Marvel has discussed replacing MCU Kang with Doctor Doom

Kang’s not cutting it. Kang’s not cutting it. Loki season 2 as a supporting character, he just hasn’t felt like a villain than can carry a whole phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on his back the way Thanos did. Variety reported that Marvel recently experienced similar worries.

At a retreat in Palm Springs, Marvel leadership reportedly considered swapping Kang out for arguably Marvel Comics’ greatest villain: Doctor Doom. Doom was one of the backup plans Marvel President Kevin Feige, and his team, considered during their retreat in September earlier this year.

Kang is being questioned for reasons that go beyond poor box office and bad movies. MCU Kang’s current actor is Jonathan Majors. He was once a rising star, but has faced a variety of accusations of sexual harassment and assault by women. Majors is set to appear in court in late November, which could make Marvel’s decision on whether or not to move forward with the actor more straightforward. It remains to be determined whether the Disney-owned company will continue to work with an actor involved in so much controversy.

A studio would never want to recast a major role, especially one that is so important to the future plans of a company. Marvel’s recast secondary roles before, swapping in Don Cheadle for Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2. But even a similar solution wouldn’t solve the problem that Kang, as presented so far, is just not a compelling figure. Doctor Doom would be a perfect fit.

Doom is the Marvel Universe’s ultimate chess player on the global (and universal) stage, about as classic a Machievellian supervillain as exists in the comics world. He’d be the perfect character for an elaborate bait-and-switch about who the true puppeteer behind the MCU’s multiversal chaos has been, fake movie titles and all. This could be an entertaining meta-commentary: Did you think Kang was evil? So did Doom, and that’s why he killed him and anointed himself as the real villain of the story. On top of that, Doom was the ultimate villain of Marvel’s 2015 Secret Wars event, so it would be perfect now that Marvel’s actually gotten around to using that name for a movie.

Victor von Doom was always going to be the one to save the MCU. What other person could be able to do the job?