Ms. Marvel: Category A, Prompt D

Race and ethnicity are key aspects of the Ms. Marvel comic. The original Ms. Marvel character was portrayed as a white woman, Carol Danvers. In this new comic the Ms. Marvel title is taken on by a Pakistani-American woman, Kamala Khan. In an industry that predominately focuses on white-male heterosexual characters, giving focus to a female minority an excellent example of the emerging diversity that readers are starting to see in the comic book scene.

The comic goes beyond just making Kamala Pakistani-American, it makes a point of incorporating various aspects of Kamala's culture- language, religion, clothing, traditions, ect - into the narrative. For example, there are several scenes where we see Kamala at a mosque, there is a conversation where one of Kamala's friends, Nikia, explains her personal choice for wearing a hijab, and Kamala wears a mixture of American clothing and Pakistani clothing. One specific example comes about a third of the way through the novel when Kamala gets a phone call from her mother at school.

"Tumhe sharm nahin aiee? Kitna bhi main samjhati hum phir bhi aise karti ho?"
"Sorry, Ammi...no, I just lost track of the time...no, I'm not becoming a degenerate..."

Kamala speaks English on the phone, but her mother speaks Urdu. This scene does not just illustrate the point that Kamala is bilingual, but it is representative of her blended cultural identity.  As a character, Kamala struggles to reconcile her familial heritage with the American youth cultural she grew up with in New Jersey.  When she first gets her superpowers, she requests that she looks just like the original Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, but later learns to control her powers while maintaining her own physical appearance.  Ethnicity has a central role in this comic and I feel as though it does critical work in diversity as well as exposing readers to new aspects of a culture that they might be either uneducated or misinformed about.


Erin Brandenburg