Marvel fans are no strangers to picking apart post-credit scenes to find clues for future Marvel movies and shows. They’ve become a staple of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Iron Man kicked off the franchise in 2008. With Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania being the first movie in Phase 5 of the MCU, eagle-eyed fans were bound to pay close attention to its post-credits scenes. And with the two that were included, it seems like big things are ahead for the movie’s villain, Kang the Conquerer. Spoiler warning: Spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania follow.
Until Quantumania, Ant-Man’s movies have largely been silly romps that served as a kind of comic relief for the often-serious themes of the other movies. It’s why Ant-Man’s appearance in films like Captain America: Civil War were so fun, and why his role in Avengers: Endgame, when he introduced the Pym particles and time-traveling technology to the other heroes, seemed to be setting him up for a bigger role in the MCU. Quantumania builds on that momentum by giving Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, aka Scott Lang, a much more menacing villain in a film with a more serious tone: Kang the Conquerer, played by Jonathan Majors.
Majors is already set to appear in 2025’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, if the name wasn’t a dead giveaway on its own, and is being deemed the new Thanos (but maybe better) by many viewers. Both post-credits scenes in Quantumania hint at heroes coming up against different versions, or “variants,” of Kang. But what does that even mean? And which heroes are being set up to face off against him? Well, for that, we need a bit of context first.
Kang is technically a bunch of villains in one.
What you first need to understand is that when Ant-Man defeats Kang the Conquerer at the end of Quantumania, he only defeats one version. That’s right: Different “variants” of Kang exist across the multiverse, and now that we know heroes can travel across the multiverse, it’s fair to assume — and heavily hinted at in the mid-credit scene — that we’ll run into those other variants sooner or later.
The mid-credit scene shows the Council of Kangs, which have a basis in the comics. The MCU’s council includes three variants of Kang: ancient Egyptian pharaoh Rama-Tut (more on him later), a futuristic robot version of Kang, and Immortus, who is shown in this scene to be the de facto leader.
The council appears to be all-knowing about other universes in the multiverse, even the quantum realm where Quantumania took place. They talk about “the exiled one” (aka Kang the Conquerer, the variant in Quantumania) being dead, and Immortus says “they’re starting to touch the multiverse,” likely referring to the Avengers. Immortus then reveals he summoned all of the other Kang variants in the multiverse to stop them, and we see a stadium filled with thousands of them. Uh oh…
This makes Kang a different type of villain to Thanos, who — even though he was able to wipe out half the population with a snap of his fingers — was just one guy, at the end of the day. But who exactly are Kang’s variants?
Quantumania’s first post-credits scene includes a nod to Fantastic Four.
You might’ve been confused by the ancient Egyptian garb in the mid-credits scene. Rama-Tut, one of Kang’s variants, is an ancient Egyptian pharaoh in the comics who rules with an iron fist — but he’s not actually that ancient. Why? Because Nathaniel Richards, the original human who becomes all the variants of Kang, stumbles across his ancestor’s plans for a time-traveling machine and sends himself back in time to become Rama-Tut.
Nathaniel is also Reed Richards’ dad. Reed Richards, as in… Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. Oh, and that ancestor whose time machine Nathaniel built? It’s still unresolved to this day who it actually is, but many hints point to Victor Von Doom, aka Doctor Doom — one of the most well-known Fantastic Four villains. Similarly, Rama-Tut’s most frequent foes are the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. Are you picking up what they’re putting down? Because I am.
Including Kang in an MCU movie, and specifically Rama-Tut, could be a huge easter egg at an eventual Avengers/Fantastic Four crossover. The Fantastic Four movie has been confirmed for a 2025 release date and will be released ahead of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, meaning it’s as good a time as any to introduce some crossover villains, if Marvel wants the teams to join forces against the same evil in The Kang Dynasty. We’ve actually already met a version of Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, played by John Krasinski, though it was more of a quick cameo than anything, since no casting for the official MCU Fantastic Four film has been announced yet.
The second post-credits scene implies Majors could return to Loki.
Quantumania is actually not Majors’ first Marvel role — he appeared in a Season 1 episode of Disney+’s Loki, starring Tom Hiddleston. In the 2021 episode, titled “For All Time. Always.”, Majors played He Who Remains, who is described by Marvel as “the last living creature in all eternity” and serves as the director of the Time Variance Authority (TVA). He tried to make Loki and Sylvie a deal, telling them that killing him would result in his variants starting a war across the multiverse, but Sylvie chooses to kill him anyway. This causes the Sacred Timeline, which He Who Remains had been overseeing, to fray and branch out, signifying a bunch of different timelines (and variants of Kang) are coming. You know where else you’ve seen that Sacred Timeline? In the first post-credits scene, when the council are looking at it.
The second post-credits scene in Quantumania, however, builds on this storyline by taking us back to Loki. The scene shows Majors as Victor Timely, an early 1900s inventor whose character takes inspiration from people like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. He’s also another version of Kang, who time-traveled back to this era after being defeated by the Avengers. In the scene, he’s talking about the ability to shape time to a rapt audience, who doesn’t seem to suspect shady about him — except for Loki, who’s sitting in the audience and looks extremely concerned. Mobius, played by Owen Wilson on Loki, is there too. But how did they come into contact with Timely, and how might Timely’s timeline be affected by the events of Quantumania, if at all?
Loki Season 2 comes out this summer, so we’ll probably have to wait until then. Majors isn’t among the confirmed cast, but Marvel may just be keeping that card close to their chest — I wouldn’t be surprised if Timely/Kang plays a pivotal role in the new season. Either way, Loki himself having the knowledge he does about the frayed timeline might mean he also could return to help Ant-Man and the other Avengers defeat Kang eventually (even though he died in the Avengers’ timeline in Endgame).
Whether you’re inclined to pay attention to every Marvel property that’s upcoming or you only watch one or two films or shows, you’re probably bound to come up against some variant of Kang in the rest of Phase 5 and 6. It seems like Marvel is really laying the groundwork for each of its heroes to deal with Kang in some form, and hopefully that means we’ll get an epic crossover showdown when Avengers: The Kang Dynasty comes around.