After Ms. Marvel died in Amazing Spider-Man #26, a move that was widely criticized and seen as a kind of horrible end for a beloved character, everyone knew that Kamala Khan would be back. And now, Marvel has announced that Iman Vellani, who plays Kamala Khan on Ms. Marvel and in the upcoming film The Marvels, is co-writing the comic.
“This was way scarier than joining the MCU for me,” Vellani told EW in an interview about Ms. Marvel’s return. “Those projects feel like they live in their own dimension, so I guess I can separate myself easier. But you can hold a comic book! I’ve never written anything before in my entire life, but I have read many comics, so I just wrote what I would want to read. I was given a very professional tool to write what is essentially my own fan fiction.”
When it comes to Vellani’s ability, her co-writer Pirzada said to EW that, “it was actually a very humbling experience to work with Iman, because she knows her comics even better than I do, and that is saying something… She has a very great eye for what makes for a good sequence on the page as drawn by an artist.” The new comic comes obviously with a new look, designed by Jamie McKelvie, who designed her original costume as well.
There are some differences between the screen version of Ms. Marvel and the comics; most notably the powers. In Disney+’s Ms. Marvel show, Kamala was given hard light powers that came from gauntlets. The new Kamala Khan comic will retain her original stretchy embiggening powers that were established via her Inhuman heritage. Now, in the comics, adding in a layer of bi-racial coding, Kamala will be both Inhuman and also… a Mutant.
“[Her Inhuman origin is] a part of Kamala’s identity that Marvel editorial and myself would very much like to keep and protect,” Vellani said to EW. “Our book will absolutely reflect all those core themes of identity that the Ms. Marvel comics have consistently explored—only now there’s a whole new label that Kamala has to learn to accept. It’s going to be pretty crazy.”
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