In the past month or so, some big news has shaken the Marvel fanbase. Jonathan Majors, the actor best known to all of us for playing Kang the Conqueror in the MCU, was arrested in New York City and is now facing charges relating to an alleged domestic violence incident. While our coverage will focus on the impact on Majors’ career and the MCU, we want to emphasize that the most important person to keep in our thoughts is the alleged victim. Let’s get started.
On March 25, the news shook the internet when it was announced that Majors had been arrested. The alleged victim was mentioned to be Majors’ girlfriend, who claimed he struck her while in a heated argument. Originally, it seemed the victim had recanted her statement, according to Majors’ lawyer, who also claimed to have evidence of his innocence. It didn’t take long before others from the industry also shared stories of Majors’ aggressive behavior. On top of this, two weeks ago, Majors was dropped by his management and PR team, was pulled from several ads he had been a part of, and was dropped or cut out of several other projects he was in. Most recently, the alleged victim has been granted a temporary Order of Protection as Majors awaits his court day, still scheduled for sometime in May.
The bigger effects of the arrest and charges are clearly already coming to fruition, as Majors, who was having a really good first 2.5 months of 2023, has completely tarnished his public image. Someone who always came across as a calm presence in public has now been accused to be quite the opposite. In the long run, if proven innocent, Majors will still likely have quite the fight to restore his previous reputation. Not to mention, it typically doesn’t bode well for someone to be dropped by projects and their own team when their career is just beginning to really take off. We’ll all have to wait and see as the case makes its way through the judicial system to truly see the long-term impacts on Majors and his career.
As a podcast devoted to Marvel, the last thing to discuss is his future in the MCU. Originally when we covered this news, we had only known of the arrest and allegations. However, the events of the past weeks have only provided more information for us to take into account. At this point, with other people in the industry making the call to move away from Majors, I think Marvel would benefit from doing so as well. While he is innocent until proven guilty, I mentioned earlier how it will take quite a bit of time to earn back his public image, even if the ruling is in his favor. I think for Marvel’s best interest, it’s best to recast him. At the moment, Marvel remains one of the few industry players that have not yet made a call on Majors.
If they were to go through recasts, a lot of fans have been calling for John Boyega to take up the role. I would fully support this recast, and it would be interesting to see his take on the character. While Marvel did paint all the Kangs as looking like one Kang (rather than going the Spider-Man or Loki route with variants), complete recasts have happened in the past, like in the cases of Rhodey and Cassie Lang, so it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.
Obviously, this situation is extremely serious, and our thoughts are with the alleged victim. Domestic violence is something we are passionately against, so we want to remind anyone that if you or someone you know is in a domestic violence situation, please refer to the below sources for help:
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