Travel: Kang's armor can create temporal divergences, giving him the ability to travel through and manipulate time.
  • Villain Teleportation: He teleports to either around the battlefield, to his base or into the timestream.
• Purple Is Powerful: Purple is one of his primary colors, and he is a good candidate for the Avengers' most powerful opponent.
• Red Herring: For the first two decades of his publication history, Kang's identity was unknown, but was often suspected to be a corrupted future incarnation of Iron Man, Doctor Doom, or Franklin Richards (the son of Reed Richards and Susan Storm). Ultimately, he turned out to be... none of the above. But he is a descendant of Franklin in a roundabout fashion.
• Robot Master: Kang's got a knack for using robot goons when he hasn't fleshy henchmen. His period as Victor Timely means a lot of Marvel robots are based on his design, allowing him to override them at his whim.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: He was a Fantastic Four villain in his guise as Rama Tut before he showed up as Kang.
• Screw Destiny: In Avengers Forever, Kang expresses frustration at the inevitability that he will grow old and become Immortus. He currently believes he got his way around it (or perhaps that is just what the timekeepers want him to think).
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: In his first story (as Kang), he got into trouble with a henchman when he tried to make Ravonna marry him, in defiance of Kang's own rules about sparing enemies. Kang's argument that he could break his own rules didn't really work.
• Screw Yourself: A gender-bent alternate Kang once propositioned him.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Wears purple and green to battle the Avengers, most of whom wore primary colors when he was first created.
• Slouch of Villainy: One of Kang's iconic images is of him doing this on an invisible force field cushion.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: With a touch of a button, he can summon any Impossibly Cool Weapon he likes from his "trans-temporal armory."
• The Spook: For most of his existence, the details of his past (including his real name) were kept deliberately obscure, and hints were frequently dropped that he was either a descendant or a future self of Reed Richards, Tony Stark, or Doctor Doom.
• The Strategist: Kang is a brilliant military tactician and a peerless general. Using his considerable charisma, Kang was able to raise an army and conqueror his first world within weeks of building his armor.
• Straw Misogynist: Kang carries a considerably dim view of females, stating they are only good for little more than serving as soldiers or mothers and should not be given too great a status since they are a distraction and a weakness. He also spawned his children from princesses, scientists, and athletes to be selected as breeding stock for his children before being sent to his private chambers and locked in until Kang managed to forcibly conceive a child with the mate.
• Taking the Bullet: Kang leapt in front of an oncoming Mjolnir to save Terminatrix. Kang isn't even sure himself why he did that, thinking it might've been because he so unconcerned about his own life.
• Tom the Dark Lord: Kang the Conqueror, the most dangerous of all time travellers in Marvel history, goes by the birth name of... Nathaniel. "Nate" to his friends, if he had any. You can see why he traded it in. "Nate the Conqueror" just doesn't have the same ring.
• Übermensch: Downplayed. Kang is interesting from an Ubermenschen perspective because he was born into precisely the kind of world that Nietzsche envisioned and feared- a utopia devoid of any sort of suffering, strife or conflict, and thus devoid of meaning or challenge or real satisfaction- and one the actual Ubermensch was supposed to avert. Kang found himself rebelling against this society and becoming a time-travelling Challenge Seeker, Blood Knight and Conqueror from the Future Ubermensch-figure himself instead, although his many failures and tendencies to be literally at war with himself most of the time make him a somewhat shallow example otherwise.
  "The ancient Greeks had the correct idea of heroes. Those men and women who were better than those around them. Demigods who strode the Earth and took what they wanted. Took for themselves the excellence they deserved."
• Unholy Matrimony: Supposedly, with Mantis, during The Crossing... though this was later retconned to be a Space Phantom posing as her.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Iron Lad is Kang's juvenile self, who knows his destiny but doesn't want to grow up to be a supervillain.
  Iron Lad: Kate, if you found out you were going to become... Adolf Hitler, wouldn't you do everything in your power to make sure it never happens?
• Victory Is Boring: Why he keeps coming back to modern day Earth-616, despite having already established several empires in different timelines.
  Kang: Though my own century fears me as the most ruthless conqueror of all time, my triumph is a hollow one so long as the twentieth century escapes my tyranny!
• Villainous Rescue: During Guardians of the Galaxy, he saves a time-lost Star-Lord, Jack Flag, Bug, Mantis and Cosmo, mainly so they can stop the Bad Future.
• Villainous Valor: Say what you want about the guy, but when it comes to battle he never quits and will never run from a fight when pushed. He also has no problems fighting his enemies up close and personal when demanded.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Every protege he undertakes asks him the obvious question - if he has access to time travel why bother risking a loss confronting his opponents when they're experienced? Why not kill them in the past when they're incapable of defending themselves? His answer is always there being no sport or honor in killing children.
• Worthy Opponent: How he regards the Avengers, with Captain America as the worthiest.

Rama-Tut

Rama-Tut

"Defy me, and you and all that you cherish will be destroyed."

Alter Ego: Nathaniel Richards

First Appearance: Fantastic Four #19 (October, 1963)

The first supervillain identity that Nathan Richards ever assumed. After studying the history of the Heroic Age of Modern Day Earth-616, Richards discovered a fully functional replica of a time platform believed to have been invented by Doctor Doom, and fashioned it into a TARDIS-like timeship resembling a sphinx. Traveling back to Egypt in the year 2960 BCE, Richards easily took over the land thanks to his superior technology, calling himself Rama-Tut and crowning himself Pharaoh. After learning of the existence of a powerful young mutant named En Sabah Nur, Rama-Tut seeks to claim him as his heir. Encountering the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange on their own time traveling adventures, Rama-Tut is eventually forced to flee back to the future and adopt the Kang persona, but some future incarnations have him resuming the Rama-Tut identity as a form of retirement.

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• And Now You Must Marry Me: Tried to make Sue Storm marry him in his first appearance, via a Hypno Ray.
• Been There, Shaped History: That famous Sphinx? His time-machine, left where he crashed it. In fact, most of the tech is still in there.
• The Caligula: Downplayed, but he is a despotic ruler who encourages his subjects to revere him as a god, and has several monuments built to reflect this. He is at his worst in his early reign, where this is all new to him and he's Drunk with Power. The older, "retired" versions of him have mellowed with age.
• Evil Mentor: To Apocalypse. It went horribly right.
• God Guise: Used his advanced technology to convince the natives he was a god.
• Handicapped Badass: He was blinded when his timeship crashed in Egypt. He eventually got his sight back... after he conquered Egypt.
• Heel–Face Turn: The older, mellower Rama-Tut decided to aid the Avengers in fighting Kang during Englehart's run. And then, according to Roger Stern's run, he went right back to "heel" afterwards.
• Luke, I Might Be Your Father: He was reluctant to kill Doctor Doom when they met in a team-up because he wasn't genuinely sure whether Doom is his ancestor or not. This was later retconned decades later to Rama-Tut just playing to Doom's ego.
• Mighty Whitey: Nathaniel Richards set himself up as a pharaoh in Ancient Egypt.
• Older Than They Look: The older Rama-Tut is in his seventies at least. He's still surprisingly well-preserved.
• Retired Badass: One Kang got bored with being in charge and became Rama-Tut again, returning to Egypt because he enjoyed the simpler life and easy adulation.
• Sandal Punk: A Nepharious Pharaoh who wields a Ray Gun and commands a robot army.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Rama-Tut convinced his subjects to abandon their old gods in favor of him. Khonshu resented humanity for turning their back on him, and millennia later, he's still got a chip on his shoulder.
  • Though he's not the only one to blame for Apocalypse's Start of Darkness, Rama-Tut definitely did make it a lot worse.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Usually, Rama-Tut tends to go shirtless.

Scarlet Centurion

Scarlet Centurion

"My time is not your time, and your standards hold no meaning for one such as I."

Alter Ego: Nathaniel Richards

First Appearance: Avengers Annual #2 (July, 1968)

After Rama-Tut was ousted from his position as Pharaoh by the Fantastic Four, he attempted to return to his own time, but was caught in a temporal storm and crash landed in the modern era of Earth-616. A chance encounter with Doctor Doom prompted him to abandon the Rama-Tut identity and create a new supervillain persona similar to Doom's. He travels back in time to visit the founding Avengers lineup of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Thor, Wasp, and the Hulk, right before Hulk leaves the team, offering to share his knowledge of the future to help them bring about a golden era of peace. This creates a divergent reality: Earth-689. The Scarlet Centurion then pits the Earth-689 founders against the current Earth-616 Avengers. After his defeat, the Centurion again attempts to return to his own time, but ends up in the 40th Century, where he reinvents himself again, taking on the Kang identity. A divergent version of him went on to torment the Squadron Supreme of Earth-712.

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See Squadron Supreme

Immortus

Immortus

"As ever, heroes, you underestimate me."

Alter Ego: Nathaniel Richards

First Appearance: The Avengers #10 (November, 1964)

The supposed final incarnation of Nathaniel Richards. After several adventures as an Evil Overlord, Kang eventually becomes humbled and disillusioned by his failures as a conqueror. Retiring from supervillainy, he initially resumes the identity of Rama-Tut and attempts to rule Egypt as a wiser, more benevolent ruler, but ultimately decides to spend his twilight years in Limbo, a pocket dimension that exists outside of the normal space/time continuum. However, the Time Keepers had other ideas. They tracked Richards down and made him a proposition: Immortality in exchange for serving as the guardian for an 80 millennia span of the space-time continuum. Now calling himself Immortus, he seeks to repair the damage his earlier selves have done to the time stream. Valuing order over chaos, Immortus alternately helps and hinders the Avengers as he maneuvers through the timestream, intent on preventing temporal paradoxes before they begin.

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• The Ageless: Benefits of being a time-traveler working for the Time Keepers, he is much older than he looks, and he wasn't a spring chicken before he was given the job.
• Almighty Janitor: He's often called Custodian of the Timestream. And in the 90s X-Men animated series, he even disguises himself as a janitor named Bender (no, not that one).
  Kang: He calls himself the Master of Time! "Gardener of Time" is more truthful! He prunes away the chronal branches deemed by others to be dangerous, reducing reality to a bloodless meadow!
• Army of The Ages: He's a step up from Kang in that he can summon one without tech thanks to his powers, but he still loves using these.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Much as he'd like to get rid of Kang, just as Kang wants to kill him, he can't, because there has to be a Kang to become him. Of course, you'd be amazed what someone can live through...
• The Chessmaster: Hoo... Avengers: Forever elevates him to this, revealing how a lot of his actions over the years tied into one great big fiendish and insanely over-complicated plan to, among other things, stop mankind becoming a galaxy-spanning empire.
• Death Is Cheap: Supposedly killed by the Time Keepers in Avengers: Forever, he got better pretty quickly thanks to the severing of his and Kang's timelines. He was later fried by the Next Avengers in Brian Bendis' Avengers. Of course, since he's a time-traveler...
• Didn't See That Coming: He manipulated the course of The Vision and Scarlet Witch's romance, because he figured as a synthezoid they'd never be able to have children. Then Wanda used her magic to create children anyway.
• Faking the Dead: At least one story has had Kang finding the decayed remains of Immortus, but that has also been suggested to be one of Immortus's fake-outs.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Avengers: Forever reveals he's behind a lot of stuff over the previous thirty-odd years, all as part of a plan to keep mankind from going into space.
  • He was the one who first aimed the Badoon at Earth, where they ran into the Silver Surfer, knowing their drubbing would cause the Badoon to return in a thousand years time and nearly wipe out mankind in response, causing the formation of the original Guardians of the Galaxy.
  • He also pointed the Martians at Earth, causing the events of Killraven.
  • He manipulated Iron Man during the events of Operation: Galactic Storm, leading to the Avengers executing the Kree Supreme Intelligence, which wasn't part of the plan. Unfortunately, said manipulating also caused Iron Man's behavior in The Crossing, which he did cause to stall the Avengers before Onslaught as a result.
  • Sending a Space Phantom to persuade the Grim Reaper to try and get the Vision to upload his brain into Captain America's body was a plan to make sure the Vis would start a relationship with the Scarlet Witch.
  • Wanda's Trauma Conga Line at the end of West Coast Avengers was partly his doing.
• Guardian of the Multiverse: A far cry from his past self.
• Happily Married: At least one version of him lived out to the end of his extended life with a version of Ravonna, even having a son with her. They made arrangements so that when he died, she would die immediately thereafter, so they wouldn't be apart.
• I Hate Past Me: Immortus wants to preserve the timeline, and many of the problems with the timeline were caused by his younger self.
• Kick the Dog: According to Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four, when every version of Nathaniel Richards in the multiverse gathered together, Immortus told them they had to hunt down and kill one another. No reason was given.
• Long Bus Trip: After his first tussle with the Avengers, he disappeared save for a brief appearance in Avengers #16, swearing vengeance on them. He wouldn't reappear as Immortus until Avengers #132.
• Necessarily Evil: Immortus is well aware how monstrous some of the things he does are, and sometimes would like nothing more than to be allied with the Avengers, but the demands of his position makes that impossible. If he doesn't do what he does, the Time Keepers would've wiped out mankind.
• Not Me This Time: Inverted. At one point, he claimed to be responsible for Hank Pym's mental breakdown, but much later it was retconned that he was not.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He officiated the Vision and Scarlet Witch's wedding. Of course, his motivations weren't entirely altruistic. He was trying to stop Wanda having kids. But he did save them the trouble of finding a minister in outer space.
  • Played some part in Vance Astro and Vance Astrovik's timelines diverging, saving the later from becoming the former.
  • After the Planet X storyline, where Kang had stolen away Janet and Alex Summers' daughter, ostensibly to protect her from fading away and practically to blackmail them into helping him, Immortus appears to them and hands them instructions of the precise date and time that, if they so wish, they can reconceive their daughter, right down to "the same spirit." Which is nice of him, even if it is a little weird.
• Retgone:
  • In Steve Englehart's Avengers run, Kang dies, so Immortus is erased from existence as well. Despite having caused the events that killed Kang, so if he didn't exist to cause them... uhhh... needless to say, it didn't take long for Immortus to pop up again.
  • Thanks to the Forever Crystal, he was able to erase entire timelines from existence, having started doing so during the days of West Coast Avengers.
• Time Master: He has extensive knowledge of travel through and manipulation of time. He uses a wide variety of instrumentation for manipulation of and travel through time, most of which he designed. It is known that he was tutored by the Time-Keepers.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His actions, while frequently awful, are to prevent mankind becoming a genocidal, facistic space empire.

Iron Lad

Iron Lad

"I'm here to protect you. The future depends on it."

Alter Ego: Nathaniel Richards

First Appearance: Young Avengers #1 (April, 2005)

A 16-year-old Nathaniel Richards whose path diverges when his future self saves him from an assassination attempt. Hoping to spare him painful moments and accelerate his transformation to Kang (under more favorable circumstances), Kang shows the boy his (future) history and provides him with a suit of neurokinetic armour that responds to his subconscious thoughts. However, Young Nate is horrified by what he sees and becomes determined to prevent his destiny as a supervillain by any means necessary. Discovering that his armour had time travel capabilities, Nate travels back to modern day Earth-616 and attempts to contact the Avengers. However, by the time he arrives, the team had been disbanded. Altering his armor into a likeness of Iron Man's armor, Nate adopted the heroic persona of Iron Lad and used an Avengers Fail-Safe Program to create a new version of the team. Unfortunately, Iron Lad's conflict with Kang eventually created a temporal paradox that threatened to unravel the space-time continuum, forcing him to return to the future and embrace his supervillainous destiny. However it was later revealed that the continued to try and escape his fate, and tragedy would put him on the path to become Kid Immortus.

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See Young Avengers

Kid Immortus

Kid Immortus

Alter Ego: Nathaniel Richards

First Appearance: FF #8 (June, 2013)

Full of grief from the death of Cassie Lang, who he had developed feelings for, Iron Lad escaped into the timestream with the goal of being better than his future selves. Calling himself Kid Immortus, he starts researching his destiny while also coming into conflict with Doctor Doom due to the manipulations of an alternate timeline Valeria Richards.

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• All for Nothing: He decided to embrace his destiny to try and save Cassie Lang, only for her to be resurrected anyway by someone else.
• Fallen Hero: Not that long ago in his personal timeline he was Iron Lad, a wannabe hero trying to change his fate. Now he's Kid Immortus, having not only embraced his destiny but attempting to prove he was better than his future selves.
• Same Character, But Different: He's essentially the same version as Iron Lad.

Mister Gryphon

Mister Gryphon

Alter Ego: Nathaniel Richards

First Appearance: All-New, All-Different Avengers #1 (November, 2015)

As a consequence of a glitch in the timestream, Kang the Conqueror was split apart into different versions of himself. One of these versions became trapped in the early 21st century, held back by some kind of "firewall of time."

Unwilling to wait for two thousand years to catch up with his original era, this Nathaniel Richards decided to create his own dynasty in this time period. Under the alias of "Mister Gryphon," Kang became a businessman and the CEO of Qeng Enterprises. He additionally enlisted the help of several villains to make his empire grow.

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• Corrupt Corporate Executive: His guise in the modern day.
• Trapped in the Past: Thanks to a "firewall of time", Kang got trapped in the here-and-now. Unwilling to wait it out and unable to get around the timewall (and with no future version of himself apparently able to help), he's stuck and tetchy.

Doctor Doom

• Costume Copycat: He's a Kang who, for whatever reason, has decided to dress like Doctor Doom.

Supporting Characters

Ravonna Renslayer

Ravonna Renslayer

Alter Ego: Ravonna Lexus Renslayer

Notable Aliases: Nebula, Terminatrix, Kang-Nebula, Hecate, Temptress

Team Affiliations: Anachronauts, Council of Kangs

First Appearance: Avengers #23 (December, 1965)

A time-traveling princess, conqueror, and assassin, Princess Ravonna has gone by many names: Terminatrix, Temptress, Revelation, and Nebula, and has battled the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. But mainly her beef is with Kang the Conqueror, who often desires her to be his bride... whether she wants to be or not.

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• Alliterative Name: Ravonna Renslayer.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Gives one as she jumps in front of a shot meant for Kang.
• Arc Villain: For Avengers issues 291-297, and Fantastic Four 337-341, which followed on from it.
• Body Surf: Nebula-Ravonna wound up hopping into Johnny Storm's body for a while. When Sue noticed something was up, she hopped into Sue instead.
• Continuity Snarl: Between all the time travel and alternate realities and whatnot, Ravonna's continuity is as snarled as Kang's.
• Didn't See That Coming: Revelation figured the events of The Terminatrix Objective would help Terminatrix become her. She's a little surprised when Terminatrix decides to take a different path and stab Kang in the back rather than rule with him.
• Distaff Counterpart: As Immortus is to Kang, so Revelation is to Terminatrix, something Captain America even asks her about.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The Terminatrix Ravonna living with Kang is killed, off-page, during Avengers: Forever, and she and the entire population of Chronopolis are then crushed down into the Forever Crystal. It's hinted Revelation might've been killed by some of Kang's manipulations.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: One version of Immortus abducts several versions of Ravonna to show them the one he married, telling them they've become some twisted they cannot understand The Power of Love.
• Femme Fatale: Terminatrix-Ravonna found a Kang in the Cross-Time Council of Kangs, seduced him, murdered him, stole his equipment, infiltrated the Council, and manipulated them. Then she did the same to Dr. Druid.
• Fiery Redhead: The red-headed Ravonna and Revelation are pretty mellow. It's the blonde Terminatrix who's bad-tempered.
• Godhood Seeker: Terminatrix-Ravonna's actions while pretending to be Nebula involve her trying to gain access to the power of a fallen Celestial to become a god.
• Happily Married: At least one version of Ravonna stayed as Ravonna and lived out her life with Immortus, until they both died of old age. Another settled down in early 20th century Wisconsin with Kang, as a way of proving to him co-sharing power was better than conquering.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Whose side is Ravonna on? Usually just her own. What that means is that she can be an enemy, an ally, or anywhere inbetween depending on the mood.
• Hot-Blooded: Terminatrix is not a very mellow gal. Especially where Kang or her other selves are involved.
• I Have Many Names: Her given name is Ravonna, but she and her various versions have gone by a lot of names over the decades. Ravonna, Nebula, Terminatrix, Kang, Temptress, Revelation, Rebecca Tourminet...
• Instant Armor: As Terminatrix.
• Kill and Replace: Terminatrix-Ravonna started her career by pretending to Nebula, and murdering a member of the Council of Cross-Time Kangs to gain access to them. Much later on, when she revealed herself as Terminatrix, she stabbed Kang in the back, then took over his empire, using holograms to impersonate Kang.
• Lack of Empathy: Terminatrix-Ravonna in her Nebula days shows a staggering lack of craps given for anything that's not her. She casually states the first thing she'd do on getting unlimited power is blow up a universe as a show of force, and when her Avengers Quinjet starts faltering in getting through temporal disturbance she orders She-Hulk to dump Black Knight out into the void. She gets a little better on being Terminatrix.
• Lady Macbeth: Terminatrix manipulated Dr. Druid with a little bit of brainwashing, but mostly just playing to his ego, to seize control of the Avengers for her own schemes.
• The Lost Lenore: In Avengers #23, she appeared to die Taking the Bullet for Kang. He spent a while trying to revive her. Some versions succeeded, some didn't. One spent fifty years mourning her.
• The Masochism Tango: Ravonna and Kang's relationship is... fraught, starting with Kang trying to force her to marry him. Complete with the occasional literal stab in the back.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Ravonna can't stand her alternate counterparts any more than Kang can stand his. Terminatrix especially hates Revelation from the off.
• Race Lift: For the first sixty years of her history Ravonna has been pretty unambiguously white. In the 2021 Kang series, she suddenly becomes black, in the footsteps of Loki (2021). However it's justified since it's the result of Kang, in an attempt to prevent her death, manipulating time to have her reincarnate throughout history and alternate timelines.
• Retcon: In the Avengers issues mentioned, the female Kang claiming to be Nebula was presumed to just be Nebula the space villainess being a Kang. A few years down the line, in 1992's Citizen Kang mini-event, it turns out no, this was Ravonna pretending to be Nebula for... some reason.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Terminatrix betrayed Kang and stole his empire, only to find that ruling a vast empire requires putting in the effort of ruling. Empires don't just happen. Not a good thing for someone who doesn't have the patience for it.
• Woman Scorned: One Ravonna found out Kang passed up the chance to revive her in favor of killing the Avengers. She was pretty angry.

Marcus Kang

Marcus Kang

Alter Ego: Marcus Kang

Notable Aliases: Scarlet Centurion, Marcus XXIII

Team Affiliations: Anachronauts, Council of Kangs

First Appearance: Avengers (Vol. 3) #38 (March, 2001)

Marcus Kang is the son of the time-travelling world conqueror known as Kang.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Not because of anything personality wise, mind. He's actually an alright person, world-conquering aside. It's just that he looks exactly identical to Marcus Immortus, with whom Carol Danvers has an extremely unpleasant history.
• Amazon Chaser: Falls in love with Carol Danvers the minute he sees her.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Notice that his name is Marcus the twenty-third? Kang created twenty-two other Marcii before him, and for one reason or another they all fell short of Kang's idea of a suitable heir. So he killed them. At the end of Kang War, Marcus discovers this. And then dad kills him for the same reason.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the vastly different set of circumstances leading to his conception, he looks identical to Marcus Immortus. As he observes in conversation with Warbird, this makes a fair amount of sense, since Kang and Immortus's sons would naturally look similar since they're just different versions of the same man, and it's likely that both men share some defining event in their past that would prompt them to name a son "Marcus".

Growing Man

Growing Man

First Appearance: Thor #140 (May, 1967)

The Growing Man is a stimuloid who serves Kang the Conqueror.

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• Do Androids Dream?: Despite being robots, the Growing Man occasionally show signs of personality.
• Energy Absorption: Any attack against the Growing Man is absorbed, and causes it to grow. However, there are limits to its ability; Hercules was once able to hit a Growing Man hard enough to overload it and render it essentially unconscious.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: As brought up by the Young Avengers in their first fight with one, the Growing Man's abilities are pretty self-explanatory.
• In Working Order: The Growing Man can lie buried for millions of years and boot up again no problem.
• Killer Robot: A "stimuloid" built to fight Kang's enemies. Exactly what makes a stimuloid different from Marvel's other types of robots is unclear.
• Sizeshifter: Courtesy of Pym Particles taken from the dimension of Kosmos, after Kang invaded them.

Anachronauts

First Appearance: Fantastic Four annual #25 (July, 1992)

A group of warriors from across time who were defeated by Kang and swore undying loyalty to him.

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• Badass Crew: In theory, at any rate.
• A Day in the Limelight: Avengers annual #22 has a back-up story about them getting up to stuff while Kang's away involving travelling to Camelot and fighting the Incinerators.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: They are all killed off-screen by Immortus during Avengers: Forever, and their remains crushed along with the ruins of Chronopolis into the Forever Crystal.
• Kid from the Future: Apocryphus is Sersei's kid from an alternate timeline.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Served as one to Kang during "The Crossing" (or as later retcons would have it, Unwitting Pawns of Immortus).
• Undying Loyalty: To Kang. Their Kang, not imposters or any of his alternate selves.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Wildrun tends to operate sans shirt.

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