Warning – this article contains minor spoilers for ‘X-Men ’97’ Season 2.During the early days of the MCU’s Multiverse Saga, the studio made no secret of its plans to make the powerful supervillain Kang the Conqueror the main antagonist of the post-Infinity Saga story. Jonathan Majors was announced to play the role and all of his variants, debuting in the Loki Season 1 finale in 2021 before taking the main villain slot in 2023’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. He would go on to play the Victor Timely variant of Kang in Loki Season 2, and for a time, he was set to be the main villain in the fifth and sixth Avengers movie (the fifth film originally being titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty).<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Majors was arrested for an alleged domestic dispute with his then-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, in Mar. 2023 and charged with multiple misdemeanor counts of assault and aggravated harassment. He was subsequently found guilty of third-degree assault and second-degree harassment by a Manhattan jury in Dec. 2023 and sentenced to probation and a 52-week court-mandated domestic violence intervention program. Immediately after this conviction, he was dropped from his role as Kang in the MCU<\/a>, and the franchise moved in a different direction for the next two Avengers films. However, it seems that Kang has returned in a new form.<\/p>\n Episode 3 of Marvel Animation’s X-Men ’97 Season 2 introduced a new version of Kang the Conqueror, using the Rama-Tut variant of the time-traveling and universe-jumping villain. This episode depicted Rama-Tut as an overarching threat that forces an alliance between the X-Men stuck in Ancient Egypt and En Sabah Nur, who eventually becomes Apocalypse. En Sabah Nur spearheads a rebellion against Rama-Tut’s cruel reign. <\/p>\n Marvel also uses a highly comic-accurate design for Rama-Tut, dressing him in green pants, no shirt, gold gauntlets, and a green-and-gold headpiece. The role is played by John de Lancie, known for his work in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as he takes over the part from Jonathan Majors following Majors’ firing.<\/p>\n While it is still unclear how big a role Kang will have in the rest of this season or the live-action MCU, it further sets in stone that Marvel is going in a new direction with the character. Although Majors earned solid reviews for his portrayal of Kang, his actions off-camera made for a situation that could not continue, leading to Marvel severing its relationship with him and changing course narratively.<\/p>\n