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In Kang the Conqueror #5, the journey of the MCU villain comes full circle, revealing the one battle the Avengers nemesis can never overcome.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Kang the Conqueror #5, available now from Marvel Comics.
The past months have seen the latest iteration of Nathaniel Richards grow from a bright-eyed young adventurer into the very embodiment of everything he swore to destroy. Now standing as the emperor of a vast kingdom yet with nothing left to lose, this early version of Kang the Conqueror has moved onto what would be the greatest undertaking of any of his lives. Unfortunately, even rewriting destiny in his favor has ended in tragedy, and Kang the Conqueror #5 (by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Carlos Magno, Espen Grundetjern, and VC’s Joe Carmagna) reveals that the one battlefield he will never conquer is one of his own creation.
Nathaniel Richards has battled against several versions of himself across as many eras only to eventually end up taking on the mantle he had spent so much time working to destroy. Even worse, doing so has cost him the love of the woman he has met at every leg of his journey, Ravonna. After everything he has been through, Kang found the means to reshape time itself, weaving the essence of his beloved through every age in a bid to give them infinite chances to be together. As it turns out, this only leads to Ravonna emerging as the Terminatrix and destroying his Chronopolis. This unfortunate event sends Kang hurtling back through time to begin the whole tragic cycle anew.
In issue #5, the titular time traveler ends up right back where the story began. This time, however, he is the one extending a hand to his younger self in hopes of helping the next Kang avoid all of his mistakes. Unfortunately, fate is a mistress who cannot easily be denied, and once again the villain’s unrelenting cruelty leads to the young Nathaniel Richards fleeing with his elder self’s armor. This time, however, Kang escapes the fiery fate his younger self left him to face, finally understanding everything the variant before him had tried to impart.
“Never ever love,” was the one lesson which had been drilled into Nathaniel’s head above all others. As important as it was to Kang that his prior self understand that edict, the various versions of the woman he loved were always worth the risk, at least until the cycle was completed. Now that he has seen where his story actually ends and what truly brought the Kang he had known into his life all those years ago, the full weight of those words has finally come into focus. It was never that Kang wanted to scare Nathaniel away from the pain and loss that would follow falling in love, but rather spare himself the endless cycle of torment that every Nathaniel Richards was destined to suffer.
Nathaniel Richards may not have been able to free himself from the endless loop of torment that his infinite lives have become, but he has come to understand those circumstances like never before. Even if that alone isn’t enough to help him change his past, there is no reason that it couldn’t transform his future into something better than what he has known.
Although it is difficult to imagine Kang the Conqueror ever moving past all the trauma he has brought upon himself, perhaps the experience will help him avoid doing more damage to himself in the future.
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