Marvel reveals its next big bad in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania trailer

It's time for Kang to start conquering.

Marvel has dropped the trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, revealing our first look at Jonathan Majors as the franchise's next Thanos-style big bad: Kang the Conqueror.

The third Ant-Man film sees Scott Lang's (Paul Rudd) daughter Cassie Lang (now played by Kathryn Newton) send a signal into the microscopic dimension known as the Quantum Realm, leading Scott, Cassie, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to be sucked into it. They soon come across an entire civilization inside the Quantum Realm, and the footage ends with Kang the Conqueror revealing himself.

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"I can get you home and give you more time if you help me," Kang tells Scott. "So what's it gonna be, Ant-Man?"

Majors debuted in the MCU in the Disney+ series Loki, playing a man referred to as He Who Remains whom Loki encounters at the end of time. He Who Remains warns that there are many alternate versions of himself from other timelines, and if he's killed, these "variants" will be unleashed upon the world. That's exactly what happens by the end of the finale, so the idea is Kang the Conqueror is a version of He Who Remains from another timeline.

Kang also seems to be the next big overarching villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as Majors is returning for a fifth Avengers film in 2025 titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. It's possible he could also be the villain of the follow-up, 2026's Avengers: Secret Wars, though that hasn't been confirmed.

For now, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is hitting theaters in February, making it the first movie in the MCU's phase five.