The MCU is no longer building to The Kang Dynasty, but that doesn’t mean everything has been thrown out with the shift to Avengers: Doomsday. Following on from Avengers: Endgame, Kang the Conqueror was set up as Marvel’s next big bad, expected to define the Multiverse Saga across Phases 4-6. Having debuted as He Who Remains in Loki Season 1, Kang was introduced properly in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. However, Jonathan Majors was fired after being found guilty of assault and harassment, and rather than recast the role, Marvel decided to take things in a very different direction altogether.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Now, Robert Downey Jr. is returning to the MCU, but this time as Doctor Doom, and The Kang Dynasty will instead be Doomsday. Still, there are some questions to be addressed, because Marvel hasn’t neatly tied up all the elements of Kang’s story it was setting up for the fifth Avengers movie. At the very center of that, particularly when it comes to Doomsday‘s story, is Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man. The character not only defeated Kang in Quantumania, but it seems like plans for him to be key to the Avengers are still in place, even as the story around it has changed.
Ant-Man Was Clearly Going To Be Key To Avengers: The Kang Dynasty
Having appeared in Kang’s debut movie – and defeated him – it seems a given that Ant-Man was going to have a significant role in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Similar to his arrival in Endgame, this could’ve been using his knowledge (there: the Quantum Realm; here, Kang himself) to aid the Avengers in their mission, providing them with useful information and tools to defeat him once again. The ending of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has Scott Lang worrying about Kang’s threat to him, further setting up his involvement in fighting him a second time: “We did beat him, right? I mean, yeah, that’s what happened… But he also said something bad was coming, and that everyone would die if he didn’t get out. Wait. So, did I just kill everyone?”
Though Scott tries to brush this aside, it seems likely this threat would’ve factored into his return in The Kang Dynasty. Based on Quantumania‘s post-credits scene, this would’ve brought the Council of Kangs to the forefront in a battle with control over the MCU’s multiverse at stake. That’s something much bigger than Ant-Man, but he presumably would’ve joined back up with the Avengers and helped take the fight to the different Kang variants.
This likely would’ve been at least somewhat controversial or divisive, though. That’s not to say Ant-Man isn’t a good character – and Rudd’s charm goes a long way – but Quantumania was not a well-received movie: it’s the MCU’s lowest-rated film with critics on Rotten Tomatoes (46%), and underperformed at the box office, making $476.1 million. That’s not the kind of story to build an Avengers event on the back of, but it might still be happening to some degree.
Evidence That Ant-Man Will Be Important in Avengers: Doomsday (& Why)
Even with The Kang Dynasty becoming Doomsday, it’s reasonable to expect Ant-Man to have a central role. That tracks simply with his status in the MCU – he’s now one of its veterans, having been around for 10 years, and so should be a core part of the Avengers team. That’s backed up by the Avengers: Doomsday teaser from Destination D23, where the character can be heard (in recycled audio) saying he’ll be there if the Avengers need him.
That promotion of the movie at Destination D23 is another reason to believe Ant-Man will be key to the movie. Notably, he appeared with the Russos in a video to hype up the film, and while that doesn’t mean anything story-wise, it does position him as one of the faces of the movie. Following this, DanielRPK also claimed on X that Scott would have an “important” role in Doomsday.
It’s possible we will see more fallout from Kang’s defeat, and that Doomsday directly addresses it. Could Kang’s death have even caused an incursion? Is it the reason Doom is now attacking Earth-616? We don’t know what Downey Jr’s villain will want, but theories range from him trying to save the multiverse (in a Thanos-esque way that comes at an extreme cost of life), and/or take control of it. Either way, the death of Kang could’ve led him to target the MCU’s main timeline, either because of the damage caused or because the threat of Kang no longer exists there.
If one of those is true, then it would make Ant-Man’s past actions with Kang a crucial driving force for the movie’s plot. It’s also one where his knowledge of the Conqueror could still be useful, if he can help the Avengers learn more about the multiverse and what the threat to it may be. It could also have a strong throughline with a trauma-like response to Doom’s appearance, where he blames himself and thinks it’s because of Kang’s death that he arrives, whether that’s the case or not.
That would also fit with the much darker possibility: that Ant-Man will die in Doomsday. The movie needs a major death or two to establish Doom’s power level and the stakes of the story heading into Secret Wars; with Ant-Man having already had a trilogy, but a fourth movie unlikely due to box office returns, then he might be the Avenger we lose, which means the small character could have a massive emotional and narrative impact.
Avengers: Doomsday will be released on December 18th, 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars is scheduled for December 17th, 2027.
Most Viewed
-
image courtesy of 20th Century Studios -
Image courtesy of Prokino Filmverleih
