MS MARVEL

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SANA AMANAT AND HEAD WRITER BISHA K ALI EXPLAIN WHY BELOVED COMIC HEROINE MS MARVEL BREAKS NEW GROUND AS A DISNEY+ SERIES

WORDS: TARA BENNETT

GETTY

Iman Vellani as Ms Marvel with Matt Lintz as Bruno.

OVER THE 14 YEARS THAT MARVEL STUDIOS has been making movies, and now streaming series on Disney+, its ongoing successes have fed a mission to expand the narrow definition of who a superhero can be in the cultural zeitgeist by showcasing characters like T’Challa, Carol Danvers, Shang-Chi and Makkari for a global audience.

This more purposeful approach to making sure everyone gets to see themselves within the stories it tells gets another major expansion this June with Ms Marvel. The series ticks a whole bunch of new storytelling “firsts”, with the story of Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a 16-year-old Muslim, Pakistani-American superhero who stans Captain Marvel something fierce.

Based on the Eisner-nominated comic book of the same name by writer G Willow Wilson and artists Adrian Alphona and Jamie McKelvie, Ms Marvel aims to tell the relatable and smaller-scale story of a misfit teen trying to juggle her culture, her religion and social status after she gains powers that she assumes will solve all her problems. Of course, they don’t...

It’s a story that instantly connected Ms Marvel ‘s head writer, comedian Bisha K Ali, from the moment she picked up issue one in London’s Orbital Comics. “I remember really vividly seeing Kamala in the comic,” Ali tells SFX in her Los Angeles office. “It was a deeply personal moment and a deeply evocative moment for me just thinking back on it. Fast forward [eight] years and suddenly I’m really a big part of this story. It’s really astounding.”

A self-proclaimed nerd, Ali got her love of comics from her Pakistani mum, who started her own collection back in the ’70s. “We’re a part of nerd culture and fandom culture. I was raised on comics. I remember sitting in Hounslow Library, where they had a bananas collection of comic books. I read Preacher and Sandman way too young,” she laughs.

Age-inappropriate it may have been, but it helped to lay the groundwork for her love of the medium, which she then paired with her career pursuit as a TV writer, and which eventually got her a job in the writers’ room of Loki. Under the guidance of head writer Michael Waldron and creative executive Kevin Wright, Ali says she flourished as the geek who heatedly debated with her peers about Nexus events and whether or not there was a heat death at the end of the universe.

Kamala Khan’s new powers start to kick in…

…and she starts to show off. As you would.

Jellyfish gloves are very much in for 2022.

“There’s a real joy to be part of that and actually impacting how their stories come out,” Ali says of her time in the room and getting to know the Marvel Studios creative process. “It was very fun to be engaged in those conversations. That collaboration certainly led to me being able to look at Ms Marvel.”