Kang The Conquerer is The Evil Version of Marvel’s Watcher

Warning: contains spoilers for Timeless #1!

Marvel’s Kang the Conquerer is one of the most ruthless and ambitions villains in all of Marvel Comics, but now the company has revealed that the character is not only a villain, but an evil version of Marvel’s all-powerful hero the Watcher. The Conquerer has taken multiple variant forms throughout his life: Rama-Tut, the Scarlet Centurion, Kang the Conglomerator, and many more. But in Timeless #1, Kang is able to achieve something that is most famously associated with the Watcher: view everything that ever was or ever will be.

Kang is slowly appearing in more and more comics, in anticipation of his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s been revealed as the villain of Avengers: Mech Strike, has his own limited 2021 series, and is now the star of Timeless, another series that paints Kang as, if not the hero, then certainly an antihero. Kang attacks a professor who is destined to become a famous author thanks to his praise of Doctor Doom as the world’s greatest villain, not Kang; this causes the Conquerer to bring the Professor along on a journey to prove that none surpass Kang.

A catastrophic timequake alerts Kang to danger within the timestream, and he travels to his fortress along with the Professor. There, Kang and his minions look overhead at dozens, if not hundreds, of timelines in the Marvel Universe. Kang witnesses such sights as Taskmaster claiming the title of Captain America, Spider-Man’s daughter taking his superhero identity, Bucky Barnes attacking a defeated Steve Rogers, an entirely new team of Avengers, and more. From his vantage point, Kang can see all timelines at once…just like Uatu the Watcher.

The Watcher has the ability to see the entire universe and chronicle the history of important events, but Uatu has sworn an oath to never interfere in the goings-on of so-called “lesser” beings. Kang, on the other hand, practically revels in interfering with these events; he even opens the issue by changing the Professor’s history simply because he ranked Doctor Doom above himself in terms of villainy. Kang essentially has the Watcher’s place in the universe, but none of his morals or restraint.

There is a chance the Watcher is seeing the events of Timeless play out and recognizes the danger Kang poses to the universe – and to himself. The power Kang holds allows him to jump into any timeline he wishes and wreak havoc, simply to elevate himself above all others. As a Watcher, Kang fails miserably, but then again, he’s never sworn an oath.