Kang the Conqueror 1888

A Brief History of Kang

Brief History of Kang

Part 1:

A Time To Begin

"Can you think of ANY one man whose power is greater than the Avengers? Don't answer that!! Not until you meet...Kang, the Conqueror!" (From the cover of Avengers #8)

And so the man who would become one of the Avengers' foremost (and most confusing) villains was introduced to the world. Kang was always an appealing character because of his incredible power, which meant that in order to defeat him, the Avengers would have to rely on teamwork, willpower, and smarts. Kang's weakness always rested in his overconfidence, arrogance, and inability to trust others. As a time-travelling villain, he always begged the question: if he can't defeat the Avengers in one fight, why doesn't he just appear again and again once he's rested up from a fight, or attack them when they've just finished a battle? This was addressed in any number of ways--"time storms" preventing his entrance, the wish to beat the Avengers without "cheating", looking at fighting the Avengers as more of a game rather than real "conquest", and others. One writer actually did have Kang attack over and over again, until he was supposedly killed off. Years later, he was brought back with the concept of multiple Kangs in multiple eras. This opened up a huge can of worms, until the continuity surrounding Kang became almost impenetrably complicated. But his extensive hand in the Marvel Universe, combined with his other personas (Immortus, Scarlet Centurion and Rama-Tut), still make him an intriguing character in the hands of the right author. With Avengers Forever redefining the character, let's look at Kang from the beginning. But this is a job far greater than any one Avenger fan can handle, and thus a Council Of Kang Chroniclers has been assembled, consisting of me (Rob Clough), Mighty Michael Proteau, the Astonishing Avenger Lady Lonni Holland, Ominous Owen Erasmus, and the originator of these Kang Chronicles: John Simons, the Lord of Time. Each of us will tackle a different era of the Avengers and Kang. Let us start at the beginning...

Avengers #8: The Avengers are summoned to deal a huge UFO that lands in the woods of Virginia. The ship vaporized a bunch of trees and destroyed some tanks before the pilot of the ship came out, demanding to see the world's leaders. This man, in an unusual green and purple uniform with a blue mask, was Kang.

Confronting Kang, he seemed cool and collected. He was there to conquer the planet, and figured that no one could stop him. Thor threw his hammer at him, and Kang caused it to go into "sub-space" and reappear elsewhere. He zapped the team with an "anti-grav" ray that had them go flying.

After playing around with the Avengers, he then explained his origin to the government man who came by. He revealed that he was born in the year 3000, and became the Pharaoh Rama-Tut. After he fought the Fantastic Four, he traveled to the 20th century and met Dr. Doom, who may have been a distant relative. While trying to return to his own century, he overshot it and instead landed in the year 4000. It was a desolate, war-torn world where the soldiers no longer understood how their own weapons were created. Kang quickly took over, but got bored ruling such a barren world, and decided to build a new time ship and conquer the 20th century.

The Avengers attacked again, but Kang threw up an anti-matter screen to deflect Thor's hammer. While the Avengers got a few licks in, Kang was pretty much unharmed, and in fact managed to capture the team with an "attractor ray". He held the whole team in stasis, except for the Wasp, who managed to escape with mascot Rick Jones. Kang then gave the agent an ultimatum: either surrender the earth or die. He gave him 24 hours to spread the word. Kang boasted that he could destroy the moon with just his ship!

Rick Jones and his Teen Brigade preyed on Kang's sometimes-muddled decision-making by pretending to surrender to him, wishing to become his servants. So he sent them into the ship, where he told them to bring him something. The kids dropped it, not knowing it's his "energizer tank". Kang had to spend time plugging up the leaking energy...but Rick Jones managed to free Thor (who had turned back into Don Blake).

While the team fought Kang, the Wasp returned with a weapon she fished out of Giant-Man's lab. Hank instructs Thor to keep hammering away at Kang's personal force shield, and he manages to distract Kang for a moment. His shield lowered, Hank sprays him with an "acid-base solvent, which will rot and decay any fabric, any type of wiring or insulation." Kang's suit is ruined, but he launches a "neutrino missile" at the team. Iron Man deflects it with his repulsors, and it explodes harmlessly, while Giant-Man destroyed the rest of the missiles. Kang then has his mask emit deadly levels of radiation, but Thor absorbed it with Mjolnir and directed it back at Kang. Beaten, he ran back to his ship and escaped into time...

Avengers #11: Kang was really stung by his humiliating defeat to a bunch of primitives. He had been monitoring the Avengers since his defeat, waiting for the right time to strike, and it was now, when Iron Man was temporarily missing (due to Tony Stark's illness, unbeknownst to all). After seeing the Masters of Evil almost succeed in beating the Avengers by using Wonder Man, Kang concluded that this was the sort of route to go. Not interested in fighting them directly, he instead built a Spider-Man robot.

The robot is obedient to Kang and has all of Spidey's powers, and even his language patterns. After Kang sent him back in time, the robot tells the Avengers he wants to join them, and offers knowledge of Iron Man's whereabouts as incentive. He claims that he saw him kidnapped by the Masters of Evil and heard he was being taken to an ancient pyramid in Mexico.

The Avengers zoom down south to find their friend. Of course, the whole thing is a trap. Kang was pumping in nerve gas to weaken the Avengers, and the Spider-bot managed to beat each of the team one at a time in different traps. Unbeknownst to everyone, the real Spider-Man had tagged along, just when the Spidey-bot was about to transport the Avengers to the future and Kang's mercies. Spidey managed to deactivate the robot, and Kang is foiled yet again...

"Time means nothing to Kang, the Conqueror!" --guess, #8

Part 2:

Introducing Immortus...Or Did They?

"Featuring: The Truly Different Villainy of the Evil Immortus!" --from the cover of Avengers V1 #10

This was a truly strange issue of the Avengers. The Masters of Evil (Baron Zemo I, the Enchantress, and the Executioner) were sitting around, thinking of ways to wipe out the Avengers. As Zemo suggested that they needed another powerful ally, they are conveniently contacted by a mental probe coming from "a different time...another age!" A bearded man in a green outfit and a strange, crown-like helmet emerged from the mists and announced himself as Immortus. One of the MOE knows him as "The master of time! The one who rules the mystic realm of limbo, where things never change!" Immortus announced that he wants to have the MOE as his servants, since he'll be taking over the 20th century at some point. The Executioner naturally gets annoyed and tries to strike him, but Immy zips off to Limbo, and summons Paul Bunyan to fight him, since he has "all the warriors of the ages to choose from!" After a brief fight, Zemo accepted Immortus' power, but demanded that in order to prove his loyalty, he must kill one of the Avengers. Immortus accepts, "with glee!"

Immortus had mentioned that he had observed the MOE's battles with the Avengers "with amusement" and was joining "for my own purposes." This sort of mysterious talk, in addition to the weird fight that comes later, was explained rather nicely by Englehart in his run.

Immortus put an ad in a magazine advertising a method of obtaining super-powers. (No, really!) Rick Jones naturally sees this, and wanting to join the Avengers, follows up. Unfortunately for him, Immortus is waiting with Atilla the Hun; Rick is captured and sent to the Tower of London in 1760.

Cap sees the ad also and figures Rick will answer it, so he hops on over to Immortus' place, where Immy is confidently sitting on a throne. He claims that the Avengers put him up to capturing Rick in order to control Cap. Cap runs back to the Avengers full of anger, and after a pointless fight, they run back to Immortus.

Immortus then pulls out a series of historical challenges for the Avengers. Giant-Man fights the biblical Goliath (and beats him by shrinking himself down and sling-shotting him!), Iron Man defeats Merlin, and Thor fights Hercules. Cap is captured by Immortus and whisked off to the Tower of London. Immortus promises Cap that he can have Rick Jones if he fights his way through the guards.

Without Cap around, the MOE attack and do quite well. At the last second, Cap pops up and turns the tide. The MOE are about to be beaten when the Enchantress uses a spell to take them a few days in the past...right before they met Immortus. This time, when they feel the mental probe, they break it off.

Comments: So did the Avengers really fight Immortus? The story suggests that because of the time spell that the Enchantress used, they never encountered him. This of course goes against other interpretations of time we've seen in the MU. The other odd thing about this story is how quickly Immortus bowed out of the battle. What exactly was he after?

You sure can't tell from this story. This is perhaps why this issue was forgotten until Englehart cleverly recast Immortus as a manipulator whose ends are unclear, rather than an out-and-out villain.

Part 3:

The Rama-Tut Years

The first appearance of the Avenger’s greatest foe doesn’t actually feature the Avengers at all. In fact, when it appeared on the stands the team had only just been formed and hadn’t even faced the Space Phantom yet (more on him later.)

Much of the information in this and later issues was retroactively changed, I am presenting it as it appeared then.

Fantastic Four 19 "The Prisoners of the Pharaoh" Written by Stan Lee Penciled by Jack Kirby Inked by Dick Ayers

Reed Richards, taking a break from science to do some research on ancient Egypt, notices some hieroglyphs which appear to show some ancient Egyptians curing blindness with a radioactive potion. Curious about the existence of radioactivity in ancient times and wanting to restore the sight of the Thing's girlfriend Alicia, the Fantastic Four borrow Dr. Doom's time machine and head back to the time of the Pharaohs.

On arrival they are captured by soldiers and dragged before the Pharaoh Rama- Tut who shocks them by speaking English and recognising them.

He informs them that he is from the year 3000, and that seeking adventure in a rather boring time he spent his time watching tapes of more exciting eras. Eventually, that is no longer enough for him and he sets out to recreate a time machine that one of his ancestors had invented centuries before. Taking with him a mind control gun, he builds the time machine in the shape of a sphinx and sets out to make himself ruler of ancient Egypt. The ray gives him control of the country and he turns it on the Fantastic Four, making them his slaves.

Reed proves useful as a spy for Rama-Tut's armies, the Human Torch becomes a court jester and Sue is set to become his Queen. The Thing's strength is put to work as a galley slave, but the hot sun somehow changes the Thing back to Ben Grimm. Now able to slip through Thing-sized chains, Ben escapes and makes it back to the court. Stealing Rama Tut's gun, he sets the rest of the Fantastic Four free. They make short work of Rama-Tut's army and he flees back to his sphinx.

The Fantastic Four follow and find that the inside of the sphinx is packed with futuristic machines, including an escape pod that stands ready to take Rama to another dimension or time. The FF are unable to stop his escape and only just get out of the sphinx before an explosion gets rid of all trace of Rama-Tut.

They salvage Rama Tut's conveniently labeled blindness cure and return to the future. Unfortunately, Dr. Doom had blocked his time machine from carrying radioactive material and the cure stays in the past. This left Alicia still blind and Rama Tut travelling to another dimension and another identity.

Part 4:

Who Was On The Sandy Knoll?

Very little of Kang's history has stayed intact. A lot of it has been changed in small or not so small ways by later writers. The following two examples add some shadowy figures to the proceedings of Fantastic Four 19 without ever having them really make a visible impact on that story. Normally, that would earn them a 'stop meddling with the classics' complaint from me for putting continuity copping before storytelling but both stories are reasonably logical parts of time travel arcs in their respective books and are fun in a way. I'm only going to detail the changes that affect Rama-Tut; for the actual plot, refer back to my post on FF 19.

Dr Strange v2 #53

This issue tells us very little new about Rama-Tut, it is a basically a rerun of Fantastic Four 19. Even the dialogue remains the same.

It does add a brief encounter between the fleeing Rama-Tut and Dr Strange, but Strange is held off with some laser beams and he gets away as per the original story.

It also shows that it was Dr Strange, rather than the Egyptian sun, who freed the Thing from Rama's barge and therefore led to the end of his rule in Egypt. This clears up a little plot hole from the original but doesn't really alter the intent of the original story.

The West Coast Avengers 17-24 'Lost in Space-Time'

This story really only adds some background to the situation shown in FF 19. I'm going to concentrate on any changes and direct you towards my review of the original for the basic plot.

Trapped in the old west and only able to go backwards in time, Wonder Man suggests that the WCA make their way back to ancient Egypt and make use of Rama-Tut's time machine.

They make it back to the time of the reformed Rama-Tut who had helped them during the Celestial Madonna crisis and find him about to enter the suspended animation from which he was awakened by the Swordsman. He is a mumbling mess and unable to help them so they head back to try and use the time machine of the earlier evil Rama-Tut. They are immediately blasted by Rama-Tut's Ultra-diode ray and knocked out.

They are taken to be buried by the priests of Konshu. Konshu wants to get rid of Rama-Tut and heals them and sends a message through time to his modern champion Moon Knight. Konshu's priests take the Avengers to attack Rama's time machine where they fight off his troops and watch him flee.

While this is possibly as good as the WCA ever got, the Egyptian sequences are just part of a very complicated time travel story and don't really add much to our knowledge of Kang. Some of the tie-ins with other books are cute but this is not in the same class as Englehart's earlier work with the character. If it is of any interest at all it is because it includes a rare appearance of the good Rama-Tut.

Part 5:

Apocalypse? How?!

Well, clearly, some of Marvel's writers have enjoyed the opportunity, which time travel provides, to re-invent history. Thus, a meeting between Rama-Tut and the Fantastic Four has, over the years, expanded to include Dr. Strange and the West Coast Avengers. That was an awfully busy weekend for the Pharaoh, wasn't it?

But wait, there's more! Seems that all of those time travelers were only a minor diversion for Rama, a slight distraction from his true activities in the last days of his rule: participating in the origin of infamous X-villain Apocalypse!

Say WHAT?

Yep, it's true. In 1996, Marvel released the 4-issue miniseries THE RISE OF APOCALYPSE, which tells the fateful origin of Earth's first mutant against the backdrop of Pharaoh Rama-Tut's reign in Egypt. Avengers fans may have even heard of the author before, a fella by the name of...

TERRY KAVANAGH! (cue scary music: dum-dum-DUUUUUUUMMMM!)

The story begins in the early days of Rama's rule, as a bunch of Egyptian desert nomads ponder their decision to cast out a freakish baby that had been born amongst them. Suddenly, they are attacked by Sandstormers, fearsome warriors led by a man called Baal. The attackers wipe out the entire tribe, and eventually find the grey-skinned baby left to die amongst some rocks. When some of the warriors see the baby's strange face they want to kill it too, so Baal kills them! Baal muses that the baby is "a god in the making".

Flash-forward seventeen years, and the babe En Sabah Nur has grown to a strong young warrior. He still feared and despised by all but Baal, who has become like a father to him. Now that Nur has reached manhood, Baal takes him to the secret temple of Rama-Tut. While others consider Rama a god, Baal knows he is only a man, because he is the one who found the blinded Rama when the stranger first arrived. Apparently when the Sphinx first crashed in this time, a "burning fragment" on it broke off and crashed in the desert. His tribe nursed Rama-Tut back to health, but they were betrayed and enslaved in return. This temple is in the spot where the fragment crashed.

The Pharaoh's grand vizier, Logos, has brought him word that Nur has reached adulthood. Rama refers to Nur as a "child of destiny" who "will become the most powerful being on the planet", and finds it unacceptable that the young prodigy's future be molded by Baal. He orders his warlord, Ozymandias, to lead all the armies of Egypt into the desert to find the boy.

While a bloody clash ensues above, Baal and Nur penetrate the heart of Rama's secret temple and discover a mysterious high-tech globe. Just then, the temple roof caves in, and soldiers from both sides come crashing down to their deaths.

Soon Ozymandias returns to the City of Kings, exultant in the destruction of the Sandstormers. Rama-Tut takes him down a few notches by reminding him that he failed in his mission to bring back Nur. To himself, Rama muses about how Nur will eventually become Apocalypse, one of the most important figures in history, and plans to make the mutant his heir. Meantime, he moves forward with his plans to wed Nephri, Ozymandias' sister. The warlord, meanwhile, has his own plans. If not for Rama, he would be king. The upcoming nuptials will bring him "one body closer to the throne".

En Sabah Nur and Baal have crawled from the wreckage of the temple, but they are badly hurt. Nur's mutant abilities allow him to heal rather quickly, but his mentor is near death. They wander passages under the desert for nearly a week before stumbling upon a secret entrance to the interior of the Sphinx. Aside from high-tech marvels, they also find hieroglyphics which foretell En Sabah Nur's rise to power as "The First One". Then Baal croaks, Nur swears vengeance on Rama-Tut, and then he wanders around underground for another month.

Finally, he climbs to the surface and, lo and behold, Logos just happens to be waiting for him right there! The vizier sneaks the mutant into the city and hides him in his laboratory. Logos thinks that neither Rama nor Ozymandias are good for Egypt's future, and that Nur is his greatest hope "to preserve civilization".

Masked and disguised as a slave, Nur toils to help build a pyramid. When he makes the mistake of being insubordinate to Ozymandias, the warlord kicks him off a cliff! Not only does Nur survive, but he is visited by Isis, goddess of the sun, and suddenly he finds the hidden power inside him and bursts into fire. Fortunately, the city is attacked just then, and so Nephri is able to sneak Nur away.

It is at this point that the Fantastic Four comes into the story (perhaps wisely, Kavanagh decided to leave Dr. Strange and the WCA out of it). Aside from kicking Logos out of the throne room, the scene progresses more or less as it did in FF 19. Later, Logos is startled to find that Rama has scorned Nephri in favor of Sue Storm. He soon has more pressing concerns, though, as Rama has learned of his betrayal.

Nur and Nephri walk into an ambush, and soon the young girl and Logos are strung up on wooden stakes. The Pharaoh tries to seduce Nur with promises of great power, and has all of his subjects bow before the mutant. Although Nehpri is repulsed when she finally sees Nur's uncovered face, Rama-Tut tells him he accepts him for what he is. Logos tries to be the voice of reason and Ozymandias runs him through with a spear. Not a smart move. This tips the balance, as Nur rejects the Pharaoh's offer, and is subsequently fried by Rama's ultra-diode ray.

Between issues 3 and 4, Nur somehow escapes certain death once again, possibly with the help of some rebel slaves, but this is not made clear. Pharaoh Rama-Tut once again orders his Warlord to find the mutant-- and then his involvement in this series comes to an end. The rest of his story follows as described in other stories-- with Dr. Strange's help the FF rally against him and he is forced to flee back to the future.

Although this is not an Apocalypse history, I would feel remiss if I didn't give a quick account of how the rest of this story goes: Ozymandias lures Nur out of hiding by stringing up his own sister, Nephri, as giant asp bait. Nur kills the snake, takes the name Apocalypse, is rejected by Nephri for being too ugly, and reaches his full genetic potential. He somehow transfers all of the memory of Rama's computers into Ozymandias' brain, and then he destroys all of the Pharaoh's technology. Rather than take the throne of Egypt, he rejects its citizens and wanders back into the desert.

The incursion of the X-books into Rama-Tut's life doesn't quite end there. As seen in CABLE #57, Rama apparently spends a little time on Earth in the 20th century, probably right after his first encounter with Dr. Doom. He returns to the Sphinx, where it seems there is still some working technology, after all. Rama's time sphere is damaged, and he needs help repairing it.

This story is told in a completely pointless and confusing manner of flashbacks and flashforwards, but the gist I can make out of it is this: somehow Rama manages to capture the alien time-traveler called Blaquesmith, and is trying to persuade him to help fix the time machine. Unfortunately for Rama, Blaquesmith also happens to be an old teacher of Cable's, and the mutant cyborg uses his telepathy to track them down. Rama and Cable get into some good old-fashioned fisticuffs, until Cable is felled by some strange psionic backlash that you need to read about in some other X-book to understand (ahh, gotta love those multitudinous x-books). Rama is about to zap him but then the chamber starts to fall apart. Cable grabs Rama's ultra-diode gun and shoots him with it. He and Blaquesmith run out as some kind of chronal distortion collapses the cave. Blaquesmith surmises that Rama was somehow able to launch himself back into the timestream, which leaves me wondering why Rama had to torture Blaquesmith in the first place.

..And if that's an indication of Joe Casey's writing abilities, I can't imagine why he's such a fan-favorite.

As for the Apocalypse series, I will grudgingly admit that it could have been worse. At least "The Butcher" managed to stick to most of the established facts about Rama-Tut, down to the identical dialogue in the first meeting with the FF. I definitely hope this is the last time a Marvel writer tries to shoehorn new characters into that 48 hour period!

There are several plot holes that just leave me scratching my head, like who built the temple Baal and Nur originally went to, what was the big deal about the globe Nur grabbed at the end of issue one, who inscribed the prophetic hieroglyphics on the inside of the Sphinx, and how exactly Nur escaped between issues 3 and 4. Also, like just about any time travel story (which by extension would mean, any Rama/Kang story) I wonder why Rama didn't just fly back in time to when Nur is still a baby, and bring him up as his own son.

I also wonder if the "good" Rama-Tut (from Englehart's run) had to deal with Apocalypse again when he went back to ancient Egypt for his second reign.

If the answers to these questions were to be had in a second Apocalypse mini-series-- I think I'd just as soon live in ignorance, thanks.

Part 11:

Growing Pains

Thor 140 The Growing Man

While Thor is watching his dad have a bath in Asgard, some of Midgard's finest scientists and a bored-looking NYC cop are investigating an artificial figure unearthed by a museum expedition. When they found it, it was doll size, but it has since grown to human dimensions. Although it appears to be some form of robot, it is warm to the touch. When one of the scientists gives it a good knock on the chest, it comes to life and strikes him. The cop starts blasting away with his pistol, but the only effect it has on the robot is that it starts growing to the extent that it can crash through the wall and pick up a nearby house.

He doesn't seem to be interested in mindless destruction though, and keeps calling for his master asking why he has forsaken him and what task he can do for him.

While Thor sorts out his paperwork at Don Blake’s surgery, the police are making matters worse by hunting down the Growing Man with machine guns. Every shot is making him bigger and he is now capable of trying to swat the police with uprooted trees.

The Police get their butts saved by Kang who turns up and shrinks the robot back down to doll size. He explains that the robot was planted on earth in preparation for a long-term plan but that the museum expedition had set him off prematurely. The police try to bring in Kang and he starts to threaten them. "Keep your distance!! To me you are like anthropoid cave men."

Police reinforcements arrive on the scene bringing with them Dr Blake because he had in the past had been able to summon Thor. Giving them the slip, he bangs his walking stick on the ground and joins the fray.

Kang has disappeared between pages and seemingly reactivated his robot so Thor lays into the Growing Man, deducing almost immediately that his blows are powering, rather than damaging, the robot. Deciding that Mjolnir would be too much for the robot, he lets fly and the resulting blow expands the robot to new heights. As Thor realises the futility of his actions he is grabbed from behind by Kang whose cobalt energy glove is enough to overpower even Thor.

With Thor momentarily powerless Kang does what he does best. Explain his plans. The stimuloid was supposed to be a hidden weapon, left tiny and inert in the past so he could activate it when his enemies least expected. Kang resets the Growing Man to doll size once more and retreats to his time machine. Thor is sufficiently healed to send his hammer flying around the time machine at light speed "placing yon time machine within a universal infinity vortex".

Thor gets a bit big for his boots for someone who has basically spent the issue getting kicked around by a doll and pronounces "The evil one shall never reach the future for he is now beyond all time and beyond all place". True enough, well until Avengers 69 anyway.

Comments: The Growing Man is one of Kang's most potent weapons turning up again in Avengers 69 and 268 and more recently Thunderbolts 5. It obviously works best against a hero not schooled in Avengers history but it showed here that it could give Thor a run for his money.

As far as the ongoing Kang/Thor fight goes, this round went to Kang. Thor would certainly get his own back in Avengers 143.

Although this may seem like a rather minor Kang appearance it actually is noteworthy in two respects. Firstly, Kang isn't interested in the Avengers here; instead, he is plotting and preparing to face another foe whom according to him is searching for his hidden weapons. I suppose this could refer to a later Avengers story but it could also be the first sign (albeit unintentional) that Kang had other things on his plate other than his vendetta with our heroes.

Secondly, it was the last time that Kang's creators worked on the character. There was a Kang robot in 2 panels of Fantastic Four 100 and Kirby may have drawn him on a cover somewhere after this but as far as Lee/Kirby Kang appearances go this is the last one. Kirby draws a great Kang here, Colleta really messed up some of the Don Blake faces in this issue but he turns in some reasonable work on Kang. There is a panel of Kang with the Growing Man in one hand and a huge Kirbytech pistol in the other that is as menacing a Kang as any artist ever managed.

It’s not a bad issue of Thor either, Kang cleans his clock but there is some interesting Don Blake and Asgard stuff in there.