Marvel‘s new phases just keep getting bigger and better. The main antagonist of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ and the following major MCU antagonist, Kang the Conqueror, is ready to make a massive splash in the MCU.
However, as seen in ‘Loki,’ a Disney Plus original series, Kang will also introduce his own variants—alternate identities drawn from the Multiverse and the timestream—to the equation. So who, exactly Iron Lad is? Does he have anything to do with Downey’s Iron Man? Read on to find out.
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Who Is Iron Lad?
Despite the resemblance of their names, Iron Lad has nothing to do with Stark’s Iron Man. Except for an iron suit, and an urge to save the world. A 16-year-old robotics student named Nathaniel Richards was saved from a potentially fatal scenario by his time-traveling tyrant future self Kang The Conqueror in the year 3016 on the technologically superior other Earth known as Other-Earth.
Kang provided his younger self with a set of psychokinetic armor that reacted to his thoughts and showed him a peek at his future as a conqueror in an effort to change a particularly traumatic time in his life. Young Nathaniel rejected Kang’s aid and used the armor to flee and hide on the present-day Earth (616 reality), horrified at the murder and damage his future self had caused.
He hoped to locate the Avengers so they could assist him in taking down Kang. This alter-ego of Knag the Conqueror later became a part of the Young Avengers and came to be known as Iron Lad.
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What Happened To Iron Lad Later?
Kang eventually travels to the past in search of Nathaniel in order to put his younger self back in the appropriate timestream. Nathaniel won’t go back since he doesn’t want to become the notorious future villain. The Young Avengers face up against Kang’s robot, the Growing Man, and prevail.
Kang engages in combat with the surviving Avengers and the young heroes appear to be winning. Until Iron Lad stabs Kang in the chest with Hawkeye’s sword. Kang is killed, but significant timeline modifications result from this, including the deaths of all the Avengers. Iron Lad understands that returning to his own time and taking on the role of Kang is the only way to fix things.
He realizes that he will also forget his prior life as a Young Avenger as a result of doing this. He asks his colleagues to forgive him for the misdeeds he’ll do in the future before traveling back in time. Nathaniel leaves behind his armor, which triggers the operational software of the Vision. Thereby resurrecting the armor into a sentient being—a novice “young” Vision,
Will Iron Lad Appear In The MCU?
A Kang variant may soon make a debut in the MCU. The universe can contain younger versions of a character, such as Loki and Kid Loki, as we see in the Disney Plus series ‘Loki’. Iron Lad may be one of the innumerable Kang versions that have been released into the multiverse. He may work in a number of forthcoming Marvel Studios movies if this is the case.
With new characters being introduced in the MCU, there will probably be a Young Avengers movie or TV show in the future. Richards will undoubtedly appear in a Young Avengers movie because Iron Lad was an essential part of the original team.
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