‘Quantumania’: Why Did Kang Want to Conquer and Destroy Universes? What Did He Get in Return?
One of the things that we know about Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is that he was a dangerous presence that the Council of Kangs needed to exile to the Quantum Realm. This is largely due to how destructive he was and how he was the cause of the destruction of multiple universes and the deaths of countless people in those timelines. He also wanted to resume his role as a conqueror and destroyer if he could escape the Quantum Realm. So, why did Kang the Conqueror want to conquer and destroy universes?
Kang the Conqueror wanted to conquer and destroy universes because he was a power-hungry individual that didn’t want any other Kang variant to conquer other universes. He saw how the other Kangs were responsible for incursions in the multiverse, and he wanted to conquer those universes to “save” them from the other Kangs.
In a sense, Kang’s reason for destroying entire universes can be quite altruistic if you look at the fact that he was merely trying to protect them from the wrath of the other Kang variants. But at the same time, no one can ever deny that he was still evil enough to kill countless lives because he just didn’t want the other Kangs to conquer more worlds. So, with that said, let’s look at why Kang wanted to conquer and destroy other universes.
Why did Kang want to Conquer and destroy universes?
In the events of season 1 of Loki, we already knew that Kang the Conqueror was an incredibly dangerous threat that needed to be kept out of the multiverse due to how destructive he was. In a sense, Kang’s threat was even greater than Thanos’ because he was a danger to the entire multiverse, whereas Thanos was a danger to one universe. As such, He Who Remains ensured that there would only be one universe where he was the only Kang variant that existed.
Nevertheless, the events of Loki season 1 allowed the multiverse to become a reality as numerous Kang variants were created from the different timelines that branched out of the sacred timeline. Of course, Kang the Conqueror came into being as he was the main enemy of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It was through Janet that the Ant-Family learned that Kang was a monster of a man that only lived to conquer and destroy multiple worlds, timelines, and universes. And Kang admitted that he had killed countless Avengers in the different timelines he conquered.
It was the fact that he was so destructive and dangerous that the other Kangs in the Council of Kangs decided to exile him to the Quantum Realm. Kang the Conqueror ended up conquering the Quantum Realm, where he established an empire and an army that he sought to take out of the Quantum Realm to exact his revenge on the Council of Kangs and to continue to conquer worlds and universes. So, why did Kang the Conqueror want to conquer and destroy entire universes?
At his very core, Kang the Conqueror was a selfish man that wanted everything. He was the man that discovered the existence of the multiverse, and it was through this knowledge that numerous variants of his came to be as he traveled to different timelines and universes and gave birth to different Kang variants that ended up conquering entire timelines as well. It was due to his hunger for power that he wanted to conquer entire worlds as he thought that he was someone who was above everyone else in the multiverse due to how he saw himself as a godlike being that deserved to be the one to stand at the pinnacle of creation even though he was no more than just an ordinary human being as well.
There’s also the fact that incursions could happen at any given moment when one universe interferes with another. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, we learned that incursions were incredibly dangerous because they could force two universes to clash and destroy one another. And incursions happen whenever someone from a certain universe meddles with the events of another universe, as happened when Doctor Strange ended up in a different universe and affected the events of that universe.
In that regard, Kang also wanted to prevent incursions from happening, as an incursion can potentially destroy two universes. The fact that the different variants of Kang were traveling from one universe to another to conquer those universes increased the chances of incursions happening. So, if Kang the Conqueror conquered and destroyed one universe, the chances of that universe colliding with another universe due to an incursion would decrease as there was one less universe to be worried about.
Ultimately, Kang the Conqueror wouldn’t be able to conquer more universes if these universes destroyed each other due to incursions. As such, if Kang were to destroy a certain universe, then that would mean he could prevent it from destroying another universe. And that would mean that he could conquer the universe that was spared from the effects of an incursion.
What did Kang get in return for conquering and destroying universes?
In a sense, Kang’s purposes for conquering and destroying universes weren’t entirely evil because he wanted to spare a few universes from getting conquered by the other Kang variants or destroyed by an incursion. But what did Kang the Conqueror get in return for conquering and destroying universes?
We can’t speak for Kang about what he got from conquering and destroying universes. But, in a sense, it probably has something to do with self-satisfaction because, at his very core, he was a man that was hungry for power and was corrupted by this hunger to be the one at the apex. As mentioned, he always saw himself as someone above everyone else and always made sure to demean Ant-Man and the Freedom Fighters in the Quantum Realm. Despite being an ordinary man, he always saw himself as godlike because he was above everyone else.
So, in that regard, he got satisfaction because he could conquer and destroy entire timelines and universes as he pleased. But the fact that there were others like him in the form of the other Kang variants made him feel like he had rivals. As such, by conquering and destroying worlds that the other Kang variants would have conquered, Kang the Conqueror must have felt some satisfaction in knowing that he kept those worlds away from his variants.
And this is where we would see just what kind of a person he was and why his other variants wanted him exiled. Of course, his other variants weren’t exactly any different because the Council of Kangs said that there must be something done about the fact that more and more people are now becoming more knowledgeable about the multiverse. And this is why a future clash between the Avengers and the Council of Kangs is now inevitable because, at their very core, all variants of Kang are just the same.
