Scrapped Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Gag Sounds Like One Of The Funniest Scenes In MCU History

When the book is finally written on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or, at least, an even more comprehensive version compared to the previous MCU textbook), several chapters will need to be devoted to all the concepts and characters and storylines that ended up discarded along the way. That's hardly anything new in an era dominated by blockbuster franchises and IP-obsessed studios, of course. But, had things played out differently, the MCU could've taken a wild turn.

Take the initial plans for "Avengers: The Kang Dynasty," for instance. By now, even my parents know about the behind-the-scenes legal issues regarding actor Jonathan Majors and his abrupt fall from grace — and, on a far less important note, how this derailed much of what the MCU was building towards in the aftermath of "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Endgame." Kang the Conqueror had once been positioned as the saga's next big bad after Thanos, but a grossly underperforming soft-launch in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," combined with Majors being convicted on two counts of assault and harassment, sealed the character's live-action fate.

Now, however, we're learning new details about "The Kang Dynasty" straight from one of its original writers. While promoting his new series "Chad Powers," Michael Waldron participated in a Reddit AMA where he revealed one hilarious sequence involving what sounds like a killer gag:

"Jeff Loveness and I spent an afternoon pitching on the Young Avengers defeating a version of Kang and being so stoked about it ... only to discover that that particular Kang carried a little card that said to Be Patient with him, it was his first day as a Kang. And then they were so bummed. I think he was gonna be the lizard Kang from the end of ['Quantumania']? I don't know. Anyway we had fun."

Are the Marvel snipers sleeping on the job? If it seems like we've been experiencing a deluge of surprising reveals surrounding the normally tight-lipped series of movies and shows, well, that's because we are. We can already make a few educated guesses as to what "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Avengers: Secret Wars" will be attempting to pull off, courtesy of some leaked concept art. On the Kang front, Hawkeye star Jeremy Renner recently confirmed that the studio had "big plans" for the supervillain. Now, even Michael Waldron (who is now credited as a co-writer on "Doomsday") is spilling the beans on what sounds like one of the funniest moments we could've ever seen in the MCU.

So, what to make of this sequence? As comic readers know, the Young Avengers have had more than a few brushes with Kang in the pages of Marvel Comics, so this would've been a fun (if irreverent) nod to the source material. The idea of pulling the rug out from under these fan-favorite heroes in their moment of triumph — and with something as silly as a "Be Patient With Me" card gag, no less — sounds like exactly the kind of humor we'd expect from a writer/producer on "Rick and Morty." And Waldron's recollection that this might've had to do with the Lizard Kang variant, teased with the rest of the Council of Kangs in the post-credits scene of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," only makes this feel all the more absurd.

We'll never know exactly how "The Kang Dynasty" would've unfolded, but we're certainly enjoying these glimpses into one of the biggest what-if scenarios in all of the MCU.