Kang the Conqueror is one of the most formidable figures in Marvel Comics' stable of supervillains. He's also one of the most complicated to explain, but I'll try my best to untangle his history (and future) here: He was once an academic named Nathaniel Richards, who hailed from the distant future. With a deep obsession with the past, Richards' studies led to him stumbling on Doctor Doom's time machine, which he uses to explore various periods in history, each time resulting in a different version of himself. Among those versions are the Pharaoh Rama-Tut and the Scarlet Centurion, as well as his most famous form, Kang.

The character has been around since the 1960s, has taken on the Fantastic Four and the Avengers on countless occasions across space and time, and continues to make life difficult for our heroes. His passion for time has set him on an eternal...