Kevin Feige Says Marvel Was Moving Away From Kang BEFORE Jonathan Majors Was Arrested
In the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios wanted Jonathan Majors’ Kang to be the MCU’s next big threat.
A multiversal villain who seemingly transcended time and space, Kang was originally introduced in Season 1 of Loki as He Who Remains. His true arrival in the MCU, however, would be in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where Majors played Kang the Conqueror.
The idea was to establish Kang as the kind of multiversal threat that would eventually compel a new version of the Avengers to reassemble as the MCU multiverse converged.
Image: Marvel
Unfortunately, Quantumania was largely dismissed by fans and critics alike, and Kang failed to catch on as the kind of ominous, looming threat that Thanos had been.
Jonathan Majors’ Legal Troubles
On March 25, 2023, Jonathan Majors was arrested following a domestic violence incident involving his then-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari. While several companies swiftly severed ties with the actor, Marvel opted to wait for the legal process to unfold.
Photo: Marvel Comics
Due to the timing of the trial, Season 2 of Loki aired before a verdict had been reached. Choosing to move forward as planned, Marvel continued with Majors in the role, introducing the Kang variant Victor Timely.
In December 2023, however, a jury found Majors guilty of two misdemeanor charges: assault and harassment. Marvel responded by firing the actor and eventually decided to move away from the Kang storyline entirely, shifting its focus toward introducing Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom.
Photo: BBC
Or at least, that’s how the story has been told.
“Kang Wasn’t Big Enough”
In a recent longform interview, Kevin Feige looked back at Marvel’s efforts with Kang. According to the MCU architect, the decision to move away from the multiversal villain and pivot to Doctor Doom came before Jonathan Majors found himself in legal trouble.
“We had started even before what had happened to the actor happened,” Feige said. “We had started to realize that Kang wasn’t big enough. He 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.”
Image: Marvel
Reading between the lines of Feige’s comments, it sounds like Marvel already had plans to supersede Kang with another, bigger villain when Majors’ legal troubles began. What remains unclear is how that story would have been told had Majors not been arrested.
Ultimately, it is likely best that Marvel moved away from the Kang storyline. Despite the fact that the multiversal tyrant is an iconic comic book villain, he never really took hold in the MCU. Majors’ performances as both He Who Remains and Victor Timely were well received, and both characters showed the almost limitless depths to Kang as a character.
Image: Marvel
Unfortunately, the definitive version of Kang (Kang the Conqueror) was poorly delivered in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It also probably didn’t help that the iconic variant of Kang was defeated by Ant-Man.
What Will Marvel Do?
While we will never know what Marvel’s original plans for Kang were, it will be interesting to see how the studio handles the character moving forward. Clearly, there will have to be some sort of narrative explanation for the absence of Kang and the emergence of Doom.
Kang the Conqueror #3. Photo: Marvel Comics
For now, we likely have to wait until Avengers: Doomsday to see what it is.
