IN MS. MARVEL, KAMALA KHAN, A MUSLIM TEENAGER OBSESSED WITH CAPTAIN MARVEL, BECOMES A SUPERHERO HERSELF. WE TALK TO STAR IMAN VELLANI AND THE TEAM ABOUT A REVOLUTIONARY NEW SHOW

WORDS HELEN O’HARA

MS. MARVEL

8 JUNE DINSEY+

Captain Marvel fan Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani).

TWICE IT HAPPENED, in comics shops on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Two diehard comic-book nerds walked in for their regular fix and were spellbound by something they’d never thought possible.

In London’s Orbital Comics, a stand-up called Bisha K. Ali, not yet a TV writer, was looking for something with an edge. She’d been introduced to comics by her mum, who read superhero titles as a young girl in Pakistan in the 1960s, but Ali preferred darker stuff: Preacher, The Sandman and the like. And then she saw a new Marvel release, and stopped dead in her tracks.

Some time later, Iman Vellani, a young teenager “a little bit obsessed with Robert Downey Jr”, was hunting in her local shop in Ontario for her favourite title, Invincible Iron Man, and maybe some Riri ‘Ironheart’

Williams to go along with it. But she was struck by the figure standing next to Ironheart on a Champions cover and found a new obsession, reading every single issue after that.

The figure that amazed them both was Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel. The first reaction was disbelief. “What am I seeing?

What is this? It’s me,” thought Ali. Vellani was also mystified. “I just didn’t think a story like that existed,” she says. “Then lo and behold, a comic book held up a mirror in front of me.” By that Halloween, Vellani’s grandmother was helping her sew a Ms. Marvel costume.

The electric sense of recognition and revolution they both felt in that moment is something Ali and Vellani are now hoping to communicate in Disney+’s Ms. Marvel. The character’s identity as the first Muslim lead of a Marvel comic was one major reason they picked up the books. But it’s not the reason they kept reading, nor why hundreds of thousands of other readers made Ms.

Marvel one of Marvel’s most successful titles of the last decade. Kamala Khan’s ethnic and religious identity is deeply important, but it’s that plus her entire character — nerdy, loving, optimistic, anxious and gloriously weird — that resonated so powerfully. She had the same instant relatability and likeability of Peter Parker, but an environment that comics had never shown before. This was a superhero obsessive who became a superhero, and a girl who “embiggened” (her word) Marvel just by existing. So when the chance came to introduce her into the MCU, it was a responsibility that no-one took lightly.