On Disney+, the “Miss Marvel” series features the first Muslim female superhero

It is an event that goes beyond the borders of the imaginary world of the Marvel cinematic world (the famous MCU). On June 8, the Disney+ platform broadcasts the first episode of the miniseries miss wonder. In addition to her superpowers, the heroine Kamala Khan has a peculiarity: she is of the Muslim faith. A fact that might seem trivial for an American citizen, but that constitutes a first with strong symbolism for a main Marvel character.

miss wonder is the generic name of several super heroines whose adventures are told since 1977 in thewonder universe. Since 2014, Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old American from a Pakistani family, has taken on the role of heroine in comics. It was the editor Sana Amanat who brought it to life, inspired by of her own childhood as a Muslim American. G. Willow WilsonWritera convert to Islam, he later developed the character of Kamala Khan.

In the series broadcast on Disney+, viewers are immersed in the daily life of this high school student (played by actress Iman Vellani) who lives and studies in Jersey City, a medium-sized city located in New Jersey across from New York. . Kamala Khan’s great passion is the Avengers, the group of Marvel superheroes. Together with Bruno Carrelli, her best friend with a high IQ and insane skills at inventing connected objects, she secretly plots against her parents to go into hiding and go to AvengersCon, a costume party for Marvel comics fans that the event hosts. in Jersey City.

In the series developed by Marvel Studios, Kamala Khan acquires her powers in a radically different way than what readers may have read about in the comics. She doesn’t become Miss Marvel by coming into contact with a cloud of teratogen, but by accidentally coming into possession of a mysterious bracelet. This setting allows Kamala Khan to present herself a bit more as an ordinary student, struggling with classic existential questions for a young woman her age.

“I wanted to create a story for all the little girls who are not in the media, especially in popular culture and entertainment shows. Kamala Khan is not only a Muslim and she does not claim to represent all Muslims. She only represents a perspective”Sana Amanat confided to the newspaper The world in 2013.

family life of Kamala Khan is an important narrative axis in the series. In the first two episodes that we could see in advance, the rebellion of the high school student against the choices that her parents want to impose on her accounts for her as well as the discovery of the magic bracelet. Her mother would like her to follow the same path as her brother: a religious marriage to respect the precepts of Islam and a life without extravagance. This context is quite used by the directors, who do not exaggerate with this aspect of the “first Muslim heroine” of Marvel.

Therefore, the beginning of the miniseries is promising. The conflict between the teenager, who wants to satisfy her passion for drawing and superheroes, and her parents, who demand that she follow her studies with discipline, will speak to many teenagers. The humor, which infuses the well-crafted dialogue, provides additional depth to the adventures of miss wonder.

The other success of screenwriter Bisha K. Ali is having made Jersey City an inverted mirror of the skyscrapers of New York, which appear in the background of the series. Far from the tired clichés of New York life, whose setting marks many superhero movies, everything seems banal and quite realistic on the streets of Jersey City. A city that Kamala defines as quite “shit”.

Miss Marvel should not disappear after the six episodes of the miniseries that she installs the teenager in the MCU universe. Therefore, it should reappear in the cinema in the movie. the wondersscheduled for 2023. A film that will see her join forces with those of Carol Danvers’ characters (captain marvel) Y Monica Rambeau (seen in the series wanda vision).

The series “Miss Marvel” (six episodes) is broadcast on the Disney + streaming platform from June 8, 2022.