Kang Fact — November 5, 2026

Today's Fact

Between the pharaoh and the Conqueror sits a red-armoured identity most timelines would rather forget.

BEFORE HE WAS KANG, HE WAS THE SCARLET CENTURION — AND HE TALKED THE AVENGERS INTO IMPRISONING EVERY SUPERHUMAN ON EARTH!

The Featured Fact

Nathaniel Richards has worn more names than most villains have worn costumes. After his reign as the pharaoh Rama-Tut ended, his trip back toward the future overshot its mark and stranded him in the twentieth century, where he rebuilt himself in crimson armour as the Scarlet Centurion, an identity that sits between Rama-Tut and Kang the Conqueror in his personal timeline.

Rather than fight the Avengers head-on, the Centurion sold them a bargain. As laid out in Avengers Annual Vol. 1 #2 (1968), he promised a world cured of famine, plague and war if the original team first corrected a supposed cosmic imbalance by capturing and imprisoning every other super-powered being on the planet. The heroes complied, emptied the world of its defenders, and handed a conqueror an unguarded Earth.

The scheme collapsed only when a later Avengers roster blundered into the altered timeline and fought their own predecessors free of the Centurion's influence. The Watcher then wiped the encounter from memory on both sides, which is why Kang's famous first clash with the team in Avengers Vol. 1 #8 plays as though the two parties had never met before.

Why It's Obscure

A whole conquest, filed under a name he stopped using.

The layover

Wrong century, new armour — a botched trip home from ancient Egypt leaves Rama-Tut in the modern era, and the Scarlet Centurion is the disguise he builds for the stopover.

1968

The sales pitch — Avengers Annual #2 has the Centurion offer utopia at a price: the Avengers themselves must round up every superhuman alive.

The empty planet

Total compliance — the original team captures heroes and villains alike and bans the atomic tests that might create replacements.

The cover-up

Nobody remembers — the Watcher erases the adventure from the minds of everyone involved, burying the Centurion chapter for years of continuity.

Gallery

The forgotten middle identity: the Scarlet Centurion in his red armour, in close-up, and Kang as the Avengers usually meet him.

The Scarlet Centurion in red armour standing over Kang on a battlefield — **The man in red**The Scarlet Centurion in full crimson armour, energy lance in hand, looming over a seated Kang — the middle identity drawn at full conqueror scale.

Close-up of the Scarlet Centurion's helmeted face gripping his lance — **The face under the cowl**A close look at the Centurion's red helmet and glare, the look Rama-Tut wore while he talked the Avengers into doing his conquering for him.

Kang the Conqueror towering over Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, the Wasp and Thor — **The finished product**Kang as the Avengers know him best, giant-sized above Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, the Wasp and Thor — the conqueror the Centurion grew into.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

CBR — How Doctor Doom Inspired Kang to Create Another Variant Identity Traces the Rama-Tut to Scarlet Centurion to Kang sequence and the Avengers Annual #2 plot.
Marvel Appendix — Scarlet Centurion profile The Unofficial Handbook's entry on the Centurion, his first appearance and his manipulation of the Avengers.
Avengers Annual Vol. 1 #2 (1968) The primary source: Roy Thomas's story of the altered timeline where the original Avengers imprisoned every superhuman for their crimson master.