Kang the Conqueror Rewrites His History

[Music] what's up my comic comradz with king the conqueror having been introduced to the mcu in the loki series on disney plus and set to be a major part of phase four we want to keep an eye on what the marvel character is doing in the comics so today we're gonna give you part one of a two-part overview of the character's recently concluded five issue mini-series written by colin kelly and jackson lansing the title not only presents a well-rounded retelling of the origin of nathaniel richards aka king the conqueror but it also gives us a compelling overall portrait of his travels through time and a deep dive into what drives king's actions and why so let's see what marvel's doing with one of their all-time best villains with the first two issues of the 2021 king the conqueror series issue one opens up with a view of an older kang while king from a yet undetermined time begins to tell us a story about a conversation alexander the great once had with a great sage he says the sage told alexander there are more worlds than this their number is near infinite and they spread across the cosmos beyond the reach of any of man's senses alexander then looked upon his empire and his eyes filled with tears the sage asks great alexander why do you weep to which alexander replied is it not worthy of despair that there are infinite number of worlds to conquer and i cannot become the master of even one on the next page we are then taken to a young nathaniel richards who was born in the 31st century we learned that by the time he reached the age of 18 he had conquered nothing he sees his world as a utopia of pleasure and entertainment but despite this we learn through continued narration that nathaniel was picked on and recently had his throat slit by bullies an incident he only survived because of the highly advanced medical technology of the time anyway the narration continues to tell us that it was also a place where time seemed to have stopped it was the end of history a meaningless procession of tipit moments a countdown to nothing as we see nathaniel looking at holographic blueprints of some castle nathaniel tells us that he began to see his time for what it truly was a cage like anyone wise enough to see the locks that hold the prison shut he devised and escape at which point he grabbed his bike gear hopped on his futuristic motorcycle and headed to the mysterious castle he was looking at he then says i thought to find answers from the past as he lands inside of the rundown castle we quickly learned that this castle once belonged to dr doom as we see a doombot standing in the middle of the library nathaniel goes on to tell us that the castle library was beautiful and as he's looking at the books the doombot activates and starts attacking him but as the doombot is about to punch him it's blasted with something from behind and on the next page we see it's kane the conqueror the adult version down child he then says doom you may be an imbecile but good engineering is eternal as he blows the doombot's head off he then opens up a time portal and sends the decapitated robot to the 20th century as a message to doom young nathaniel then asks who are you and they both say one who knows infinitely more than you can imagine nathanael because remember they're the same person but nathaniel then says that's not an answer how the hell do you know my name kang says another pretty obvious question i'd hoped for better young nathaniel says i'm sorry better i'm nathaniel richards the liberator of the library of victor von doom this is the secret history of the world and i am it's heir and you want better kang responds to reverie and your voice is embarrassing there is no easier place to lie than the pages of a book you learn to trust only firsthand sources so let me ask you would you rather read history or make it nathaniel replies are you kidding me that's all i want this world is so thin it's like there's nothing here and i want everything kang responds good you are ready now ask your question again nathaniel asks who are you kang says the question with 10 000 answers the conqueror the eternal the god pharaoh rama tut the time keeper immortus i have been them all and will be again but there's only one answer that has ever truly mattered in the end i am kang and at the beginning i was you as he removes his helmet and mask showing nathaniel he's an older version of himself at this point young nathaniel shakes his hand and agrees to go with him to learn from his older self and when kang opens up a portal we see he takes nathaniel to 65 million bce the time of the dinosaurs the cretaceous era it's here where kang would train nathaniel to be a better version of himself which is weird because nathaniel is king's self as we get a montage of kang teaching and training nathaniel over time nathaniel tells us many of my memories are fogged by the ways of time centuries of conflicting timelines playing tricks in my head but i remember every one of those first days with perfect clarity my lesson began with survival strengthening my body and mine and where i could not strengthen it myself kang did it for me as we see him inject a language chip into the back of his head that would allow him to speak and understand every language in the universe kang even showed him the fantastic four defeat rama tut another version of himself he also taught nathaniel that a plan no matter how meticulous only serves to make you weak to rely on the specific order of events is to invite disaster kang must thrive in disorder finally kang shows him the death of his love ravana telling young nathaniel never love in all of time and space it is the only way in which you will be conquered but said promise would one day be broken when nathaniel was hunting a t-rex he ended up killing the t-rex which in turn saved the young girl that was almost eaten by it once a t-rex was dead he laid eyes on the girl and instantly fell in love the girl would bring nathaniel back to her tribe where she presented him to the tribe's elder the one they called the lasting peace the elder then grabs nathanael by the face and says sung by the hymn of time are you the conqueror and the conquered yours is a path forged through the darkest forest the trail burned in glory and pain i mark you for the beast you slew i mark you for the life you saved and with sat nathaniel and the girl he saved dance and rejoiced with the tribe he would then soon return back to kang saying you won't believe what i found you were wrong there are people here it should be impossible but there are and they're incredible they have culture and music and the most fascinating legends and stories i've ever heard and wait till you see the dancing kang then turns around saying you will unlearn this sentimentality never disappear from my sight again you will do as you're ordered you will learn the lessons i teach you and never disregard them and above all else wipe that pathetic paint off your face nathaniel then says no he goes on to say you're the one who's failed you talk endlessly about conquest and glory but you're just a drunk who makes me memorize his defeats kang says yes so you will not repeat my failures nathaniel then says my life is my own kang it's out there living on without me and the people of that tribe we could save them from the coming cataclysm if time is nothing to us then why can't i use it to save the first thing in this world that i but kang interrupts him saying say it so nathaniel tells him love and on the next page we see kang slap his younger self nathaniel then wipes the blood off his face with tears in his eyes saying i will save them but kang says no boy you did not as he grabs a gun and drags nathaniel to the tribe's village killing the tribe in front of his very eyes and in the coming days nathaniel furious for what kang did to the tribe and the woman he loved got kang drunk and drugged them with herbs planted in his wine at which point he modified king's armor to teleport himself to a different time right before the meteor destroyed this world but you see the armor malfunctioned and sent nathanael to the time in egypt where rama tut ruled and just like that issue 1 comes to an end so let's jump to issue two issue two starts off with young nathaniel fighting off rama tut's army and right as one of the soldiers is about to put a knife in his neck someone whacks a soldier over the head from behind with a voice saying his eye is upon you foreigner ramatup may be the sun but you are called by the moon as we see it's the moon knight of this time helping him out the two then fight off and escape ramatut's empire we then see the two in the desert riding camels with nathanael saying far be it for me to argue with my savior but ramata isn't someone you can help to overthrow trust me i've studied him for years the mysterious woman answers saying he's enslaved the entirety of creation nathaniel tells her just egypt but that's plenty it's his war machine against my broken suit of armor i'm sorry lady but i'm not the hero you're looking for you're thinking of reed richards she tells him silence you entered the house of a forgotten god bury your talk of defeat in the endless sands for khonshu will have none of it speak your truth before him sailor of time why did you come here as they stare at the statue of the moon god khan shu nathaniel replies i was trying to escape the man who made me bow before him the lady answers then you sought that which cannot be we all bow before someone ravana bows as aspect before the moon's king nathaniel's eyes are open wide because he knows that name he knows that's who his older self fell in love with and warned him about she then tells him yes my name is ravana the moon knight nathaniel then remembers his time with kang and the woman he loved that kang killed saying i swore that i would be the hero if she saw me i swore to tear him down in the shadow of a dead god i took my revenge and cast it in iron as we see he made his iron led armor which we first saw in the young avengers issue 1 from 2005. him and moon knight then wage war gets rama tutt in his army and after fighting off a good portion of his army they sit to watch the sunset which ends with them kissing for the first time but their sentimental moment is interrupted when ramatat's fink ship arrives to capture them tut then uses ultra diode ray which is a ray gun of anti-will and enslavement it's kang's first weapon and his cruelest with tut now having both of them enslaved he orders nathaniel to go to the front of his army as a centurion and shape his armor into something more befitting of his station which is a really cool easter egg because back in the day nathaniel richards ran around as a scarlet centurion first appearing in avengers annual issue 2 back in 1968 and the issue literally puts him back in the same scarlet sectarian armor and has tut even say go now to the front my centurion so again nice little easter egg for the character but nathaniel still under touch control tells us that rama tut still considered himself a god king but he was no more than a man out of time even kang shu was thought of as a powerful dream despite rama tut's posturing egypt was already blessed with the living god his name was en sabanor and his conquest would last a millennia that's right rama taught forces nathaniel his new centurion to go up against the apocalypse and his armies it was during this war with apocalypse where he was being forced to fight then nathaniel says as the scarlet centurion love made me blind and so i began to hate and saw the only path forward my body was a prison my armor a cage to escape kang's power both needed to be broken and through the pain i swore to have revenge on kang the battle with apocalypse then ends with tut's defeat and countless dead on both sides the comic then ends with nathaniel stolen hysterian armor wandering the desert saying but kang was alive no longer a pharaoh but a warlord of the 31st century we then see nathanael make his way to a palace where he continues to say i would not be king's conquest made manifest i would not be his perfection as we see young nathaniel bow to someone while saying i come to you humbled the enemy of your escaped enemy with your power and my wisdom i believe we can both be satisfied together we can destroy kang as the last page shows us that nathaniel is kneeling before apocalypse who sits on his throne and with that issue two comes to an end and that's an awesome way to close out this issue and today's episode so far i'm really enjoying the series it's giving us a lot more insight into kang's backstory and giving us a different perspective of it as well we'll be very interested to see if any of this ends up being part of the story in the mcu version of kang but what do you guys think of the first two issues are you digging it let us know in the comments and that's gonna bring today's episode of variant to close but if you like today's episode be sure to check out this one to my left your right and if you like all of our content subscribe like and comment it always helps us out but other than that i'll see you guys next time when we talk about all things comics you

Channel: Variant Comics

Views: 214,371

Keywords: Kang the conqueror, history of, origin, apocaplypse, marvel, marvel comics, rama tut, nathaniel richards, comics, mcu, loki, spider-man, no way home, doctor strange, variant comics, villain, time travel, multiverse

Id: Y7ksFVEl9tM

Length: 11min 2sec (662 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 14 2022