Who are Immortus, Pharoah Rama-Tut and the many variants of Kang the Conqueror?

If you’ve caught Loki and/or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, you would be no stranger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) concept of variants. But for those who need a little bit of a refresher, variants are different versions of the same person or character that exist in different timelines.

We first saw variants in Disney+‘s Loki with multiple variants of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), young, old, non-human even, and we saw the concept again in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Out of all the variants introduced thus far, He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) from the season finale of Loki is perhaps the most important, now that his variant, Kang the Conqueror, is not only the villain in Marvel Studios’ latest movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Kang (all versions) is meant to be the big bad for these next few phases of the MCU. 

If you’ve seen the movie and stayed behind for the post-credits, you would be surprised and maybe even terrified to know that there are many variants or versions of Kang the Conqueror, all of whom seem to have a specific goal of their own.

Warning: Spoilers ahead. Do not proceed if you have not watched Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ended with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) defeating Kang and the post-credits scene introduced the Council of Kangs. Here, we see three different variants of Kang – Immortus, Pharoah Rama-Tut and Scarlet Centurion. The camera later pans out to reveal many other Kangs. Here’s a quick run-down of some of the Kangs we may or may not see appear in the MCU. 

Immortus

The leader of the Council of Kangs we see in the post-credits scene is Immortus. Immortus is actually an older version of Kang from a possible reality. First appearing in Avengers #10, this older and wiser Kang chose to prune away timeline branches in an attempt to maintain order.

Immortus can teleport across time and space and summon an infinite number of warriors from the past, future and alternate timelines if he wanted to. He is said to be a master manipulator and prefers to dupe others into doing his bidding. Is that why he started the Council of Kangs? 

Pharoah Rama-Tut

The one dressed as an Egyptian Pharoah is obviously Rama-Tut. This version of Kang is the first to make his debut in the comics. He was an adventurous robotics student that turned into a time-traveling Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt and is an expert strategist, historical scholar, master physicist, engineer and technician.

Rata-Tut is also a future version of Kang before he adopted the identity of Immortus in another universe. As a Pharoah in Egypt, Rama-Tut kept few allies and used advisors as well as those he enslaved to do his bidding (much like Immortus). After encountering Doctor Doom, he takes inspiration from the villain to create a new look for himself, as the Scarlet Centurion. 

Scarlet Centurion

The next Kang we see in the movie’s post-credit is Scarlet Centurion. The Scarlet Centurion is an expert time traveler and manipulator. He has mastered far-future time-traveling technologies to the extent that he can take passengers or cargo with him when he time travels. He can also create holograms of himself and project them into other time periods and locations to communicate with the people there. 

Victor Timely

The second post-credits scene hinted at another Kang variant that we will likely meet in Loki season two. Called Victor Timely, he is a mayor, industrialist and inventor. He is also said to be a rival to Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.

Victor founded the city of Timely, Wisconsin which is used as his port and a crossroad into every era in human history, oftentimes leaving doubles of himself as Mayor whilst he goes out and conquers other timelines. The city and its inhabitants are unaffected by the passage of time and temporal divergence. 

Iron Lad

Now, we didn’t meet Iron Lad in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania but this variant of Iron Lad does exist. Where Immortus is an older Kang, Iron Lad is – as his name suggests – a younger Kang. 16-year-old Kang was rescued from a life-threatening situation by his future self, Kang the Conqueror. Kang later outfitted his younger self with a psychokinetic armor that responds to his thoughts – much like Kang’s ship we saw in the movie – and after having a glimpse of what his future may look like, Iron Lad escaped and went into hiding. He later recruited three young heroes to take down Kang, forming the Young Avengers. 

Instead of becoming Kang, he models his armor after Iron Man, calling himself Iron Lad. So why do we bring him up if he’s not seen? Well, Iron Lad recruits Cassie Lang, whom Kang meets in Quantumania, so this first meeting might prove important and on top of that, Iron Lad and Young Avenger teammate Cassie “Stature” Lang start a romantic relationship in the comics. Given the end of Quantumania, it’ll be interesting to see the Scott Lang/Iron Lad dynamics.

He Who Remains 

Last but not least, He Who Remains. The first of Kang’s variants to appear in the MCU, He Who Remains is the final director of the Time Variance Authority at the Citadel at the End of Time, aka the last reality of the multiverse.

In the comics, He Who Remains created the Time-Twisters, who later wound up destroying past universes by time traveling. We did get to see Majors play He Who Remains in Loki but now that he’s dead thanks to Sylvie (Sophia DiMartino), a variant of Loki, chances of seeing him again are slim. 

ALSO READ: 5 movies and TV shows to watch before Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

This article was first published in Geek Culture.