It was first announced last September that Jonathan Majors had been cast as Kang the Conqueror in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which generated plenty of excitement and more than a little confusion after fans wondered why such a powerful and iconic villain was set to appear in one of the franchise’s lesser standalone sagas.
Obviously, the Season 1 finale of Loki has cleared that up, debuting Majors as He Who Remains and outlining that multiple variants are on the way to the MCU. That changes everything we thought we knew about Quantumania, and a new theory offers that the actor won’t be playing Kang at all, but a version of him that could conceivably connect to multiple aspects of the established lore.
A Loki Episode 5 Easter Egg showed Avengers Tower decked out with the Qeng Enterprises logo, and in the comic books the company bought the building from Tony Stark. That was potentially hinted at in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the CEO of Qeng is none other than Mr. Gryphon, a Kang variant who ended up stuck in our time and used his knowledge of the future to build a business empire.
In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Walton Goggins’ Sonny Burch double-crosses everyone and reveals he’s selling Hank Pym’s mobile lab to a mystery buyer. There was chatter that Norman Osborn could have filled that role, but now it can’t be ruled out that he was talking about Mr. Gryphon and Qeng instead.
It could even mirror the comic books to an extent by having Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine gathering the Thunderbolts or Dark Avengers to do Kang’s bidding by proxy, not to mention the theory the TVA is operating out of the Quantum Relam, which could make Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania one of the most pivotal Phase Four installments.