Kang Dynasty leak: did Marvel plan an anchor beings story?

A reported plot leak claims to show what Marvel Studios was planning for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars when Kang was meant to be the main villain. According to the leak, The Kang Dynasty was going to be a smaller multiversal story built around anchor beings rather than the current Avengers. I like what they were going to do, and it makes me sad that it isn't what we're going to see.

Kang is officially out of the MCU, and I know many fans wanted to see where Marvel was going with him. I was one of those people, and I still am. I was excited that Robert Downey Jr. was returning to play Doctor Doom, but I was also excited for Kang.

Where the Kang Dynasty plot leak came from

One website said it had this plot as an exclusive, but I've also seen insiders posting it on Twitter, so I'm not sure who originally put it out. A few websites and a few different insiders are all posting the same plot for what The Kang Dynasty was supposed to be.

We'll never really know if it's accurate, because I don't think Marvel Studios will ever confirm it. It's also worth remembering that this is what the movie was supposed to be. It's obviously not this anymore.

The Kang Dynasty leak didn't focus on the MCU's current Avengers

What's interesting about this leak is that it doesn't involve our immediate Avengers team in the MCU. That makes sense, because at this point we don't have one. We have people who could be part of an Avengers team, but they aren't assembled.

Captain America is alone, though maybe the Hulk will join him in his movie. Spider-Man is an Avenger, but nobody knows who Peter Parker is. Doctor Strange is seemingly in a different realm, and Thor is off planet. None of that matters for this leak, because the team it describes isn't the one Marvel was going to focus on.

The TVA reportedly gathered anchor beings to fight the Council of Kangs

According to the leak, The Kang Dynasty opens with the TVA gathering anchor beings from across the multiverse. The concept comes from Deadpool & Wolverine. An anchor being is an incredibly important and, I'm assuming, powerful being. If that being dies, its whole universe begins to die. It takes a couple of thousand years, but ultimately that universe dies.

The leak says the TVA believed the anchor beings were the only ones powerful enough to defeat the Council of Kangs. That checks out to me. If the anchor beings are that important and powerful, it would make sense to gather the best of them from across the multiverse for this fight.

This also lines up with an older plot leak for Deadpool & Wolverine, which said the TVA was grabbing heroes from other universes and bringing them all into one spot. Originally, we thought they were saving the most powerful people from universes that were being destroyed. That's essentially what this leak says too. The multiverse is being threatened by the Council of Kangs, so the TVA gathers these powerful anchor beings to fight them.

Tom Holland's Spider-Man as the anchor for Earth 616

The leak states that Tobey Maguire's and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Men were the anchors for their realities, while Tom Holland's Spider-Man served as the anchor for Earth 616. This isn't confirmed, but many insiders have hinted that Spider-Man is indeed the anchor for our Earth 616 universe.

When Deadpool & Wolverine first came out, everybody online said Tony Stark's Iron Man had to be the anchor for our universe, and a bunch of insiders said no. Then some people guessed Doctor Strange, and after that the insiders started hinting at Spider-Man.

He's probably the most popular character in the MCU, though that's debatable. Out of all the characters who could be the anchor being, he's high on the list of who it probably is. Add the insider hints, and I'm assuming that's what Marvel is going with.

Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider was reportedly among the anchors

According to the leak, the movie was intended to be smaller in scope than Avengers: Secret Wars. It would focus on Holland's Peter Parker, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and other anchors like Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider.

Ryan Reynolds himself confirmed that Nicolas Cage almost returned as Ghost Rider in Deadpool & Wolverine. When Collider asked him about it, Reynolds said they had a conversation about it but nothing came of it. Perhaps that's because Marvel originally wanted to use Cage for The Kang Dynasty. Who knows, but the plot details reportedly have him appearing as an anchor being, and that checks out with him almost returning in Deadpool & Wolverine.

So the details make it appear the plan for The Kang Dynasty wasn't to focus on our Earth 616 Avengers, but on multiversal anchor beings. Apparently that was going to change for Secret Wars.

The leak says the anchors fail and Kang creates Battleworld for Secret Wars

The leak concludes that the plan was for all of the anchor beings in The Kang Dynasty to ultimately fail. That would lead to the collapse of the multiverse and Kang's creation of Battleworld. This would set the stage for Secret Wars, where other MCU characters and additional multiverse figures would converge on Battleworld.

What's interesting is that the end result is almost the same. Take away Kang, take away Doom, and put a faceless multiversal villain there, and the outcome doesn't change. The multiverse gets destroyed, Battleworld is created, and heroes from different universes end up there to face the main villain.

At the end, we assume Reed Richards and his son Franklin Richards, and maybe Doctor Strange or the Scarlet Witch, whoever it may be and however it happens, help the Avengers and the Fantastic Four restore the multiverse in some way. So the outcome stays the same despite the main villain switching from Kang to Doom.

Stephen McFeely and a rewritten Avengers: Doomsday

What apparently changes a lot is Avengers 5, which was supposed to be The Kang Dynasty and became Avengers: Doomsday. From what we heard, the story completely changed. With everything that happened with Jonathan Majors and Kang being out, they completely rewrote the script, and we heard the writer for Avengers 5 changed too.

It sounded like Stephen McFeely would take over. He wrote the movies the Russo Brothers directed, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, working with Christopher Markus. He also wrote Captain America: The First Avenger, which the Russos didn't direct. According to the press release AGBO, the Russo Brothers' company, put out after their return to Marvel was announced, McFeely was set to write both Doomsday and Secret Wars.

So the script we now know was for The Kang Dynasty is gone. Kang's out and Doom is in. I'm pretty sure they would keep the anchor beings, since they had just been introduced in Deadpool & Wolverine, but I'm sure things would be switched up for Doomsday. I do like the idea of each universe's anchor beings being very important characters for Doomsday or eventually Secret Wars.

Avengers: Doomsday would need to assemble a new team

Since we didn't have an Avengers team, it looked like Marvel Studios would have to assemble one somehow before the film. It was said once upon a time that Captain America: Brave New World would set up a new Avengers team, and at the time we had to wait and see on that.

If not in Captain America, I don't think there was another project they could do it with. In that case, they'd have to establish the new Avengers team very early in Avengers: Doomsday and get them interacting with the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom early on too, because it had been confirmed that the Fantastic Four would be in both Doomsday and Secret Wars.

Why I liked Marvel's original Kang plan

I think Kang was a great villain. I think the plan they had with the multiverse, the Council of Kangs and He Who Remains was pretty good. I just feel like Marvel should have dived into it a lot sooner. If they had, it would have been a lot harder to abandon the storyline, which is essentially what they're doing.

Some of it stays the same for Secret Wars and the ending of Avengers 5, but without the Council of Kangs threatening the multiverse, that story has to change. They might adapt the story from the comics where Doctor Doom accidentally causes the first incursion with Molecule Man. Big changes have been made, and while I'm excited for Doom, this old version of The Kang Dynasty is one I would have liked to see.