Kevin Feige has just shared that the plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to pivot from the Multiverse Saga's big bad, Kang the Conqueror, started much earlier than previously believed.
It’s hard to remember, but as 2023 began, the plan for Phase Five of the MCU seemed set in stone. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania would be the grand debut of Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror, the long-standing time-traveling tyrant of Marvel Comics. A version of him had appeared in the Loki season 1 finale but it was Quantumania that was set to give the primary version of the character a chance to shine.
This would begin the road to the big pay-off to Phase Five, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars. While not confirmed, it’s hinted that this would involve Kang conquering the Multiverse and various heroes coming together to stop him.
Then things went off the rails. First, Quantumania disappointed at the box office, kickstarting long-running conversations about Marvel Studios' once-undisputed reign as the box office champions. Then, Marvel Studios parted ways with Majors once his legal battles began. And with that, Kang the Conqueror was no more.
At first, fans speculated that Marvel would simply recast Kang. Instead, they completely dropped the character and all their plans. Instead, Kang will be replaced by Doctor Doom as the franchise's new big bad, with the announcement that Robert Downey Jr. would return to the franchise in the new role as Marvel’s most iconic villain. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty then evolved into Avengers: Doomsday.
While you might think that a lot of the events leading up the change actually influenced Marvel Studios' decision to move on from both Majors and the character, Kevin Feige has since revealed that the studio was already planning to pivot away from Kang.
When did Feige decide to move from Kang?
In a long interview with Variety and other outlets about the MCU’s direction, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has revealed that, contrary to what everyone thinks, the MCU chiefs had decided to shift away from Kang even before the arrest of Majors (who Feige only refers to as “the actor”).
“We had started even before what had happened to the actor happened, we had started to realize that Kang wasn’t big enough, wasn’t Thanos, and that there was only one character that could be that, because he was that in the comics for decades and decades. Because of the Fox acquisition, we finally had it, and it was Doctor Doom. So we had started talking about Doctor Doom even before we officially pivoted from Kang. And in fact, I had started talking with Robert [Downey Jr.] about this audacious idea before Ant-Man 3 even came out. It was a long plan that we had to take one of our greatest characters and utilize one of our greatest actors.”
Many will cite this as just typical spin to cover for the change. It also seems to contradict Downey Jr.’s own take that he was only approached in the summer of 2023. However, there is compelling evidence that lends credence to the idea Marvel was already planning to drop Kang - most notably the fact that multiple scoopers and insiders reported as much over the past year.
The truth is that the character just didn’t make for an impressive villain in his first outings. The first time we saw him in Loki, he was lounging around a future palace before being stabbed by Sylvie. Then Quantumania had him defeated by Ant-Man. The movie’s post-credits scene attempted to rebuild the threat by revealing hundreds of Kang variants, including Immortus, Ramma-Tut, and the Scarlet Centurion, ready for war.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that when one of the lower-level MCU heroes can beat Kang, it’s hard to take him as a serious force. Thanos was built up well in brief appearances across several movies before Avengers: Infinity War showcased just how powerful and terrifying he was. In contrast, Kang came off either too soft-spoken or over the top and failed to intimidate as a serious force. Marvel bungled how to present Kang as the overall arc villain that he should have been, marring the character from the start.
Replacing Kang with Doom was logical, as the MCU without Marvel’s greatest villain never seemed right. While the casting of Downey Jr. in the role is debatable, Doom does have more impact than Kang would and is more believable as the bigger long-range threat.
Thus, it sounds like one way or another, Marvel was going to move on from Kang and that Doom was always going to come to the MCU.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters December 18, 2026.
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