In February 2023, the actor Jonathan Majors will emerge as a central villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Following up on his episode-stealing debut as He Who Remains in the “Loki” series last year, Majors will reappear as a far more inimical version of that multifarious Marvel character, the time-traveling antagonist Kang the Conqueror, in the movie “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Shooting the film is what took his life to London. “It’s become a cliché over the decades to compare somebody to a young Marlon Brando, but Jonathan has that,” Peyton Reed, the “Ant-Man” director, told me. “He has just this energy and this presence, and our movie is definitely benefiting from that.” The role is no one-off. Kang will influence what happens in what Marvel refers to as “Phase 5” and “Phase 6” of its ever-expanding roster of superhero movies and series; the fifth film in the Avengers franchise, for example, is currently scheduled for release in 2025 with the title “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.” Photograph by @ryanpfluger