If you haven’t heard, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania isn’t doing too well. The film was supposed to triumphantly introduce the next big bad for the MCU but seemingly fumbled the all-important moment, and now Kang’s botched debut is reminding fans of another plot point regarding Thanos that Marvel squandered.
The issue boils down to the controversial decision in Avengers Endgame to kill Thanos within the first 15 minutes of the film. Only to then bring a version of the mad titan from the past to duke it out with all the Avengers in the big finale. The problem with this is that the version of Thanos that is killed by the Avengers at the end doesn’t even know who they are. He literally says that to Scarlet Witch during their fight. At least we got a funny meme out of it, though.
Many felt like this was a lost opportunity for a really intense and personal battle at the end of the film, as all the character drama that had built up was wiped away with the death of the original Thanos. Resulting in a rather by-the-numbers final fight without as much emotional investment as there could have been.
Kang’s goal of wiping out all superheroes from the timeline draws even more comparisons to the odd decision Marvel made with Thanos.
Whilst Thanos was still a great and memorable villain, it’s undeniable that Endgame would have been a better conclusion had Marvel Studios not made the decisions it did. Here’s to hoping that it’s able to learn from past mistakes and turn this Kang situation around to make him the terrifying threat he’s supposed to be.