After giving us the heart-racing terror that was Thanos — and disappointingly wasting Christian Bale’s potential as Gorr the God Butcher — the MCU is all set to usher in its next big bad i.e., Kang the Conqueror with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. And mind you, he has already made pretty lofty promises — of rewriting existence and shattering timelines. Obviously, the studio has some majorly catastrophic chain of events in place as a result of the supervillain’s powers, what we are here to ponder about is the ways it could be a force of good for MCU fans.
The MCU has been a constant presence in our life for over two decades now. But while it has managed to build a rep so strong that its rival DCU has always had a hard time measuring up to it, not every moment and decision has been worthy of going down in golden ink in the history of the MCU, and are right up Kang’s alley if he is planning on doing some grunt work of erasing and rewriting.
Bring back the angry green beast we all miss
In the five years after the Blip, every Avenger was up to something constructive…well, excluding Bruce Banner, who devoted his utmost attention to merging the Hulk with his saner persona. And the end result was the not-so-Smart Hulk who does The Dab without giving it one sensible second of consideration and seems to have lost his marbles judging by how he dealt with Quantum tech in Avengers: Endgame and Jennifer Walters’ transition into She-Hulk in the Disney Plus TV series.
Can Kang just rewrite the existence of this considerably dumb version of the once genius Banners, and return us the mild-mannered yet exponentially likable scientist whose greener alter ego harbored no reservations and was ready to smash things on a moment’s notice?
Jane Foster’s headache-inducing catchphrases
If it would have been possible, we would have gotten the entire Thor: Love and Thunder deleted from the MCU. But MCU fans would be happy if Kang just writes out the awful catchphrases from Jane Foster’s rather short-lived journey as the Mighty Thor. If her “If it’s color we need, let’s bring the rainbow” didn’t try your sanity, “Eat my hammer” definitely had many choking on barely suppressed cringe.
We are glad she won’t be around to spew more of this utter crap — Thor’s storyline has managed to become a parody all by itself without her thanks to Taika Waititi.
Peter Quill messing up the attempt to defeat Thanos
While we definitely don’t want Jane back, having Tony Stark, Natasha, Vision, and Steve Rogers back with us would be a desperate dream come true. After all, Kang should be up against Avengers who would actually pose a challenge to the supervillain.
So, to secure that, all he has to do is maybe drop a planet on Quill’s head to stop him from snapping Thanos out of Mantis’ mind control. Had he not interfered, Thanos would not have managed to get the Time Stone, go to Wakanda, get the Mind Stone, and annihilate half the universe. The Avengers wouldn’t have to time travel, Iron Man and Black Widow wouldn’t have died, Captain America wouldn’t have the means to leave us and stay back in time (yes, we would rather have him running laps around the globe than have his forever with Peggy Carter).
We know this would effectively put a wrench in the chain of events that leads to Kang’s arrival in the MCU, but surely someone with his level of intellect can find a way around it, right? On the plus side, not only will it (slightly) redeem Star Lord’s reputation, but with Thanos so easily defeated, Kang will not need to flex too much to establish his status as the more feared villain. See, everybody wins.
That awkward Black Widow and Hulk romance
The MCU isn’t big on romances and while we always lament a love story that doesn’t get a happy ending, we were totally fine with Black Widow and Hulk’s weird romance not getting off the ground. But the problem is that everything else did happen.
Natasha sang that iffy lullaby — “the sun’s getting real low” — to tame the “Big Guy,” Bruce’s super-cringy fall on her breasts in Infinity War did happen, and so did that exceptionally despicable scene where the Black Widow, in an attempt to show how she accepts the Hulk as he is, called herself a “monster” for her incapability to bear children.
Their romance was bumpy and out-of-the-blue to begin with, and didn’t really contribute anything significant to the overarching storyline. Erasing it out of the timeline would be Kang’s gift to Marvel fans.
Tony Stark’s blatant objectification of Natasha Romanoff
We love Tony Stark 3000 but there is no denying that the man was given some of the most problematic lines in the MCU and without any competition, his first meeting with Natasha in Iron Man 2 takes the crown. As if lusting after her wasn’t enough, he had to crudely say “I want one.” Thankfully, this particularly troublesome trope didn’t stick around but Iron Man’s legacy would be better off without this moment.
And while Kang is at it, can he also rectify the error of Natasha not getting a grand funeral like Stark even though she also sacrificed herself to save the universe?
Eternals icky sex scene
The MCU has majorly shied away from showing any intimate scenes and after Eternals, we finally know why. It is not because they want to make their films “family-friendly,” it is because they are drastically bad at it. Featuring Ikaris and Sersi, the moment in question is perhaps the most awkward and passionless sex scene in the history of cinema that every fan — who went hunting for a knife to gouge their eyes out after watching it — would like to unsee.
Thor’s screaming goats
Thor: Love and Thunder would be infinitely easier to digest and tolerate if not for the screaming goats having a place in every alternate scene. The fact that the film is sorely missing a coherent and remotely engaging storyline — as well as properly fleshed-out character arcs — is even more starkly highlighted by the constant efforts made to include the goats and the tiring gag of their insistent screaming. Can Kang just flush them out of the original timeline and, in order to be on the safer side, out of every single alternate reality out there as well?
Yes, we know, many of the above “fantasies” above are impractical and would effectively unravel the very things that make the MCU tick. But the others? Surely, Kang can do us a favor and wave them away? As the self-proclaimed unofficial ambassadors of the MCU fandom, we can assure the evil mastermind that he will instantly dethrone Thanos as everyone’s favorite villain if he manages to reverse even one of the events mentioned above.