Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has returned to the Quantum Realm with the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Directed by Peyton Reed, it is the third instalment of the Ant-Man franchise and it sees our heroes Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) warped into the Quantum Realm.
Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) and his many henchmen have taken over the world since Janet left in Ant-Man and the Wasp, and he wants to get out. You can read our review of the film here. Of course, it is a Marvel movie, and it would not be the same without a couple of post-credits scenes. Let’s take a look at the post-credits scenes and tell you everything you need to know about them, including what they set up.
What happens in the post-credits scenes for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?
There are two post-credits scenes that occur in the film, a mid-credits scene that plays right after the main stylized cast credits roll, and one after all the credits have rolled. The first scene brings together multiple variants of Kang. Of course, his appearance in Quantumania is not the first time that we’ve seen the character, as Majors appeared in the Disney Plus series Loki. At first glance, there are three versions of Kang in this scene, and we do not know their names.
At the end of the film, Ant-Man and the Wasp manage to prevent Kang from leaving the Quantum Realm by shoving him into his own multiverse engine, “killing him.” These versions of Kang are discussing what to do after they find out that Kang the Conqueror is dead. After debating his death among themselves, they talk about bringing it to the larger group, where it is revealed that the entire Council of Kangs has united after one of the members invited everyone.
Keen-eyed comics fans should be able to work out exactly who these three characters are. Mind you, this might be considered a future spoiler as we do not know who they are, so if you don’t want to know who they are skip forward to the next post-credits scene. The variants of Kang seemed to be Rama-Tut, Immortus, and Iron Lad. Rama-Tut appeared multiple times in the comic books, but is essentially the result of Kang time-traveling from the 30th century and landing in the 616-Universe in Ancient Egypt.
Because Kang is armed with superior technology, he easily took over Egypt and became Rama-Tut, their ruler. Immortus is a being similar to He Who Remains and is typically regarded as the Leader of the Kangs. He is the fulfillment of Kang’s destiny, one who lives a long life through time and dies in Limbo, creating influence over the timeline and manipulating the Avengers, and other versions of Kang.
Now, this third one should be Iron Lad, but again, as he wasn’t named he might not have been. Iron Lad is a younger version of Kang that was confronted by his alternate version of himself which granted him access to an advanced piece of armor. Kang thought that he could inspire the boy by giving him a glimpse into what he could become, a powerful being who would one day fight the Avengers. Instead, this caused Iron Lad to travel to Earth-616 and become a superhero.
Of course, the Council of Kangs was filled with many more variants of Nathaniel Richards than just the three mentioned above. But, there was one missing. The final post-credits scene depicts Kang in an older form, known as Victor Timely. He is performing a show with the remnants of his multiverse engine, and as a guess, it should be around the year 1900. Someone then asks if that is him, and it is revealed that watching the show are Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson), setting up the second season of Loki which is set to release in 2023.
They seemingly confirm that the version of Kang standing before them is the same Kang that fell through the multiverse engine earlier in the film. What is interesting is that the last time we saw Loki and Mobius, the pair were in the Time Variance Authority, with Loki discovering that Kang was in charge of the TVA. We can assume that the version of Mobius Loki is talking to is the version of the character in the series before that scene, so we don’t know how the pair reunited, yet.
Victor Timely is straight out of the comic books as well. We won’t go much into his origins here as they are somewhat similar to what we have seen in the movie. But he does have some ties to the wider MCU as in the comics he went on to create Timely Industries, which was responsible for the creation of the first Human Torch. The first Human Torch is briefly seen in the 2011 film, Captain America: The First Avenger. The name Timely is undoubtedly a pun about the time traveler, but it was also most likely a reference to the name of Marvel Comics in the 1940s, Timely Comics.
After the second post-credits scene finished, the words “Kang will return” appeared on screen before the movie ended. Just in case 300 variants of the character did not make you think that he might be popping back up every now and then during Phase Five. So, we had two-post credits scenes and both of them featured Kang. The story of Ant-Man ended before the credits rolled, and this is the first film in the trilogy not to feature a post-credits scene that related to our heroes in some way.
However, it does set up Phase Five of the MCU in the ways that it needed to, setting up the second season of Loki and probably Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. It could possibly be setting up some other movies as well, so we will have to keep our eyes peeled for Kang’s influence in the future.
You can catch Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in theaters now.