Marvel Cinematic Universe

I disagree that having a large group of alternate versions of the same villain is inherently bad or impossible to do well. It's a logical way to use the Multiverse, as well as creating investment in the other universes as the events in each parallel universe will lead to one of the Kangs the main universe has to face. It's a good way of creating a contrast with Thanos. And, if they are all given distinct personalities with enough similarities so that you buy these are different versions of the same character, then watching them bounce off of each other would be a lot of fun (betrayals, friendships, alliances etc.). If you set several Kangs up as interesting villains in their own right, then you build up investment and can then use them in multiple films. Even if a variant ends up losing at the end of a film, as long as the battle was difficult and they play up that there are hundreds more where he come from (if it took a whole movie to defeat one, imagine how hard it would be to beat hundreds!).

There are several major risks with this approach, and I get why people had concerns. It could easily lead into Conservation of Ninjutsu, though that's not a guarantee. You could change battle scenes to focus less on defeating the Kangs and more about surviving them and/or fleeing while battling, still selling the threat. Or, you could give the Kangs hundreds of disposable minions for the battles with a few Kangs dispersed about as elite mooks.

The other thing is how strong are these Kangs? Do that have time travel or not? Why doesn't the Trivumite run the council? We have no clue about any of this, and if they ditch Kang we will not get answers wasting essentially Quantumania and Loki.

I mean we might see the Kang council again. I can envision a scence where the heroes walk into a throne room, Kang bodies strewn all over (conveniently faceless) as a new villain takes the stage.

Man.it's damned if you do, damned if you don't isn't it?

Either stick with Kang who "people hate" (and has a problematic actor) or change course and you've "wasted" the build up.

Edited by dcutter2 on May 10th 2024 at 12:55:03 PM

I'm half-expecting Deadpool and Wolverine to have a joke where Deadpool accidentally blows them all up or something.

Kang could get a recast but John Boeya already turned it down.

I still have the dumb idea that they should've made an Avant Garde Avengers movie that looks exactly like a normal Avengers movie and plays out exactly like one, except every single hero dies in the end and the universe is taken over

And then it turns out the whole movie was set in one of the paralel universes where Kang "beat the Avengers".

Edited by GNinja on May 10th 2024 at 11:57:32 AM

That sort of happened in an Avengers issue during the very same era that inspired the council of Kangs

I’d be down for that.

Find it weird that we're supposed to have Kang be the greatest Avengers villain by far, but Kang we see couldnt be have assed to remember which Avenger is which. I get they blur for awhile, but at least call them by codename. No personalness behind why Kang sees Avengers beneath him

Edited by M1gamiTensei on May 10th 2024 at 5:18:16 AM

Arrogance which bit him in the ass now the internet and casuals thinks Kang is a jobber. Guess Scott won't even remember which Kang he beat lol

Edited by Mizerous on May 10th 2024 at 8:20:43 AM

With the variants and all the Kangs, the Avengers are more likely to just get completely confused on who they were talking about.

It was a mistake to make Kang a multiverse multiple character instead of a single guy with multiple versions of himself at different points of his life.

They even made Immortus into the main bad guy instead of Kang’s future self who gave up being a villain.

The Multiverse change does feel like an unwieldy escalation of his multiple versions concept.

Like Kang does have multiple versions but it's only a handful and are easy to keep track of by looking through the stages of his life and each Kang is fairly distinct in how they act.

Meaningwhile Multiverse Kang is like infinite which feels like an unnecessary escalation that won't lend to very unique characterizations.

Yeah, it also renders the debates about Quantumania Kang being beaten in his first outing pointless, since Marvel had no intention of following up his story and he was functionally replaced by the Council of Kangs.

You can't be invested in a villain if you keep replacing him. You can't repeat the same trick with Thanos.

Edited by RedHunter543 on May 11th 2024 at 1:09:35 AM

I find the arguement presented by people odd that "Kang will return in a way more substantial role" and that is a purely speculative perspective and we only have what we have right now on why Kang isnt as hitting hard as they want him to be, even before the Majors arrest. Throwing him away for Doom makes all that buildup feel pointless.

If Kang's introduction to the MCU was this build up of dread like what happens in halfway to Xmen 97 (you know the event) then they would have struck gold

I mean all the arguments about how terrible the council and any Kang follow ups would be are equally as speculative.

Could Quantumania have been better? Sure! Did Quantumania irrevocably ruin Kang? Not really, no.

Edited by dcutter2 on May 11th 2024 at 10:31:16 AM

I mean tbh yes. Having the debut of your main villain in a film people totally rejected is like the worst thing you could do. As it now poisons the well for future films. I'd rather they not use him at all in that one.

And I’m one of those people who still like Quantumania.

Maybe it’s because I watched with friends and family.

It's pretty funny now that the narrative is now "Kang was thoroughly rejected by absolutely everyone". When clearly not, and at the time of release he was lauded as the best part of the film.

And " Having the debut of your main villain in a film people totally rejected is like the worst thing you could do." - 'Could do?' Makes it sounds intentional. Obviously that's not what they were aiming for.

eta: And the weird thing is I don't particularly like Quantumania or Kang. He's a jarring departure from the previous films' tone and aesthetics. I just don't see the whole "he was weak and is ruined forever" thing.

eta2: What similarities between L&T and Quantumania are you suggesting? What massive retool to an already in production movie do you think they could do in less than eight months due to the response to L&T? Who warned them? Do you think Marvel is reading this thread to get the real scoop about the MCU?

Edited by dcutter2 on May 11th 2024 at 12:11:37 PM

Hey let's be honest they had been told multiple times before this to reign it in with stuff like Love and thunder. But they didn't listen so hey that fail is on them.

Their were multiple complaints about the weird comedy and weird tone being too much long before this which they purposely ignored. It's only after things imploded upon their debut of their main villain did they release hiring Rick and morty writers was a terrible idea for example.

Edited by miraculous on May 11th 2024 at 4:36:02 AM

People keep saying that Kang is going o be replaced by Doom. Has that been confirmed or is this the same wistful thinking going back to when the secret wars movie was revealed?

Nothing confirmed if anything Galactus might be more of an option as the new villain with his casting news.

The weird comedy films like GotG and Ragnarok being among the most successful. The reason we got L&T was because people like Ragnarok. It's just Ragnarok being evenmore so.

People have been complaining about Bathos for a while but people complain about a lot of shit. It's only in hindsight that you can tell how big a problem it is.

As someone who wasn't a fan of Guardians 1 OR Ragnarok, I'm still bitter that they had such an impact on the way a lot of MCU movies felt moving forward.

My favourite MCU movie was the Winter Soldier, and I don't think we've really gotten an MCU thing that's felt like that again.