MCU Fans Have A Major Problem With Ant-Man 3's Kill Count (Or Lack Thereof)
Contains spoilers for "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania."
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" was supposed to drum up excitement for Phase 5, but it may have crushed some MCU fans' excitement for what's to come. The critical response to the movie has been middling at best, with many reviewers noting that it lacks the cohesion and focus of the first two movies. That said, the response to Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) has been very positive, even though some fans would have liked to have seen him make more of a deadly impact in "Ant-Man 3."
The sequel does feature a high body count, but there's an argument to be made that "Ant-Man 3" kills off the wrong characters. None of the significant characters get sent to the cemetery gates, resulting in a story that lacks any real stakes in the eyes of some fans. Furthermore, a few MCU aficionados have noted that some "Ant-Man 3" characters are disposable, and this movie would have been a perfect opportunity to show that. With that in mind, let's find out what the aggrieved fans have to say about the lack of impactful deaths in "Ant-Man 3."
Kang should have conquered
While Kang the Conqueror has been praised as a great addition to the MCU, some fans have a problem with him taking L's in "Ant-Man 3." On top of that, they feel that he should have offed some major characters in order to be taken seriously. "[Michael] Douglas is so over it, why not have him, Janet, and Hope die in this? They are clearly running out of things for these characters to do and that would've been a good out for them while also establishing how Kang is not to be f***ed with," u/newgodpho wrote.
Elsewhere, a Redditor by the name of u/miserable4ever pitched the idea of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) falling prey to Kang but having Hope (Evangeline Lily) and Cassie (Kathryn Newton) narrowingly escape the villain to fight another day. Now that everyone has survived, Kang looks weak. "It just makes less sense to say he's beaten all these Avengers just to lose to ants in the end."
However, some fans have no issue with characters surviving per se, but they do have a problem with the way in which Kang was defeated in the "Ant-Man" sequel. As u/N0_B1g_De4l noted, the heroes won in a decisive fashion and crushed Kang's momentum. "I would've been fine with everybody living if the Kang they were fighting got loose, but having the resolution of the plot be "we defeated a villain no one knew was there without any loses" is not very satisfying."