Avengers 5 Writer: The Kang Dynasty Throws Phase 4 Characters "Into the Fire"

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will be a trial by fire for the new heroes introduced in Marvel Studios' Phase 4. After 2019's Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home ended the Infinity Saga — and Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — television's WandaVision ushered in what Marvel calls the Multiverse Saga. Spanning Phase 4, Phase 5, and Phase 6, the multiversal saga will see the debut of such heroes as the Fantastic Four as it builds towards a two-part conclusion: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (May 2nd, 2025) and Avengers: Secret Wars (May 1st, 2026). 

Kicking off Phase 5 is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, in theaters February 17th, which introduces the Multiverse Saga's big bad: the time lord Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a multiversal variant of Loki's He Who Remains (also played by Majors). Writer Jeff Loveness penned both the Ant-Man threequel and the upcoming Kang Dynasty, pitting Earth's mightiest heroes against "a top-tier, A-list Avengers villain" in Kang.

"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," Loveness told SFX Magazine of Kang, adding Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is "setting things up for a pretty dynamic story" in the next Avengers sequel. 

"As I'm building to Avengers, I want it to feel like a generational struggle. Phase 4 felt like the birth of new characters," Loveness said. "You're giving everyone a little bit of a breath, you're broadening out the universe, you have fun Disney+ 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."

The films of Phase 4 expanded the MCU with newcomers like Yelena Belova's Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), the Eternals, multiverse-hopping teen America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), and a new Black Panther (Letitia Wright's Shuri). On the TV side, the Disney+ series Hawkeye, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law introduced the next generation of superheroes, including Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany).

Acting as a sort of prequel for The Kang Dynasty, Loveness says Quantumania reveals the first iteration of Kang, the Thanos-type threat whose variants waged a secret multiversal war. 

"We're going to be seeing a lot of him in a lot of different ways going forward," Loveness teased, "but I really wanted to introduce the humanity and even the vulnerability of this character before he gets to such apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights."

Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters February 17th, followed by Avengers: The Kang Dynasty on May 2nd, 2025, and Avengers: Secret Wars on May 1st, 2026.