'Only Myself Left to Conquer' + Avengers: The Kang Dynasty
So I've been watching a lot of the Marvel-centric YouTubers' videos about Kang in Quantumania & how he might fit into Phases 5 & 6, and, surprisingly, none of them have touched on the story in 'Only Myself Left to Conquer.'
I left the spoiler flair, but I want to just reiterate that I'll be talking about some spoilers in 'Only Myself' (which I can't recommend enough esp. if you're generally a fan of time-loop stories) and Loki/Moon Knight season 1.
For context, I thought some of the Phase 4 shows/films seemed a bit disjointed, speaking only in terms of setting up Kang(s) as a growing threat across future properties.
I think my biggest worry was that with all the new characters/teams that have been introduced, a lot of the classic heroes/villains that have yet to enter 616 (especially new X-Men and F4 + Silver Surfer/Galactus) might be kind of be narratively shoehorned in through Kang's multiverse/time travel shenanigans.
But reading 'Only Myself' lit up a few neurons and I think I have a read on how phase 4 has laid exciting groundwork for some really cool stories that could organically pull these characters into the MCU, and build Kang into the "exponential, infinite Thanos" the Quantumania writer recently described him as.
--------
The main thrust of 'Only Myself': Kang the Conqueror (KC prime, I'll call him), having experienced all of the battles, victories, and losses we've seen in comics, goes back in time to (ostensibly) show a young Nathaniel Richards (NR) his failures in order to help him avoid the same fate.
NR quickly realizes KC prime is kind of a mess; clearly lonely & frustrated that his schemes for true multiversal domination haven't panned out. And he's deeply traumatized over the loss of the one person he loved, a woman named Ravonna. KC prime shows NR the moment he was unable to save her.
Eventually NR steals Kang's armor, and escapes through time to Rama-Tut's Egypt. NR meets & falls for a variant of Ravonna, who helps him unlock the power of the neurokinetic suit (which he reconfigures into the Iron Lad armor). Rama-Tut uses the classic ultra-diode ray to enslave both, forcing NR to take the mantle of Scarlet Centurion in a war against En Sabah Nur.
Eventually the F4 show up, forcing a weakened Rama-Tut back into his future. NR, now having lost his Ravonna & wanting to prevent Rama from becoming KC prime, asks Apocalypse for help to defeat their common enemy. Apocalypse does help, through the most pedestrian form of time-travel possible: waiting. He encases NR in a sarcophagus, where he spends millennia before emerging to defeat Kang pre-prime in our modern day.
Which he does. NR then travels back to take up the mantle of Rama Tut, hoping to prevent Ravonna's death. Which he also does. But, blinded by love, the F4 now catch him off-guard, forcing him to flee to the future as KC prime did. He finds another Ravonna, one who's sympathetic to his cause but finds his eternal obsession with whatever version of her he once loved repulsive.
NR, now just as broken as the KC prime who started him on this journey, finds himself taking up the mantle of Kang. He manipulates time over and over again, seeding Ravonnas existence into every timeline, trying to find any moment in time where he can be with Ravonna. But time itself comes to view NR-Kang as a "virus," thwarting every attempt (and ostensibly creating some new branches of himself although that's not explicitly mentioned).
With no other options, he finds himself back at the beginning, trying to teach a young Nathaniel Richards how to avoid his infinite failures.
--------
TIN FOIL HAT TIME
Multiple interviews with Jonathan Majors have referenced historical conquerors, but he's also specifically said this Kang is a "warrior," the same language He Who Remains used when describing all the things he's been called (HWR also puts on an exaggerated version of the Quantumania Kang's voice when he says "conqueror" which I think is He Who Remains throwing shade at what that Kang thinks of himself).
I really like the theory that HWR isn't a variant of the Quantumania Kang (QK), and instead is a future version of QK from the same timeline: maybe he went back to a younger version as in 'Only Myself' to try to prevent this from ever happening in the first place, only to find he gave that young NR the tools to become QK. And, having failed, but unable to kill him without also erasing his own existence (and willingly plunging the multiverse into Kang-war madness), trapped him in the quantum realm.
Loki season 2 is said to feature multiple Kangs, which could start the foundation of seeing different versions of these variants take up different mantles (Scarlet Centurion, Rama Tut, a pre-Kang Nathaniel Richards) over vast time periods. This could give us Iron Lad who would be an integral part of the Young Avengers team.
Even more tinfoil-y, I believe the sarcophagus that was prominently featured in Moon Knight could be NR/Kang traveling through time the slowest way possible. We've already seen evidence of Rama Tut, we've seen Apocalypse in the wider Marvel universe, and the Ravonna that NR encountered in Egypt in 'Only Myself' was the Moon Knight in that time.
Whether the Ravonna from Loki winds up playing anything close to a similar role for Kang in the MCU is up for grabs...but she does say she's going "in search of free will" at the end which closely mirrors her disgust with NR-Kang seeding her existence throughout the multiverse just so he can catch another date with her.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the Fantastic 4 film will end with them being pulled into the War of Kangs, after having being cut off from the Sacred Timeline managed by He Who Remains (or possibly killed/pruned in every timeline they exist in).
And I believe 'Avengers: Kang Dynasty' title is a bit of a misdirect, and the story could actually focus on Kang's journey through the multiverse/timelines as he conquers his way through the multiverse, fighting the heroes/villains we haven't seen yet, including his own variants. The NR in 'Only Myself' explicitly calls himself a descendant of Dr. Doom and views himself as his heir, which I think is a solid way of tying Doom into the greater Kang storyline (even if it's not his first appearance).
I'd love to hear if anyone thinks this is plausible and/or if I'm just dumb lol
[link] [comments]
Comments
Post a Comment