The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the franchise that cannot be stopped. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is finally in theaters for Marvel fans to dissect and overanalyze. They have barely had time to process the end of Moon Knight starring Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector/Steven Grant/Moon Knight on Disney+. But Marvel fans are always looking forward to the next MCU project, which is Ms. Marvel, on June 8, 2022.
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Ms. Marvel will star newcomer Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel. But the series has angered fans before they have even gotten a chance to see it. The controversial decision to change Kamala Khan’s powers from her Inhuman polymorphic/size and shaping changing to the glowing constructions seen in the Ms. Marvel trailer has caused massive backlash for the project.
Now, producer Sana Amanat told Entertainment Weekly that Kamala Khan creator G. Willow Wilson has endorsed this controversial change:
“Obviously, so much of the show is an adaptation, and we thought it was important to make sure that her powers are linking to larger stories in the Marvel universe. We wanted to make sure there is a little bit more story to tell after this series. Obviously, she goes into The Marvels. The powers do look different, which is very controversial.”
“I know people are like ‘How dare you change the powers!’ I know people are upset about it, but as someone who’s probably one of the closest people to this character from the inception, and having spoken to Willow about this as well, I think Willow and I have always felt that this made sense. This was the right move because there are bigger stories to tell.”
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For fans of Kamala Khan, this seems to confirm their worst fears about the reason behind the controversial power change. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Ms. Marvel producer Sana Amanat have made the change to make her more like Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) before joining forces in The Marvels on July 28, 2023.
Willow Wilson’s support of the change comes as a stunning reversal. When she first created Kamala Khan in Captain Marvel #14 (2013) with Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, Adrian Alphona, and Jamie McKelvie, Kamala’s powers were a very intentional design.
In 2018, G. Willow Wilson previously told Entertainment Weekly:
“We spent months going back and forth about what her powerset should be, how it should function, how it should look on the page. It was really tough. I knew from the beginning I didn’t want her to have sparkly, hand wave-y, floaty, pretty powers. There were plenty of those! I really wanted her to have something kinetic, a bit weirder-looking, something that was really fun to look at, something that communicated well on the page.”
“I also wanted something that would tie into being a teenager. Not all of us have superpowers but we all remember being 16 and feeling out of place in our bodies. Having different limbs growing at different rates, it’s a struggle we can all relate to, and having a powerset that spoke so clearly to that part of life, that part of growing up, was really appealing to me. It meant we could tell a story that worked on several different levels.”
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When Kamala Khan was created, she was a unique character that fans and not just because she was Marvel’s first Muslim superhero to lead her series. Fans liked that she specifically did not have “sparkly, hand wave-y, floaty, pretty powers.” And her first solo story focused on Kamala Khan learning that she did not have to be like Captain Marvel to be a superhero.
Amanat also commented that she knows this meant a lot to fans, saying:
“I know how incredibly important it is for people to have this out there, especially for young Muslims and young Pakistanis and Indians and people of color and young women. It just affects so many different communities, and that’s what was really exciting for me, just knowing how important this show is and hoping that we get it right.”
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More on Ms. Marvel
Ms. Marvel will stream on Disney+ starting on Jun 8, 2022. It will star Iman Vellani, Aramis Knight as Kareem/Red Dagger, Saagar Shaikh as Aamir Khan, Rish Shah as Kamran, Zenobia Shroff as Muneeba Khan, Mohan Kapur as Yusuf Khan, Matt Lintz as Bruno Carrelli, Yasmeen Fletcher as Nakia Bahadir, Laura Marsden as Zoe Zimmer, Laith Naki as Sheikh Abdullah, Azher Usman, Travina Springer, and Nimra Bucha.
During the production of Ms. Marvel, the hashtag #FixMsMarvel trended when some characters like Nakia Bahadir were whitewashed when Yasmeen Fletcher (Andi Mack) was cast. Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah, Meera Menon and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will direct Ms. Marvel.
Let us know in the comments if you plan to give Ms. Marvel a chance or boycott it over the controversy.
You can stream Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and the six series in Marvel’s Phase Four so far — Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany’s WandaVision, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Marvel’s What If…?, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, and Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight — on Disney+ anytime.