They kind of did at the end of Ant-Man 3, but I should imagine that just confused people more than anything.
Probably. I didn't think about it until now, but without context from Loki, that scene doesn't really explain itself very well. I think this is the challenge of trying to combine film with TV. It's funny, when Agents and the Netflix shows ran, I kept hoping they'd cross over with the films, but now that I see it in practice, I don't know what makes sense as an approach. I like that the shows allow for lower-stakes and more decompressed storytelling, and they're great for introducing characters like Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight, but I think trying to weave the big arc for the films into it may be a mistake.
The arena scene caused me to lose some interest in Kang, tbh. The costumes looked like trash and I’m not thrilled on an army of the same guy. 3 or 5 are fine, but not to the point where Kang is just a CGI army.
This is why, imo, if Marvel's set on "phases" and "a plan," they should've had an Avengers film for each "phase." Like, imagine if they'd done a version of Avengers: Under Siege (with Zemo), or the Kree/Skrull War, and then had a Kang tease at the end. Instead of being the villain (who is successfully defeated) in Ant-Man 3.
They should just have all those infinite Ant-Men shrink down and crawl inside all the infinite Kangs butts then expand. Problem solved
I feel like the plan was that we'll find out what Scott did was actually a bad thing, hence his unease at the end of the film. I kind of hope it still is, just recast the douche. I hate thinking that all this setup we've gotten so far would be thrown away midway. And I've read some people's takes on if they switched to Doom, and they think it would actually do Doom a disservice at this point. I kind of get it. It'd be one thing if they'd slowly built him up like they were trying to do with Kang, but to swap focus to him now would be really awkward.
Well, you'd want one that would make sense for the story they're going for. And again, swapping out the big bad at this stage of the game just feels like a clusterfuck.
I’m definitely team recast and stick with Kang. I agree that a switch mid storyline would feel like a disservice to the story, and both villains. As meh as Kang has been thus far, I think there is plenty of time to make him a villain that works.
Loki S2 made me forget about Kang in Ant-Man 3 for a little bit. Right from the first episode, I was like "Oh shit right this guy is a very real threat"
The way Kang went out in Quantumania was definitely lame, but I 100% think he was going to return even more powerful, maybe as Beyonder, and still be the main bad Kang Edit: just to be clear, this is a theory I’ve seen like a hundred times so it’s not mine. I just thought it made sense
My biggest disappointment was that they ended up setting to straight-out repeat what worked the first time. 3 phases ending with 2 Avengers movies again, but this time adding TV shows. Feels a bit cheap and makes it harder to ignore the dip in quality. The strategy should’ve somehow changed. Unless their research confirmed that 3-phase sagas is a winning formula with audiences due to the predictability and structure? I’m sure they have smart people in their teams who’ve thought about this. They really had something going for a while when WandaVision came out. It felt like the post-Endgame future was promising and interesting in new ways, but then it’s like they went on auto-pilot.
All of this change is definitely pointing to a drastic pivot on the status of how the next avengers film will be
Yep. Marvel's Fantastic Four Movie Casts Last Of Us And Mandalorian Star Pedro Pascal As Reed Richards - /Film Great casting