Ms. Marvel is the first Muslim heroine in the Cinematic Universe. Her TV show now streams on Disney Plus and is a gateway to The Marvels!
Ms. Marvel was one of the TV shows I was looking forward to on Disney Plus. The character hasn’t existed as long as many of the others in the Marvel Universe.
Characters like Daredevil, The Punisher, Wanda the Scarlett Witch have an established and rich history and you can write a lot of stories using their comicbooks. But with Ms. Marvel / Kamala Khan, she has only existed for nine years.
Ms. Marvel’s TV show on Disney Plus
Ms Marvel is a television series developed by Marvel and is streaming on Disney Plus. The show consists of six episodes and is part of Marvel’s Phase 4. The tv show serves as a set up for the upcoming movie The Marvels, which is scheduled to be released in 2023.
The TV show follows Kamala Khan, a high school student, who is a big fan of The Avengers and Captain Marvel. After she sneaks out to AvengersCon, where she cosplays as Captain Marvel, the wristband she wears to complete her get-up starts lighting up and Kamala is able to make Hard Light Constructs.
The wristband activating draws the attention of Damage Control, which should really have its’ own TV show and Clandestine. A clandestine Clan that claims ownership of the wristband.
Along with her high school friends and newfound friends from the Red Dagger, Kamala fights Clandestine while being chased by Damage Control. And while she does that, she also learns how to control her powers more and more as she receives training by her best friend Bruno.
The show premiered on June 8 and consists of 6 episodes. The finale aired on July 13, 2022.
The first Muslim heroine
Ms Marvel made her first appearance in 2013 in Captain Marvel issue #14. She was created by editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker, writer G. Willow Wilson, and artists Adrian Alphona and Jamie McKelvie. Shortly after her debut, Ms Marvel was given her own comicbook in 2014.
Marvel wanted a muslim heroine and they ordered their creative team to create one. The creative team had carte blanche to create Kamala. Amanat said the following about the creation of Ms Marvel:
“I was telling him Stephen Wacker some crazy anecdote about my childhood, growing up as a Muslim American. He found it hilarious”. The pair then told Wilson about the concept and Wilson became eager to jump aboard the project. Amanat said that the series came from a “desire to explore the Muslim-American diaspora from an authentic perspective”
Since they had carte blanche in creating the character, they first wanted Kamala to be from Michigan. But since most Marvel Heroes have their origins in New York, they opted for New Jersey, which most people consider an extension of New York and call it the sixth burrough.
“A huge aspect of Ms. Marvel is being a ‘second string hero’ in the ‘second string city’ and having to struggle out of the pathos and emotion that can give a person”, explains G. Wilson.
The idea for Kamala Khan is not to get new muslim converts. Instead the comic focusses on having to deal with religious duties and what it means to be a muslim in the modern world. “This is not evangelism. It was really important for me to portray Kamala as someone who is struggling with her faith”, Wilson said.
“Her brother is extremely conservative, her mom is paranoid that she’s going to touch a boy and get pregnant, and her father wants her to concentrate on her studies and become a doctor”, said Amanat.
All the struggles that she undergoes only means that she is human.
Being a huge fan of Captain Marvel, Kamala calls herself Ms Marvel as a tribute to her hero.
Ms. Marvel Muslim controversy
Although a lot of fans, one of them being me, can only applaud Marvel’s next step in diversity and inclusion. The decision to let a Muslim heroine into the world of comics was not well received by everyone.
On a lot of comicbook forums, many people criticized Ms. Marvel for being too much on the nose when they saw her and her family pray in a Mosque for instance or when Islamic norms and values were brought into play. To them, I can only say the following. Read this:
The Founding Father of the Marvel Universe’s words still ring true today and it should not be forgotten that Marvel has always taken on controversial topics. Ranging from the first black superhero, The Black Panther.
The saga of Harry Osborne’s drug addiction, which banned the company from The Comic Code. Inclusion and diversity are the backbone of the Marvel Universe and Ms Marvel forms no exception.
As far as having a religion being presented on the nose goes, we have had numerous comics where we saw churches in the comics and our comicbook heroes pray at altars or ask for advice from a Pastor.
Daredevil’s life revolves around Christianity. Cloak and Dagger often ask for advice from Father Delgado. It never bothered me because it was a part of the character’s identity. Not necessarily mine. I think a lot of viewers and comicbook readers don’t see it that way.
The first mutant of the MCU
A significant difference with the TV show is the origin of Kamala’s powers. In the comics, her powers come from Terrigen Mists. After a night where she is grounded she sneaks out any way to a school party she inhales the Terrigen Mists and gains powers.
Terrigen Mists are from the Inhumans and it was featured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Agents of Shield and the TV show The Inhumans. Before it was decided that she would gain her powers from the Mists, the creators first opted for Kamala to be a mutant.
However, in the TV show, Kamala gains her powers from a magical wristband but at the end of the show, it was revealed that Kamala had a rare mutation in her blood.
The first mutant in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been revealed. So the concept of Ms. Marvel being a mutant has now been transferred to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Which is a brilliant move.
Kevin Feige mentioned that mutants would slowly be integrated into the Universe introducing them one by one. I am not sure if we should count the appearance of Professor Xavier in the alternate universe in Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter Ms Marvel head writer Bisha K. Ali noted the following about Kamala being a mutant:
“What was really important for us and this character’s journey was that this is inherited, and it’s about this matrilineal line both character-wise and power-wise,” Ali said. “And the thing was, but why doesn’t her mother have it? If her mother put on the bangle, would she also be unlocked? If her grandmother put on the bangle, would she also be unlocked? And this solution of, ‘You have a mutation and that’s why you’re the one even within your own family,’ answered that piece.”
Ali continued, “At the beginning, certainly there were whisperings in the writers’ room of like, ‘Man, what if we got to do that? Because it would solve our problem.’ But it seemed so beyond the realm of our reality, even as a bunch of nerds sitting in Marvel’s headquarters,” she said. “[But] I was like, ‘Guys, we’re already a bunch of Pakistanis in one room on the Disney lot — nothing’s impossible.’ And then far down the line, Sana [Amanat] brought it up again, and Sana took it to Kevin [Feige], and Kevin was like, ‘Yeah, OK. That sounds good.‘”
I can only applaud the decision to make Ms. Marvel a mutant. Marvel fans, like myself, have been dying to see the first mutants appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And when I read about Kevin Feige’s plan to introduce them one by one, I was very happy. The fact that they picked Ms. Marvel is bold and I hope it can expand. Marvel has bought Fox and their rights to the X-men so their database of mutants is vast and you don’t necessarily have to start with the classic team created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee or the teams and mutants introduced by the great Chris Claremont. This means we could see the Power Pack next to Kamala or some of The New Mutants. It just opens up a whole wide range of possibilities that my mind at the moment can’t even fathom.
The Marvels
The last scene of Ms. Marvel has Kamala thrown into a closet and Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel come out and then we see the text: Ms Marvel will return in the Marvels 2023.
The Marvels is a new movie that features all of the characters whose names once had Marvel in them. Monica Rambeau (Wandavision and Agent of S.W.O.R.D.) was once Captain Marvel and changed her name to Photon. Carol Danvers is the current Captain Marvel. And of course, Kamala Khan, who is Ms. Marvel.
The Marvels is the sequel to Captain Marvel (2019) and the Ms. Marvel tv show. And we have Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury to complete the team.
Not much is known about the movie at the moment but we can say that there will be Skrulls who were introduced in the Captain Marvel movie. We will have Hard Light and the Noor Dimension. And Photon whose abilities are still kept under wraps besides the stuff we saw on Wandavision.
