Marvel Comics’ Best Kang Story Proves the MCU Shouldn’t Give Up on the Avengers’ Greatest Foe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to have its dance with Doom, but it wasn’t actually supposed to be that way. After the end of the Infinity Saga, Marvel Studios started to seed the beginnings of their next saga, slowly but surely introducing multiversal elements until they introduced the character who would be the big bad of the whole shebang – Kang the Conqueror. The first inkling we got of the villain came in Loki, their adventures leading fans inexorably to the center of the Time Variance Authority and He Who Remains. Kang was built up as a monster and it was all leading towards Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which would have then led into Avengers: Secret Wars. Marvel has given up on this plan, but they shouldn’t give up on Kang.

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Marvel Studios left the villain behind because of the crimes of Jonathan Majors, but that’s unfair to both the characters and fans. Kang is one of the Avengers’ greatest villains and it felt like it was all leading up to an adaptation of “The Kang Dynasty”. This story was the epic that ended what is widely considered the best Avengers run ever, the 1998-2002 run of writer Kurt Busiek. Busiek, working with artists like George Perez, Jerry Ordway, Alan Davis, Kieron Dwyer, and more over his run, was able to remind fans of why they loved the team, even giving readers the all-time Ultron epic known as “Ultron Unlimited”. He wasn’t going to end his run without doing the same thing for the Conqueror and Marvel Studios shouldn’t leave this one in the discarded ideas pile.

“The Kang Dynasty” Is Everything You Could Want From an Avengers Story

Kang is one of the Avengers’ most storied villains, as well as their most complicated (I almost typed “one of the most complicated”, then I changed that because, well, you’ll see). He first appeared as Rama-Tut in Fantastic Four #19, a time-traveler who went back to Ancient Egypt to become a pharaoh. He would show back up as Kang in Avengers #8 and eventually, the two characters would be linked.

Kang came from a future where everything was perfect and he was very bored. Supposedly a descendant of Doctor Doom and/or Reed Richards, he decided that he wanted to become the greatest conqueror of them all. He traveled into the timestream and began conquering everything he could, becoming the greatest warrior of the future, before turning his eyes to the past. He battled the Avengers numerous times, and other versions of him would show up, including the older Immortus and the younger Iron Lad (although he wouldn’t show up until after “The Kang Dynasty”).

Busiek had come aboard Avengers with the goal of making it one of the bestselling books again. He did this by taking things back to the late ’70s. Getting George Perez as the artist for the book was a coup and Busiek used his skill perfectly. He was able to give readers the kind of Avengers epics they loved, like the aforementioned “Ultron Unlimited”, while also building up the Avengers as a team. We got Firestar and Justice dealing with being the newbies, each of them having a very different experience, as well as reintroducing readers to the love triangle of Scarlet Witch, the Vision, and Wonder Man and Ms. Marvel, then known as Warbird, and her alcoholism. It was a book that fans loved to read, a modern classic.

Busiek’s run rehabbed the Avengers and this included the villains. We got Morgan Le Fay, the Squadron Supreme, the Kree, Immortus, the Wrecking Crew, and Ultron; all that was missing was Kang, who had only showed up so far as an ally of the team in Avengers Forever (and the Masters of Evil, but we got a Thunderbolts crossover, so it counts). Busiek would begin his story in Avengers (Vol. 3) #41, when artist Alan Davis had joined the book, with the group going up against the Scarlet Centurion, who was a Kang variant, leading into the story proper, which lasted until issue #55.

The story saw a new Kang variant, Victor Timely, show up and manipulate events, all leading to Kang and the Scarlet Centurion, in this case his son Marcus, taking over the Earth. The Avengers became the resistance, trying to figure out how Kang was able to take over and how to stop him. It’s the longest story of Busiek’s run (technically, I guess you could say the Destiny War overall is the longest arc of his run, but that was a different kind of story), with Davis joined by Dwyer, a young Ivan Reis, Brent Anderson, Manuel Garcia, and Patrick Zircher.

In a lot of ways, the story can be looked at as akin to something like “Days of Future Past” or “Age of Apocalypse”, a story that involves the villain taking over and the heroes having to deal with time travel shenanigans to stop them and fix the whole thing. It came at a time when Marvel was drawing a lot of attention, but very little of it went to Avengers. It was still a story that fans loved, but it wasn’t nearly as big as it could have been.

The MCU leaving behind Jonathan Majors makes perfect sense, but it doesn’t really follow for them to give up on Kang. He’s a character that you can easily change actors with and no one would notice. He’s a perfect villain for the MCU and the fact that we’re never going to get “The Kang Dynasty” will always be disappointing. It’s the kind of thing that could take up an entire phase and honestly, I want it now more than ever.

The MCU Shouldn’t Give Up on Kang

The X-Men are coming to the MCU and there are plenty of reasons to think that the Avengers’ time is over. The X-Men are the new hotness, but Marvel Studios would be foolish to leave the Avengers in the past. Hopefully, they’ll balance mutant and non-mutant heroes and it would be awesome if we got more crossovers. Imagine something like “The Kang Dynasty” as an entire phase, with the X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four having to deal with it.

“The Kang Dynasty” is a classic Avengers tale, from a run that deserves the praise it gets. Kang can be a complicated villain, but this story showed that his complications are what make him so awesome a character to use. It used him in his all time-traveling, hyperbolic glory and the world needs to see it on the big screen.

What did you think about “The Kang Dynasty”? Do you think that it should hit the big screen? Sound off in the comments below.

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