We’ve already seen the mega MCU villain Kang defeated twice, but that’s the thing with a multi-variant all-conquering foe from the far future — the big battle is still to come.
The second massive story thread of the MCU, the Multiverse Saga, is weaving a different route to the Infinity Saga that spanned the franchise’s first three phases. We have more warning on the epic Avengers two-parter that will close the saga in 2025. The first of those films already has a name, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, so there’s plenty of speculation about who will appear on both sides of the war.
Whichever versions of Kang make it to that movie, one theory puts forward a well-known Avenger as the vanquisher of the Conqueror. None other than former Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange.
Perhaps it’s time. At the climax of the Infinity Saga, Strange was one of the heroes to blink out of existence for five years during Thanos’ snap. It felt like he was missing from the Avenger’s attempt to unpick the Titan’s action. On the contrary, the villain’s defeat wouldn’t have been possible without the sorcerer’s portal-powered super assembling every Avenger.
The rumor comes from Cosmic Circus, drawing on unnamed sources and some supporting evidence in recent parts of the MCU.
Other rumors have spun around new arrivals to the MCU to provide the necessary push to defeat Kang, particularly after the significant losses of Avengers: Endgame. Potential names include the Fantastic Four, the superteam heading into the MCU just in time to face Kang, and whose comic book battles with the Conqueror stretch way back to his first appearance in Ancient Egypt. Another possibility was another doctor — Victor von Doom, a supervillain and possible ancestor of Kang, who also tangled with the time traveler on the page.
But it’s certainly conceivable Strange will have a significant role to play as the MCU has already set him up as the pre-eminent heroic explorer of the multiverse. Complete with his new third eye and new companion, Clea, he’s happily leaping around the Multiverse, having overcome his earlier struggles. Of the Saga’s full dips into the multiverse so far, Strange has been there for three out of four. Arguably, the only established character with that kind of experience is Loki, although he’s not quite in the trust zone yet.
Like Kang, Strange has a history of batting himself, too. If Kang follows his comic book journey, he’s half struggling to avoid and half intending to become Immortus, the future form seen in the mid-credit sequence of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (that incarnation of Kang relies on his earlier self to avoid a paradox to become him, although not that every Kang agrees). There’s speculation that Strange faces a similar struggle to overcome his destiny as Sinister Strange. In fact, that’s where the sources flip the final battle on its head. If Strange and Kang are the new Stark and Thanos, perhaps they’re not on the sides you expect.
The outlet’s sources name a return for the darker version of the sorcerer seen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
“Sinister Strange is preventing a future that has yet to pass.”
The idea is that Doctor Strange is actively operating as an “anti-Immortus,” deliberately taking out variants in other universes to ensure he avoids becoming his sinister form. That opposes Immortus, whose manipulation of Kangs and Kang Prime is about securing his existence.
If Kang solves his externalized and internalized issues before the end of the Saga, the twist at the tail of the Saga would be the Conqueror Kang as the hero or antihero at a push. Effectively, he could be the essential help the Avengers need to save the multiverse from the damage Doctor Strange is causing as he runs from his fate. In his so far only appearance, the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards and the rest of the Illuminati showed us the damage Strange can cause. Could the Multiverse’s troubles have started not with Kang, but Strange?
There’s the suggestion that elements of this new twist lie in many concepts not used in that universally challenged wizarding sequel, Multiverse of Madness, and we don’t just mean an Iron Man who looks a lot like Tom Cruise.
Strange as the big villain of the Saga is a huge and ethically challenging leap, so a cosmic lump of salt is required. That said, there’s no denying it’s the kind of tasty twist we hope will emerge at the end of a saga that feels far away.