With the many variants of fan-favorite characters running amuck across the Marvel Multiverse, the writer behind the Kang running around, but only one of them is ‘the Conqueror’. Kang recently made his live-action debut in the Disney+ Loki series played by actor Jonathan Majors and will return for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Now, the time-traveler will launch into an all-new series, one that will tie in to many other Marvel books and set the stage for the next year of stories, all while cementing the character as the one and only ‘Conqueror’ across the multiverse.
Timeless #1 written by Jed McKay with art by Kev Walker, Greg Land, and Mark Bagley will further explore the confusing lore surrounding Kang the Conqueror and distinguish the character as the only version of himself that is known as ‘the Conqueror’. In the series, Kang will be up against an entire rogue timeline that is spreading chaos across the multiverse. In an interview, writer Jed McKay sat down to discuss the specific details behind the book and the differences between Kang variants.
In an interview conducted by Comic Book Resource with Timeless writer Jed McKay, the writer explained why only one version of Kang is ‘the Conqueror’ as opposed to his other variants, using Kang’s first live-action appearance as an example. “I think there is a fair amount of variance [laughs] between Majors as Kang as we’ve seen him so far and Kang as he appears in this comic” explained McKay, “Loki was the One Who Remains and not the Conqueror, while Kang we have in Timeless is wholly the Conqueror”. Going beyond the comparison between Jonathan Majors’ Kang in Loki and Kang the Conqueror in Timeless, Marvel Comics has introduced many variants of the character already which could be further explored in the series.
There are four major variants of Kang that have appeared throughout Marvel Comics history who all go by different names with alternate looks and varying impacts. The four versions are Kang the Conqueror, Immortus, Iron Lad, and Pharaoh Rama-Tut. Immortus is more-or-less the version of Kang that was portrayed in Loki who went by the name One Who Remains, existing in the nexus of time and has been explained as being the future version of Kang the Conqueror. Iron Lad is possibly the most shocking variant as he is a member of the Young Avengers, showing enough empathy to be an actual hero as opposed to a cold-blooded conqueror who only cares about humanity to the extent of what it can do for him. The last version of Kang ruled over ancient Egypt and is more in line with ‘the Conqueror’ persona, and he had a hand in creating one of the most ruthless villains in Marvel history.
Pharaoh Rama-Tut was in power during one of the first emergences of humanity’s evolution in the form of mutation. Rama-Tut ordered the death of the mutant En Sabah Nur after he learned of the power the mutant would soon possess. In that action, Kang set the young mutant on a path that would eventually turn him into Apocalypse, one of the vilest and most ruthless villains in the Marvel Universe. With the many variants of Kang that already exist, and the varying impacts they all have or will have on Marvel’s multiversal timeline, Timeless writer Jed McKay is putting a stamp on the one Kang who will traverse these many paths and show fans why he is the one and only ‘Kang the Conqueror’!
