Ms. Marvel

Kamala Khan is the new Ms. Marvel and she's here to kick ass.

Kamala is adorable. She's a lovable protagonist and a very believable portrayal of what a teenager looks and acts like today. It's not the kind of writing where it's blatantly obvious the teenagers were written by some adult trying their best to sound hip. I mean, she writes fan fiction under the pen name "SlothBaby." Now that's what I call Relatable™. 

I love how Kamala and her superpower is handled. First off, she gets them from some sort of fever dream where she sees Captain America, Iron Man and Captain Marvel. That's pretty great. When she gets her powers, it's not all of a sudden that she feels self-confident. In fact it's the opposite. When she gets the body of the original Ms. Marvel, she's uncomfortable being in a body that clearly doesn't reflect who she is. Plus, she finally voice what most of us have been wondering: yes, female superhero costumes are uncomfortable and impractical. I love how getting superpowers was not a magical solution for Kamala. Instead, she learns to control her powers by embracing herself for who she is, which is an awesome message to be sending out.


I relate a lot to Kamala's struggle of trying to fit in as a Pakistani-American. This page from Ms.Marvel #12 hit the nail on the head:

As a Chinese-American, I hardly consider myself "Chinese." I can hardly speak Mandarin Chinese with my parents and barely know the culture that's not food related. However, I'm clearly not what most would consider the "all-American" girl. It's really great to see that Ms.Marvel tackles this feeling, and it just makes me love Kamala even more.

I'm loving the current trend of adding diversity to the cast of superhero comic characters. I think it's a great way to open up superhero comics to a lot of people who were initially uninterested in the genre. Frankly, superhero comics are pretty inaccessible to new readers. When I first tried to get into Marvel comics in high school, I had absolutely no idea where to start. The superhero universe is so complicated with alternate universes, multiple versions of the same hero, heroes dying and then coming back to life, it's all over the place. The main factor for me though was that there was never a particular superhero I was interested in or could relate to. There's only so many stories I can read about angsty white men before I get tired. That's why it's so heartening to see Marvel try to diversify their cast in recent years. Now, we have characters like Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, and America Chavez. Plus, new protagonists help lead to new series and origin stories, making it easy for people to pick it up on the fly. Despite Marvel's pitiful attempts to pin the blame of their decreasing sales on their increasing diversity, I think it's a good move towards the future of the superhero genre.