The Council of Kangs has assembled.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now here, kicking off the beginning of Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Directed by Peyton Reed, the movie brings to the MCU its next big villain in Kang the Conqueror with Jonathan Majors playing a variant version of his role from 2021’s Loki.
The multiverse is starting to crack, and let’s just say Kang — many of them — aren’t happy that the Marvel heroes are starting to meddle in what they’ve created.
For those who’ve seen Quantumania but feel a little confused by the movie’s mid-credits scene, fret not. We break down the mid-credits of Quantumania below.
Warning: Spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ahead.
The end of Quantumania sees Kang (Majors) defeated by Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), in a down-and-dirty brawl in Kang’s throne room in the Quantum Realm. While Scott is confident that Kang was defeated and never to return ever, others aren’t so keen to forget.
The mid-credits of Quantumania takes place in the outer reaches of the multiverse, where the confines of time and space don’t apply. Three strange beings who look just like Kang but aren’t Kang — at least, not the one who appears in the majority of Quantumania — discuss their ire that their grip on the multiverse is now close to being discovered.
The three choose to summon other Kangs from the multiverse, with the movie showing off an entire coliseum’s worth of Kangs. Behold, this is the Council of Kangs.
What are the Council of Kangs?
The Council of Kangs are an assembly of Kangs from the multiverse who take it upon themselves to eliminate threats as well as their own problematic variants. The Council of Kangs also keep the multiverse in check to their benefit, erasing whole timelines and universes when it’s convenient to them.
Parodied in the likes of Rick and Morty (Council of Ricks) and the DC TV series The Flash (Council of Wells), the Council of Kangs builds on the idea that the multiverse is vast and infinite, and that a supreme intellectual being like Kang exists in almost all of them. Now imagine a supervillain who can team up with an infinity amount of themselves. You can see why something like the Council of Kangs pose a dire threat to the Avengers.
In the comics, the Council of Kangs are led by Prime Kang, but the MCU is tweaking things so that the Council of Kangs are ruled by some of Kang’s other known personas from the comics. The pharaoh Rama-Tut, a version of Kang who went back in time to ancient Egypt and became a powerful ruler; Immortus, another Kang from the future who might be a descendant of Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four; and a version of Kang’s alter-ego Scarlet Centurion, though their armor isn’t shaded red. There’s also a fourth version of Kang introduced in the movie, but we’ll save that for our recap of the post-credits scene.
Quantumania is just the beginning of Phase Five, and all signs point to Marvel making a big meal deal out of Kang. With Avengers: The Kang Dynasty set for 2025, the mid-credits of Quantumania is the first step towards whatever is in store for the next big Avengers crossover. Though Kang is “defeated” by Ant-Man, he’s not out. The dynasty will make sure of it.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now playing in theaters.
