Marvel
Mapping Marvel’s Future Beyond Jonathan Majors: Investigating Two Possible Paths
Mapping Marvel’s Future Beyond Jonathan Majors: Investigating Two Possible Paths
This week, Jonathan Majors was found guilty of manslaughter and sexual assault against his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabari, and later the same day Marvel Studios confirmed they would no longer be working with the new main villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Josh Brolin’s Thanos Universe is as it should be. Majors has already appeared as several different versions of the multi-universe threat Kang the Conqueror in Loki and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and his story was set to appear in the next Avengers movie (originally announced as Avengers: The Khan Dynasty, but now simply called Avengers 5, according to The Hollywood Reporter) will be fully integrated.
But as expected, Marvel has been very tight-lipped about its future plans, and the impact of Jonathan Majors’ firing will likely have some impact on future Marvel movies. This means we don’t know anything other than the fact that there is a need. Since the studio doesn’t want to reveal any major spoilers, we have no choice but to wildly speculate about what could or should happen. But surprisingly, and refreshingly, the speculation doesn’t have to be so far-fetched, because Marvel only has two options at this point: They could recast Jonathan Majors with someone other than Kang, or they could give Kang a softer role and recast him, taking him out of the equation entirely.
Option 1: Recast Kang with a different actor
Marvel’s current storylines are all about the multiverse, the infinite possibilities that infinite alternate realities bring. This conceit has allowed him to already have three Spider-Men in one movie, different versions of famous heroes in another, and different Lokis in Loki. Quantumania even featured a post-credits stinger showing the different poses that major leaguers were doing at the time. So, from a Marvel history perspective, it’s very easy to bring in another actor and say, “This is Kang now,” without having to blatantly point out that he looks different. No one will ever go to the big leagues again, nor should they — I agree with Kang. Marvel could even introduce a new main version of Kang who proves his evil by killing all the other Kangs off-screen. It would be pretty straightforward. And it would probably be just as easy behind the scenes, since Marvel has recast some characters in the past and obviously hasn’t shied away from it. Don Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes after the first Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo replaced Edward Norton as Bruce Banner after the Hulk movies, and Harrison Ford replaced William Hurt as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Captain America: The New World Order. Because nobody in Iron Man 2 or The Avengers had to go out of their way to say, “Hey, this guy looks different from when we last saw him.”
Option 2: Replace Kang with a new villain
Perhaps the more exciting option would be to do away with Kang altogether and stick with a different main villain. Now that Marvel Studios has confirmed that a “Fantastic Four” movie is in the works, that would open the door to a few other notable Marvel villains who could easily justify the same multiverse stakes as Kang. And there are. Of course, Doctor Doom is the obvious candidate, as he’s arguably Marvel’s biggest villain in the comics, but there are also weaker contenders like Galactus (the planet eater is literally Marvel’s biggest villain, thank you very much) and Annihilus (the big bug man from another dimension). We’re going to see at least one of them sooner or later, and it would be almost as easy for Doctor Strange or someone to say, “Oh, no, we manipulated the multiverse and this big bad guy got unleashed by accident,” as if to say, “Kang looks different, do it.”
Moreover, there is a simple and mundane explanation for this: Loki season 2 ended with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki being the one who escaped the normal timeline in Endgame, not the one who died in Infinity War, and physically entering the web of the multiverse to hold reality together, lest it spin out of control and annihilate all life. This is classic comic nonsense that could be used to explain why villains from another universe suddenly found new opportunities to do evil, and why the various incarnations of Kang were no longer a threat. Given that Marvel Studios has hired Loki, there is even reason to believe that this is exactly what is happening behind the scenes.
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