Ant-Man 3 Post-Credits Tease Doctor Doom (& Who Could Play Him) In Loki Season 2

This article contains spoilers for "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"

The post-credits scenes in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" slap us with a whole bunch of Kangs (Jonathan Majors, the lot of them), including some of the time-hopping villain's best-known alter egos. While the blue-lit helm and questionable fashion sense of the Kang Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and his extended family meet in the Quantum Realm makes him look like the classic version, the Kang congregation in the first stinger features the Marvel Cinematic Universe versions of Rama-Tut, Immortus, and many, many, many others. 

However, we're more interested in the second post-credits scene, in which we see Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) watching a turn-of-the-20th century scientist bumbling his way through a presentation. Though Mobius is rightly skeptical about the trickster god's claims that the nerd on the stage is extremely dangerous, the fact that multi-Kang man Majors plays the science guy is a fairly good hint that there's more than meets the eye, here. 

Another excellent clue on the true identity of the character — or, rather, this particular variant of the character — is his name, Victor Timely. In the comics, The Timely family line is actually a multi-generational identity that the slowly aging first Kang, "Kang Prime," uses for a long con. While this is plenty exciting on its own, it just so happens that Kang Prime (and thus Victor Timely) also has plenty of connections to another iconic Marvel villain: Doctor Doom himself. Here's why the emergence of Mr. Timely suggests that we may see Doom much earlier than we expected ... and that we may even know who'll play him.

Kang Prime first meets Doctor Doom in the comics when the latter rescues him after a particularly resounding defeat. True to his nature, Kang manages to immediately muddy the waters by claiming to be Doom's future self, but possibly actually being his far-future descendant. Look, it's Kang. Things are always extra complicated with the guy.

The Doom-Kang connection is clearly there, then — but the thing that makes us suspect Doom might turn up pretty soon is that Timely will apparently be a big part of "Loki" Season 2. This is a show that loves subverting expectations. The first season's time jaunts lead viewers to believe that the TVU and the Time-Keepers are up to no good, only to reveal at the last minute that the Time-Keepers are nothing but smoke and mirrors, and the whole operation is orchestrated by a Kang variant called He Who Remains (Majors again) in an attempt to keep the other Kangs in check.  

Since "Loki" Season 2 clearly intends to begin with an exceptionally crafty Kang variant as the baddie, it must be hiding a pretty serious player if it wants to give us a last-minute twist. Doctor Doom is pretty much the only name that can pull that off, as Marvel Comics have long established that Kang tends to be the baddest dude in the room — but only until Doom walks in. Combine Doom's established ability to upstage Kang, his established history with Kang Prime, and "Loki's" established tendency to casually introduce huge concepts and characters in the MCU, and the odds for Doom's MCU debut in the sophomore season of the show suddenly don't seem all that bad. 

Assuming we'll indeed see Victor von Doom in "Loki" Season 2, how have we not heard anything solid about who might play one of Marvel's most important villains? Perhaps it's because Kevin Feige already has his man. With all the Kang variants he's playing, the MCU is getting a lot of Jonathan Majors bang for their buck. The guy has some serious range, and it may not be entirely coincidental that his bombastic, yet subtle performance in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" plays out a lot like Doctor Doom might behave during one of his universal conqueror phases. 

So, why not add another big-name role in Majors' supervillain résumé, and let him play Doctor Doom as well? After all, there's an implied familial relationship between Kang and Doom — and, for that matter, making Doom a particularly ruthless Kang variant wouldn't be a particularly huge leap for the MCU, either. 

Introducing Doom in some small capacity in "Loki" Season 2 would have numerous benefits for the character. The MCU isn't particularly fond of retreading well-known origin stories (See: Spider-Man), and since we've already seen Doom's Fantastic Four-flavored origin multiple times, introducing him as a Kang-affiliated character would allow the Feigeverse to skip all that old hat. This approach would also allow Doom plenty of room to breathe and grow as a character, instead of just throwing him in the mix whenever they get around making that MCU "Fantastic Four" film. 

Victor von Doom doesn't just need to be big when he arrives in the MCU. He needs to be bigger than Thanos (Josh Brolin) and Kang combined. For that, he needs to have a suitable introduction, preferably over multiple projects ... and we have a feeling that Doom would approve making his debut in "Loki," the show that introduced the Multiverse in the MCU.