Mapping Marvel’s Future Beyond Jonathan Majors: Investigating Two Possible Paths
This week, Jonathan Majors was found guilty of negligent assault and harassment of his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, and later that same day, Marvel Studios confirmed that it would no longer be working with the actor who was said to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new main villain, after Josh Brolin’s Thanos. Majors had already appeared as several different versions of multiversal menace Kang The Conqueror in Loki and Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, and his storyline was going to fully come together in the next Avengers movie (originally announced as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but now simply referred to as Avengers 5, per The Hollywood Reporter).
That being said, Marvel has been predictably very tight-lipped about their future plans, and how Jonathan Majors’ firing will affect future Marvel films will have an impact in some way. It means that we don’t know anything other than the fact that there is a need. The studio doesn’t want to give away any major spoilers, so we’re left to speculate wildly as to what will or should happen. But surprisingly and refreshingly, speculation doesn’t have to be so far-fetched. Because Marvel really only has two options at this point. They can either recast Jonathan Majors and move on with someone other than Kang, or they can reset Kang by playing a softer role. Remove it from the equation completely.
Option 1: Recast Kang with a different actor
Marvel’s current stories are all about the multiverse, the infinite possibilities offered by infinite alternate realities. This conceit has already led him to have all three of his Spider-Men in one movie, different versions of the famous hero in another, and different Lokis in Loki. It is now possible. Quantumania also featured a post-credits stinger that showcased the wide variety of cans played by major league players at the time. I mean, in terms of Marvel history, it would be very easy to bring in another actor and say, “This is who Kang is now,” and there would be no need in the world to directly point out that he looks different. No one will and no one will have to go to the majors again – admits Kang’s version. Marvel might even introduce a new main version of Kang who proves his evilness by killing all the other Kangs off-screen. It will be very clean and simple. And Marvel has recast some characters in the past, and she clearly hasn’t shied away from that practice, so it’ll probably be just as easy behind the scenes. Don Cheadle replaced Terrance Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes after the first Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo replaced Edward Norton as Bruce Banner after his Hulk movie, and Harrison Ford is going to replace William Hurt as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Captain America: New World Order. Nobody in Iron Man 2 or The Avengers bothered to say “Hey, that guy looks different from the last time we saw him” because they didn’t need to.
Option 2: Replace Kang with a new villain
A more exciting option might be to eliminate Kang completely and move forward with another main villain. Now that Marvel Studios has confirmed that a Fantastic Four movie is in the works, the door opens for several other notable Marvel villains who could easily justify the same multiverse stakes as Kang. There is. Obviously Doctor Doom is an obvious one, since he’s arguably THE big Marvel villain in the comics, but there’s also Galactus (the planet-eater is literally the biggest Marvel villain, thank you thank you) or a dark horse candidate like Annihilus (a big bug guy from another dimension). We’ve got to see at least one of them sooner or later, and having Doctor Strange or whoever say “Oh no, all of our tampering with the multiverse accidentally unleashed this great evil dude” would be almost as easy as saying “Kang looks different now, just go with it.”
Additionally, there is a simple folk explanation for this: The second season of Loki concluded with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki—the one who escaped the regular timeline in Endgame, not the one who died in Infinity War—entering the multiverse’s web to physically hold reality together so it wouldn’t spiral out of control and wipe out all life. That’s some classic comic book nonsense that could be used to explain why some villain from another universe suddenly finds a new opportunity to do evil, and why all the various incarnations of Kang are no longer a threat. Given that Marvel Studios hired Loki, there’s even reason to believe that this is precisely what’s going on behind the scenes.