Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania finally introduces a truly evil version of Kang the Conqueror. But being another follow-up story to Avengers: Endgame, it also raises a few questions about the previous Phase 3 film.
Ant-Man and the Wasp ended with a jaw-dropping twist that left major suspense until Avengers: Endgame. Scott Lang went into the Quantum Realm to collect some Quantum energy for Ava Starr, and right at that moment, Thanos snapped his fingers.
So, with the Pym family ceasing to exist, Scott Lang was stuck in the Quantum Realm until he was pulled out five years later by a rat in Avengers: Endgame. Now, after seeing Kang’s empire in Quantumania, people have been left wondering why Scott didn’t come across Kang during his Quantum travels.
Ant-Man didn’t find Kang for 2 reasons
Initially, it seemed that Quantumania’s Kang only came into existence after He Who Remains died in Loki. But Quantumania proved that Kang arrived in the Quantum Realm before the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp as he had already befriended Janet Van Dyne there.
So clearly, this version of Kang existed even when He Who Remains was in control of the TVA. And since he was exiled to the Quantum Realm by the Council of Kangs, they always existed too.
This revelation makes many viewers wonder where all these Kangs were, and why the Exiled One didn’t find Scott Lang or vice-versa.
Reason 1 – Scott didn’t go deep
Kang was the one who enabled MODOK to send signals outside the Quantum Realm. He was the one who lured the entire Ant-Man team back into the Quantum Realm.
And just as they arrived there, he went after them. So, he should have come across Ant-Man when he was stuck in the Quantum Realm too. But one reason why he didn’t meet Scott was that the latter didn’t go deep into the realm.
When Scott was sent to collect Quantum energy for Ava Starr, he didn’t go to the depths where multiple worlds existed. The proof for this comes from the conversation between Hank Pym and Janet.
When they reached the lowest surface world within the Quantum Realm, Hank asked Janet why he wasn’t able to find any signs of life within the dimension. Janet simply replied that he wasn’t looking deep enough.
So when Scott was sent into the dimension under Janet’s supervision, he was only at the tip of the iceberg. He was far away from Quantum Realm’s surface world where Kang and other living organisms existed.
Reason 2 – Scott’s duration in the Quantum Realm
Another reason why Ant-Man didn’t come across Kang was that he was only stuck there for a limited period of time. In his words, he was only in there for five hours. Then he was pulled into a time vortex and was ejected in the year 2023.
After that, even when Tony Stark built a time-space GPS to navigate through the Quantum Realm, the Avengers used the Quantum Realm for a very short span of time and didn’t go much deeper into the dimension.
Each vortex only exists at the top of the Quantum Realm, which is why neither Scott nor any other Avengers met Kang while gliding through the dimension.
Quantumania is currently playing in theaters.