Welcoming Another Marvel

Marvel’s entertainment divisions have made some daring moves lately, and one of the biggest came from their comic book section. This isn’t to say the company has been afraid to start a new comic book series in the last few years, but their next project is the riskiest of them all. They announced that a new Ms. Marvel series is coming. Though you may think “they already had a series about her, so what’s risky about this?” upon hearing it, the concept is different from the version of the character you knew and perhaps adored.

The new Ms. Marvel will be a 16-year-old girl of Muslim descent from New Jersey named Kamala Khan, a high school student struggling to combine the life of a teenager with the customs and beliefs of her Pakistani Muslim family. It takes inspiration from the origin stories people know and love, albeit with a more down to earth twist — more than others you’re likely aware of. The concept was born out of the desire to explore the struggles that Muslim-American teenagers have to deal with in comic book form, though Khan has one unique issue to deal with: special powers. That’s an expected issue, considering who it’s from.

Her abilities aren’t similar to the Ms. Marvel you knew. Kamala’s powers involve changing the shape of her limbs and body. OK, so it sounds lame and rudimentary on the surface, but its execution will determine how good of an idea it is. Hopefully the creative team, consisting of creator and writer G. Willow Wilson, series editor Sana Amanat, and designer Adrian Alphona, can deliver on its promising concept.

Khan won’t be the first Muslim superhero in a comic book — far from it, in fact. She will be the first to headline a comic series, though, an important step for the world of comics. This particular announcement has generated a series of reactions and questions across this fine world wide web of ours. Some are positive, while others are from people who clearly can’t function without having something to be upset about. I’ll address two of them: one is a predictable reaction, while the other will make you lose more faith in humanity.

#1: The hell? That’s not Ms. Marvel!

This is the predictable question from those simply wondering what happened to the previous Ms. Marvel, aka Carol Danvers. You can tell they aren’t big fans, or they’d know she’s been operating as Captain Marvel since mid-2012. As Captain Marvel, Carol shortened her and is considerably less scantily clad. And thankfully Marvel didn’t go back on that like DC did for Wonder Woman a few years ago, when they dared to get her out of the pseudo-bondage gear. Khan looks up to Carol, so they’ll undoubtedly meet sometime during the series.

Captain Marvel

#2: The hell? She couldn’t be Ms. Marvel!

This is a variant of the same question, but the attitude represented here is rather dehumanizing. The internet is home to a variety of opinions. Some are good, while others will make you wish you could take a spacecraft off this planet. Some don’t like the idea because the name “Ms. Marvel” should be reserved for a blonde-haired all-American woman, and that someone of Muslim descent couldn’t possibly do Carol’s legacy justice. There are worse comments being made that I won’t bother discussing here, for obvious reasons. These kinds of deplorable attitudes can be found in various comment sections on numerous websites and blogs, and you shouldn’t waste your time reading them.

Of course, warnings like that just make you want to read them more, until you successfully convince yourself that exposure to them isn’t worth it.

The saner types among us who are looking forward to something new will only have to wait until January 2014 for the preview issue to start. The series will properly begin in February. The concept sounds excellent, so the onus is no the creative team to do it justice.