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Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel: Pakistani-American Prom Queen
Photo: Courtesy of Marvel Studios.
Life is not a superhero comic, that's what 16-year-old Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) and her nerdy school friend Bruno (Matt Lintz) realize at the latest when they use the wildest imagination to imagine how they can make it to the big comic book despite their parents' ban. Fanfest »Avengers Con« - and then initially fail due to gravity and reality.
Even the elegantly conceived jump out of the children's room window on the first floor ends with a painful Pardauz, because the branch on the garden tree that serves as a trapeze breaks off.
Instead of acrobatically swinging from a bridge onto the bus, Kamala's bike gets caught in the bus door as it snaps shut and has to be left behind.
Not very heroic, but funny.
The two then breathlessly make it to the convention celebrating Marvel's superheroes.
After that, nothing is the same in Kamala's teenage life in multicultural but tranquil Jersey City, because it's a superhero comic after all: when she enters a cosplay competition for the best Captain Marvel costume, she suddenly realizes that she can create shimmering clouds of energy and lightning bolts with her hands, which first manifest as amorphous, then solid structures, with greater concentration and control later as quick-witted giant fists or practical jumping islands on which she can move at dizzying heights.
A moment ago, Kamala was writing action-packed fan fiction about Captain Marvel and Iron Man in her room decorated with Marvel merchandise and dreaming herself into a universe of superpowers, now, in the first, brightly colored and hyper-quirky episodes of the new Marvel mini-series »Ms.
Marvel«, she will soon be able to get involved in this illustrious circle of heroes.
Only their good-natured and protective, but also very conservative parents shouldn't notice any of this.
Because Kamala Khan is not only a fan girl and a typical, slightly confused US teenager, she is also a member of the Pakistani Muslim community.
She has to wear a headscarf to go to the mosque for prayers (where the women with bad acoustics sit separately from the men) and for the traditional sugar festival with dozens of gossip-rigorous relatives whom Kamala mockingly and respectfully calls "illumi-aunties," Illuminati aunties.
superheroes?
Daydreams of female self-empowerment?
Are not provided here.
This was also the case for a long time for the staff of the comic book publisher Marvel, which was largely male and white for decades: Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and so on.
It wasn't until the 1970s that black heroes like Black Panther or Luke Cage became prominent, but women, regardless of their origin, still play supporting roles, with a few exceptions.
Also in the successful Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), where only recently heroines got their own films or TV series, including Black Widow and that of Kamala Khan so ardently admired Captain Marvel.
Brie Larson portrays the heroine in the MCU, who is equipped with cosmic powers, as an attractive blonde with model dimensions, self-confident, powerful and feminist, but also
eye candy
for the primarily male comic readership.
When young Marvel editor Sana Amanat wrote »Ms.
Marvel« established the first series of magazines with the adventures of the Muslim woman Kamala Khan and landed a sensational success, the comic giant not only conquered a hitherto disregarded culture, but also young, female fans.
Just like the now 19-year-old novice actor Iman Vellani.
The Canadian with Pakistani roots revealed in an interview that she is writing her first Marvel comic, »Ms.
Marvel' number 19, once bought only because it featured a heroine with the same skin color as her, she had never seen that before.
Like her series character, she has been a comic nerd since early childhood.
Kamala, she recently told The Hollywood Reporter, feels "so much like me."
Successful integration performance
Vellani, who embodies her character not as a size-zero sex symbol, but as a normal teenager with complexes, problem areas, constant excitement and age-appropriate clumsiness, is the energetic, stormy heart and soul of this new series, a real discovery.
Her first appearance in the cinema is already planned, in 2023 in the superhero spectacle »The Marvels« alongside Larson as Captain Marvel and other stars of the MCU.
But first she gets a rehearsal stage on the Disney + streaming service for her culture and sugar shock for the Marvel Universe.
Series creator and author Bisha K. Ali, a British comedienne who previously wrote the Marvel series "Loki", is also of Pakistani origin - as is Sana Amanat, who as co-producer watches over her once autobiographically colored character.
more on the subject
New Comic Heroine: Marvel Gives Muslima SuperpowersBy Andreas Borcholte
Marvel's New Super Hero: Oh Captain!
My Captain!By David Kleingers
Cinema spectacle »Spider-Man: No Way Home«: spinning mills in the hall of mirrors by Andreas Borcholte
Marvel film »Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness«: Before you start to get angry, the next Cyclops monster is coming by Andreas Borcholte
Together they bring more detailed Muslim culture and ethnic characteristics to the all-American comic genre than ever before - a successful integration achievement for the Islamic community in the USA, which has long been viewed with suspicion and racism because of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Although Kamala's parents are the biggest obstacles for the teenager, who just wants to let off steam, they are not exoticized, including their beliefs and customs, but are drawn in a sympathetically authentic way.
Daddy Yusuf (Mohan Kapur) makes an adorable entrance as he paints himself green and prepares to don a specially made Hulk costume that's half superhero attire, half traditional Pakistani garb.
While mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) thinks Kamala's enthusiasm for Captain Marvel is immature and unseemly,
She is less shocked and overwhelmed by her superpowers than Marvel's most famous teenage hero, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, was decades ago.
No wonder, since Kamala has been involved with comics and super creatures since she was a child, a generational advantage.
She is flashed by the opportunities that are available and fearlessly plunges into training her skills.
Unlike in the original, they have nothing to do with the mutations of the so-called Inhumans in the series, nor do they empower them to stretch themselves or individual limbs or make them gigantic.
According to the Marvel producer, this narrative didn't fit into the larger MCU plans that "Ms.
Marvel« to be integrated.
Maybe that's a stroke of luck, too, because it allows the writing team to anchor Kamala's superpowers even more deeply in Pakistan's political and mythical history with a magical bracelet inherited from her grandmother, as the second episode already shows.
Don't expect too much depth, though: »Ms.
Marvel« is a teen party equipped with visual gimmicks, loving cartoon animations and a lot of classic American high school drama, but which naturally also plays hits by South Asian pop acts such as Riz MC or Raja Kumari and Shah Rukh Khan's best Bollywood films are discussed.
As sweet and rich as a plateful of hot fried gulab jamun milk balls.
"Ms.
Marvel«: Six episodes, coming June 8th on Disney+
