The New Ms. Marvel is Muslim
Not content with giving us a black Spider-man, Marvel has announced that the new Ms. Marvel is a 16 year old Muslim girl, which shakes up the longstanding whiteness of the character.
“According to the press release, the new Ms. Marvel’s real name is Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old from Jersey City. “Kamala has all of her opportunities in front her and she is loaded with potential, but her parents’ high expectations come with tons of pressure,” Marvel describes. “When Kamala suddenly gets powers that give her the opportunity to be just like her idol, Captain Marvel, it challenges the very core of her conservative values.”
So wait, being a superhero challenges her “conservative values”? Does that mean that she’ll give up being a Muslim, or just be less strict with her beliefs? I feel like that’s kind of a can of worms, and I predict a whole bunch of protests the moment she does anything remotely controversial. That said, props to Marvel for being bold enough to do something like this, and I think the industry needs more diverse heroes. I’m tired of good-looking white dudes!
That said, what do you think the fallout of this will be? From both Muslims and non-Muslims?
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I wonder how many people will die in the riots that break out the minute anything about Islam isn’t depicted in the most positive light?
I don’t know. On the one hand, I want to applaud Marvel for being bold. On the other, it’s hard to feel like this isn’t pandering. Also, it seems like a comic like this is going to have to delve into real-world politics and I hate it when entertainment and politics mix. I read National Review to learn about politics, I don’t need it in my comic books.
Ultimately, it just seems like a situation where they wont’ be able to make anyone happy. Conservative Muslims won’t be happy with her depiction, entertainment media is typically not very good at portraying religion; and lots of other people won’t be happy with Marvel seeming to pander to Muslims. I expect it will be a short run but hey, maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see what happens.
Why is it that including minorities is seen as pandering, but an entire industry almost exclusively depicting white cishet dude superheroes isn’t?
I dare Marvel to make a team that takes missions/orders from Allah.