“Ms. Marvel” Who is Kamala Khan?: The Muslim heroine who will be key to the future of the MCU

Less than two weeks before the premiere of “Moon Knight”, Marvel has already released a preview of the next superhero series on the Disney + calendar and it is one of the most requested by fans. “Ms Marvel”, to be released on June 5, will be the introduction of Kamala Khan to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU for its acronym in English), one of the most popular characters of the comic book giant in recent years and perhaps its most emblematic in Regarding his efforts to diversify his catalog of superheroes, a request that is now repeated regarding his lucrative movie saga.

But first of all, who is Kamala Khan? In the comics, she is a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager living in New Jersey City who is a devoted fan of superheroes, particularly the heroine Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel. After a global event in which thousands of people began to manifest superpowers, Kamala finds that she can now control the size and length of her limbs, abilities she uses to become the heroine Ms. Marvel, the former title used by Carol Danvers in the comics and of which it becomes a successor.

The existence of Kamala Khan is almost a miracle in itself, and it required the assembly of a team of creatives as remarkable as the Avengers. In the New York Times article titled “Mighty, Muslin and Leaping off the Page” published on November 3, 2013, the newspaper points out that Ms. Marvel was born from the dialogue between the then Marvel editors Sana Amanat and Steve Wacker. “I was telling her a crazy story from my childhood, growing up as a Muslim American.”, Amanat commented. “He found them hilarious.”

What they didn’t find so funny was the lack of representation of those kinds of experiences in comics, so they recruited writer G. Willow Wilson, who in addition to writing well-remembered graphic novels like “Cairo” is a follower of Islam, to fill this empty. The design of the heroine was left to artists Jamie McKelvie and Adrian Alphona.

On the conception of Ms. Marvel, Amana had this to say to Nylon magazine. “First of all, you have to find out who the main character is, what his vulnerabilities are, what his desires are, and of course what his superhero powers will be.”, he highlighted. “You have to find a fundamental message: Peter Parker’s was ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, and .”

This struggle, as the daughter of two cultures, ends up being represented both in the figure of Carol Danvers and in the city of Manhattan, a location that she can see across the Hudson River and that seems to be the center of all events in the Marvel Universe. .

“Captain Marvel represents an ideal that Kamala longs for”, G. Willow Wilson told the NY Times. “ “

After her appearance in “Captain Marvel #14″ in August 2013, the heroine soon gained popularity and by November of the same year it was announced that Kamala would star in a solo series titled “Ms. Marvel”, becoming the first Muslim character to achieve this honor in the entire history of the company.

Since then Kamala has become a crucial part of the Marvel universe both in the comics, being part of teams such as the Avengers, Champions and the Secret Warriors, among others. Her importance was not only in the vignettes, and the character also became the protagonist of the video game “Marvel’s Avengers” released in 2020, where she serves as the engine to reunite the team after it was separated by a tragedy.

Now Kamala Khan makes her long-awaited debut in a Disney+ series, played by Pakistani-Canadian actress Iman Vellani in her first television role. The previews already show us the tone that the series will have, to convey the origin story of what she will be the first Muslim heroine of the MCU.

a film to be released in February 2023 in which Ms. Marvel will team up with her idol Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), as well as the other rookie Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris).

And although the trailer has shown that the transition to the MCU is quite close to the original version, a fundamental change in the character had already been anticipated at the end of last year, that of the nature of his powers. Thus, in the preview published on March 15, it shows that now Kamala, instead of modifying the size of her limbs, now manipulates energy in a similar way. Although until now Marvel has not commented on this change, the speculations around it have hovered between wanting to avoid repeating Mr. Fantastic’s powers for the inevitable return of the Fantastic Four or to be more on topic with Captain Marvel, another superhero with the ability to launch energy bolts.

About what there is no doubt is that Kamala will occupy a crucial place in the coming years for the greatest film saga in history. This is how Brie Larson herself advanced it in dialogue with ComicBook.com in 2019: “”, said the actress. “So when I’ve been asked about the MCU, or the future of the Captain Marvel series, I want to be with her.”.