Kang (Earth-616)

Kang is a supervillain featured in Marvel Comics. A longtime foe of the Avengers, he is one of their greatest individual threats.

Publication History
Kang the Conqueror was introduced in The Avengers (Vol 1) #8 to give the team a Doctor Doom-level adversary that would be unique to them; Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, and Wasp could generally handle Red Skull, the Mandarin, Loki, Egghead, and Whirlwind individually, but it would take all five of them working together to fight Kang. As such, he was the original arch-enemy for the team until Ultron eclipsed him. As he gained prominent spots in the rogues galleries of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, it was retroactively revealed that Pharaoh Rama-Tut, a villain featured in Fantastic Four (vol 1) #19 (October, 1963) was an alter-ego of his, debatably making this his true first appearance. Stan Lee's fondness for Clarke's Third Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") is evident in Kang's creation: He has no extranormal powers himself, but as a time traveler, he uses science and technology that is centuries more advanced than anything the modern day heroes have. For much of his publication history, his identity was unknown, and it was hinted that he could be a future version of Iron Man, Doctor Doom, or Frank Richards (the son of Reed Richards and Susan Storm). His identity would be revealed in Fantastic Four #273. With time travel being what it is, there are multiple versions of him in various timelines, with vastly different personalities and occasionally identities. Case in point, an alternate younger self is the heroic Iron Lad of the Young Avengers, while an alternate older self is the morally ambiguous "temporal janitor" Immortus.

Character History
Nathan Richards was born in the 30th Century of Earth-6311, a timeline where Western Europe seamlessly transitioned from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance without repression of science and decline of learning associated with the Middle Ages. He was named for Dr. Nathaniel Richards, the father of Reed Richards, who had become a time-traveling adventurer after the death of his wife. Whether Nathan was descended from Dr. Richards and his second wife, Cassandra, or simply named for him, is not entirely clear. As an adult, Nathan grew bored of the peaceful world he lived in and developed an infatuation with the "Heroic Age" of Earth-616. After building a "Time Ship", Nathan travelled to the Egypt of Earth-616, around the year 2960 BCE. With his advanced weapons and technology, he easily conquered the land and ruled as the Pharaoh Rama-Tut. However, the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange, arriving to Ancient Egypt on their own time-travel adventures, defeated him and forced him to retreat. Attempting to return to his own time, his ship got caught in a temporal storm, sending him to the 40th Century. Finding an era of barbarism fitting his desire for battle, he reinvented himself again... as Kang the Conqueror.

Kang conquered 40th Century Earth in short order, creating a capital he dubbed Chronopolis and expanding his empire beyond the borders of Earth. Seeking new challenges, he travelled back to Washington DC in modern day Earth-616, recalling that this was the home time of the heroes that had previously defeated him as Rama-Tut. With his 40th Century weapons and technology, Kang easily overpowers the military and SHIELD forces deployed against him, drawing the attention of the Avengers - then consisting of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Ant-Man (Hank Pym), and Wasp. Kang uses his electromagnetic technology to incapacitate Iron Man, Thor, and Ant-Man. While he and Captain America appear to be evenly matched in hand-to-hand combat, Kang's technology enables him to capture the Avenger. Wasp is able to escape, and returns to the Avengers mansion to recover an experimental countermeasure that Stark and Pym were working on before they were summoned to fight Kang. Kang issues an ultimatum to the United Nations: If they do not acknowledge his rule within 24 hours, he will unleash a form of radiation that is harmless to people of his time, but lethal to humans of the present-day. With the help of Rick Jones and SHIELD, Wasp frees her teammates. Kang attempts to deploy his radiation weapon against the Avengers, but Thor is able to use Mjolnir to redirect the energies, amplified a hundred fold, against Kang. Overloaded by energy, Kang's armor is critically breached, and he is forced to retreat back to Chronopolis to repair it.

The Celestial Madonna
Kang eventually learns that a woman from his past (but the present of the Earth-616 Avengers) will have a child that will, as an adult, become powerful enough to oppose, and potentially destroy him. Determined to see this child grow to become his heir and not his enemy, Kang becomes obsessed with learning the Celestial Madonna's identity.

Powers and Abilities
Kang does not have any extranormal powers, but does benefit from technology that is far more advanced than anything available in the 20th or 21st centuries. Although his chronological age is at least 70, he has used 40th Century medicine to halt his aging, and consequently resembles a 45-year-old man who regularly engages in physical exercise. He wears a set of neurokinetic body armor made from a rare alloy from the 40th Century. It grants him the following abilities:


 * Flight.
 * Teleportation.
 * Enhanced strength, capable of lifting up to 5 tons.
 * A force-field that is capable of withstanding a point blank nuclear explosion, and has also shown to no-sell strikes from Thor's hammer.
 * The gauntlets of his gloves channel powerful electrical attacks.
 * A built in life support system, providing atmosphere, nourishment, and waste disposal, that lasts for 30 days.

Quotes
"History is not written, scholar — and neither is destiny! History is made! Made by the deeds of the strong! The brave! And destiny is forged! The historians, the students, the gray-beards — they come in the wake of the strong and write down what the brave have done! But it is the conquerors who change the world."

- Kang

"All of history is my weapon, you fool. I fight with time itself. You are its playthings. I am its conqueror."

- Kang

"We are not fleeing. Kang does not flee. We are repositioning to a more... advantageous time."

- Kang retreats