Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania writer is attempting to hype up the next Marvel Studios release by comparing the film’s villain, Kang the Conqueror, to Thanos.
Screenwriter Jeff Loveness recently spoke to SFX Magazine via Games Radar, where he described Kang the Conqueror as “a top-tier, A-list Avengers villain.”
He then claimed that Kang is even more threatening than Thanos, who literally erased half of the universe’s entire population with the snap of his fingers, mentally broke both Hulk and Thor, and ultimately forced Tony Stark to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Loveness detailed, “What do you do when you feel you’re not enough against that? How do you step up to face the challenge of this generation, who is Thanos on an exponential level? He’s almost this infinite Thanos.”
“I think we’re setting things up for a pretty dynamic story. As I’m building to Avengers I want it to feel like a generational struggle,” he added.
Loveness then provided a little bit more of an insight to his vision, “Phase 4 felt like the birth of new characters. You’re giving everyone a little bit of a breath, you’re broadening out the universe, you have fun Disney Plus shows that are elevating characters. And now I think it’s time to put the pedal to the gas again, and really take all these new characters that we like and throw them into the fire.”
While Loveness claimed Kang the Conqueror is an “infinite Thanos,” he also noted Kang is a human. “To me it’s all about the humanity,” he regaled. “Obviously Thanos is a great, iconic villain, but he’s also a big purple CGI guy. He’s an alien from outer space. The thing I really wanted to lean into is that Kang is a human being.”
To this he elaborated, “Kang’s also a very lonely character. We’re going to be seeing a lot of him in a lot of different ways going forward, but I really wanted to introduce the humanity and even the vulnerability of this character before he gets to such apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights.”
While Loveness claims that Kang the Conqueror is merely a human, the film’s director Peyton Reed indicated he does have a supernatural ability to experience past, present, and future all at once.
Reed said, “Kang is able to experience past, present, and future at the same time. What does that look like? He conserves his energy. There’s not a wasted gesture or word, and if Kang says something, he means it.”
Reed also described Kang as “the most powerful being in the multiverse.”
He said, “A lot of people might consider Ant-Man the ‘weakest’ Avenger: ‘What can that guy do? He shrinks and talks to ants. That’s ridiculous.’ Putting that guy up against the Kang the Conqueror, who’s the most powerful being in the multiverse—that seemed really exciting to us.”
Loveness previously echoed this sentiment and also claimed that Kang the Conqueror was indeed “the next major villain of the MCU.” He explained, “When I first met with Peyton [Reed] and Marvel, we got so excited about making this epic, massive, adventure movie with the Super Hero you might least expect to be in it. From the beginning, the idea was to put them up against an Avengers-level threat, the next major villain of the MCU, Kang the Conqueror—but it’s just Scott, Hope and their families.”
As for how much is riding on Kang the Conqueror and Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantamania, producer Stephen Broussard detailed, “We talk about movies like Captain America: The Winter Solider, in which you saw the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it felt like the entirety of the MCU turned on that. Captain America: Civil War was another film where you saw heroes divided and in camps and battle lines being drawn—it really felt like the future of the MCU was going to be defined by the action of that film.”
“We really liked the idea of making this Ant-Man film as important and integral to the MCU going forward,” he asserted.
What do you make of Marvel Studios trying to hype up Kang the Conqueror by claiming he’s infinitely more powerful than Thanos?
NEXT: Marvel’s ‘Ant-Man And The Wasp Quantamania’ Faces A Major Problem Of Marvel Studios’ Own Creation