Kang’s not cutting it. After one movie as the antagonist and most of Loki season 2 as a supporting character, he just hasn’t felt like a villain than can carry a whole phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on his back the way Thanos did. And according to a report from Variety, Marvel has recently had similar concerns.
At a retreat in Palm Springs, Marvel leadership reportedly considered swapping Kang out for arguably Marvel Comics’ greatest villain: Doctor Doom. According to Variety, Doom is one of many backup plans Marvel president Kevin Feige and his team considered earlier this year during their annual retreat this September.
The reasons for questioning Kang, and the need for backup plans, goes deeper than poor box office performance and lackluster movies. MCU Kang is currently played by Jonathan Majors, an actor whose star was once on the rise, but who has been accused of assault and sexual misconduct by a number of different women, including criminal charges filed against him. Majors is set to appear in court in late November, which could make Marvel’s decision on whether or not to move forward with the actor more straightforward. But it remains to be seen whether or not the Disney-owned studio will want to continue working with an actor who is part of so much public controversy, no matter the verdict.
No studio wants to suffer a high-profile recasting, particularly not around an actor so integral to its plans over the next half-decade. Marvel’s recast secondary roles before, swapping in Don Cheadle for Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2. But even a similar solution wouldn’t solve the problem that Kang, as presented so far, is just not a compelling figure. Which is exactly where Doctor Doom could fit in.
Doom is the Marvel Universe’s ultimate chess player on the global (and universal) stage, about as classic a Machievellian supervillain as exists in the comics world. He’d be the perfect character for an elaborate bait-and-switch about who the true puppeteer behind the MCU’s multiversal chaos has been, fake movie titles and all. It could even be a fun little meta-commentary for the audience: You thought Kang was bad? So did Doom, and that’s why he killed him and anointed himself as the real villain of the story. On top of that, Doom was the ultimate villain of Marvel’s 2015 Secret Wars event, so it would be perfect now that Marvel’s actually gotten around to using that name for a movie.
The MCU is in need of a massive shake up, and while it seemed obvious that was going to come from the Fox properties Disney bought, like Fantastic Four or X-Men, we should have always known the responsibility of saving the universe would fall to Victor von Doom. Who else could possibly be up for the task?
