Antman and The Wasp : Quantamania : A chaotic hasty introduction to the next multiversal threat of the MCU.

 I got interested into the realm of superhero movies in depth when the Marvel movies really tried to make a business in the cinema industry. Especially, movies like  Captain America : Civil War and the others where the ones I got caught with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even these movies have dramas and made mostly in big scale for commercial success, the underlying idea of superheroes dating from comics and connecting all the movies to have an epic finale against a big villain intrigues me. Feige with his vision of Iron Man had made this possible with his 10 year conclusion of Infinity Saga of all the superheroes fighting the mad Titan Thanos. Fans were questioning at that time what is the next saga going to be and who is going to replace that gravitas what Thanos had. The Marvel Disney+ TV series Loki, finally gave us the clue of this introducing a Multiversal variant of the titular villain : Kang the Conqueror. This created a lot of hype in the Marvel fan base and made us eagerly wait when Kang shall be properly introduced. Peyton Reed’s third installment of Antman trilogy: Quantamania explores Kang the Conqueror and does attempt to show how powerful he is. It did prove some points but was a very hasty introduction with too much of plot removed to squeeze it in a 2hr 5min movie. Overall, it is a necessary but not a good movie and continues the experimental Phase 4 of MCU. 

As I am going to talk on specfic spoilers related to the movie, spoiler warnings ahead.

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—————————————————PLOT OF THE MOVIE———————————————-

The movie revolves around Scott, Hope , Janet, Hank and Casey getting sucked into the Quantum realm via signal sent from Quantum realm leading them fighting against Kang who wants to get out of the Quantum Realm in order to become the conqueror and defeating his variants who banished him. 

It turns out that Janet has a history with Kang who was stranded in Quantum Realm getting banished from the Council of Kangs (as mentioned in the first post-credit scene). They both tried to recover Kang’s multiversal engine and recreating the core. At the moment when Kang was supposed to leave, Janet sees his horrific deeds (which is shown in couple of seconds) via touching the engine. She then destroys the engine with the help of Pym particles leaving Kang stuck in the Quantum Realm. Janet comes out of the Quantum realm later spending her 30 years in Ant Man and The Wasp but never ever mentions Kang as she sees no plausible threat in the Earth. He builds an empire in the Quantum Realm (a version of Chronopolis from the comics). He meets the shrinked Yellow Jacket(Darren Cross) and helps being a version of M.O.D.O.K (a satirical version of the actual character from the comics ; even in Marvel Avengers’ he was way better). Cross gives him information about Hank and others and gets tasked by Kang to lure them into the Quantum Realm.  This is  kind of brief history of what happens before the end of movie. 

————————————-KANG AS A THREAT———————————————————

An hour of the movie just builds up in teasing Kang as we come across various people mentioning the Conqueror. When we encounter Kang, we see his powers for a bit but still it is not as impactful as what Thanos is. We remember the shocking scene in the beginning of Infinity War where Thanos beats the crap out of Hulk rendering Hulk to hibernate. That moment shows that he is a big villain and this is going to be really tough for Avengers.  In Quantamania, we hear the deeds of Kang of him knowing a lot of time and can destroy realities but we do not see any deeds of him as shocking as he his. If he is as powerful as he is,  I was expecting at least one of the members to die on his hands which could possibly create a more dramatic effect. 

———————————————DIALOGUE AND CGI—————————————————

The dialogue writing of the movie is quite shabby considering many of the jokes turns out to be very wrongly placed in the most intense moments of the movie. The writers and directors try to keep the same humor in the movie as in the previous Antman movies. This personally did not land with me as you cannot have cheesy humor along with introducing one of the notorious villains of MCU. The CGI also had many glitches and seemed too artificial at times. 

—————————————————-ACTING—————————————————-

Jonathan Major’s portrayal of Kang is great. He really showed a diverse personality than the character of He Who Remains from Loki. The scenes with him went great. I wished they did show a bit more of him when he asked Janet of what did she see in the Quantum Realm. It seemed that scene was supposed to be a longer sequence and it was edited out.  Paul Rudd and the rest of cast did on their best as they have done before. Kathryn Newton’s character was a good addition but she needs to grow up more as possibly she is going to be part of Young Avengers possibly. 

—————————————-POST CREDIT SCENES————————————————-

Now coming to the end of the movie, we see that Kang gets sucked in the core of the multiversal engine and he is being announced dead by the Kang variants in the post credit scene. The three main characters that we see possibly Pharaoh Rama-Tut (a variant whose design was mentioned in Moon Knight tv series),  Immortis (one of the older Kang variants possibly older than He Who Remains) and a futuristic Kang (possibly Scarlett Centurion from the comics).  They discuss that the variant Kang died in Quantum Realm and the superheroes in Earth are breaking down the Multiversal timelines. The possible breakouts allude from events of Loki (Sylvie killing He Who Remains), Doctor Strange and Spiderman using spells in No Way Home, Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch dreamwallking in Multiverse of Madness . This possibly lead to the concept of “Incursions “ which means “ when two parallel timelines merge”. This term was already mentioned by John Krasinski in Multiverse of Madness as an effect of dreamwalking. 

Personally, I still believe Kang variant in Quantamania and still alive in some other realm and shall be back possibly in the end of this Multiverse saga. The second post credit scene is a clip from Loki Season 2 where Loki and Mobius meet a variant of Kang called Victor Timely. I guess they both are tracing down either He Who Remains or the Kang variant at the end of Loki and trying to erase him from the multiverse. Victor Timely is another reference from the comics who is said to live during 1910 and introduces robotics and other new technologies in Earth. This version of Kang shall be dealt more in Loki as was expected.

——————————-POSSIBLE THEORIES FOR FUTURE OF MCU ——————————

In my head, the post credit scenes of Antman are very crucial and very important for the Multiverse Saga. The Kang Dynasty (or Council of Kangs) will be surely a part of Avengers : The Kang Dynasty. It is safe to say that the new Avengers group (Spiderman, new Captain America and so on ) will have to face the versions of Kangs as they seem to approach Earth. My guess will be we will see some of these main variants in other MCU titles before those possibly Fantastic Four or some others. Avengers: Kang Dynasty will possibly end with a downer like Infinity War and the sequel Avengers: Secret Wars will explore heroes from all of the Multiverses (XMen, Fantastic 4, Deadpool ….) to face this multiversal threat. 

I am now eagerly waiting for Loki Season 2 where I hope to get more ideas and clues of what is the motivation of variants of Kang and how the timelines and realms interact. This question is still not being answered and Marvel must honestly stop teasing the clues and just present it in its honest form.