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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I recently started to believe, without evidence, that the name Kang came from Khan with letter substitution and shuffling
It wouldn’t be beyond the pale for how marvel comes up with names
Forever liveblogging the AvengersDoes Richards ever give an in-universe reason for why he calls himself Kang?
Also, I'm curious, is he actually immortal? Or more specifically, how old is biologically? Like I know time travel is obviously his thing, but has Richards (or at least a version of him) taken The Slow Path from whenever he was a Pharaoh to the 31st century and beyond?
Just a side note, although I know that the Ancient Egyptians were not Sub-Saharan Africans (at least for the most part), but I find it a huge improvement that the guy who was a Pharaoh looks like Jonathan Majors in the MCU and not a pale white guy.
Edited by Hodor2 on Jul 15th 2021 at 4:08:14 AM
I know it's quite confusing since I Have Many Names (and again, time travel) is in effect, but at least my off-hand understanding was that the guy's birth certificate says Nathaniel Richards and that all of the other names are his aliases. Is that not correct?
Re ethnicity, I quite agree in terms of Nathaniel Richards/Kang generally. I'm just saying that someone who was a Pharaoh should look a lot more like Johnathan Majors than like Kang's (as I understand it rare) unmasked appearance in the comics.
Edited by Hodor2 on Jul 15th 2021 at 4:24:07 AM
Maybe Kang's just a big fan of old Star Trek episodes.
Either that or he's into the Treehouse of Horror.
Kang the Conqueror's name is likely indeed reverse-engineered from "Khan", moreso because I think Kang is a a stylistic descendant of the iconic pulp fiction Galactic Conqueror Ming The Merciless, who had a Yellow Peril-esque thing going on with a asian-ish aesthetic (see the name). You'll notice Kang the Conqueror even follows the same naming pattern as Ming the Merciless ("x the Y", short first name long sobriquet, phonetically alliterative). Thankfully Kang stuck more with the aesthetics of "gaudy cosmic conqueror usually in a chair/throne" rather than the Yellow Peril tidbits of Ming.
As for where his name came from, I think his name is usually written as a bootstrap paradox of sorts where he calls himself Kang because he has foreknowledge that in the future he'd call himself Kang.
PS: The TMNT guy was Krang.
Edited by Gaon on Jul 15th 2021 at 3:29:02 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I mean, kid Kang did know he'd wind up as Kang because Kang showed up and offered to beat up his bullies for him. Slash murder them.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThere was a recent-ish issue from 2016 where Kang narrates his backstory and even then he says the origins of the name "are not for [him] to reveal." The closest we ever get is him saying he wanted a name to be feared across the centuries, and on that front I guess "Kang" sounds more intimidating than "Nathaniel."
He heard about Nate Grey from history class and went “oh fuck no” and immediately petitioned to legally change his own name
Forever liveblogging the AvengersAren’t two of the kids the same kid and the other was fathered by the Phoenix? If you believe an interview with Claremont which I do
Forever liveblogging the AvengersSame. The name itself reeks of Yellow Peril imagery, although thankfully the character himself isn't.
Much like Baron Mordo's original design, comics Immortus' original design had a kind of "white guy with a vague Yellow Peril vibe despite explicitly being a white guy" thing going for him.
Which does feel a bit like Stan and Jack going "we want to do all the requisite tropes and visual cues, but don't want to offend anybody, so white guy." The 60's equivalent of the Ancient One thing.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 15th 2021 at 7:11:41 AM
RE: Kang hype:
While all the stuff about Kang being a crazy prepared overlord from the far-flung future that can duke it out with Captain America and have infinite versions of himself is hype enough, there's also the hype from the meta angle.
Kang the Conqueror has always been an Avengers villain from day one of his appearances, specifically Avengers #8 in 1964. However! One of his several aliases, Pharaoh Rama-Tut, appeared before Kang himself in Fantastic Four #19 in 1963.
Because Rama-Tut came before Kang, both guys were classified as Fantastic 4 villains, which meant their film rights ended up with 20th Century Fox...who proceeded to do jack squat with them as they fixated on X-Men and only gave Marvel's First Family two subpar movies.
Now that Disney bought Fox, that meant the film rights to both bad guys got lumped back into Marvel Studios. And judging by social media reactions, they wasted no time establishing our conqueror... (Heh, time pun.)

♫This Kang's so strong, it isn't funny♩
♩Can make an Avenger cry out for mummy♫
Edited by chasemaddigan on Jul 15th 2021 at 3:04:52 PM