The best Marvel television series of the year finished its run on Disney+ last week without much fanfare. or at least not as much as one would hope). The hero saved her village and shared a tender moment with her family in the movie’s mid-credits scene, which of course teased a future movie tie-in. Overall, it was the ideal happy conclusion.
In many aspects, the origin of Ms. Marvel is the classic comics origin tale: While attempting to survive puberty, a young child from somewhere in or near New York City develops astonishing superhero skills and must pursue their calling. However, Kamala Khan’s background is much more unique than that. She also lives in a world where the government monitors her mosque as a young Muslim woman from South Asia. Her history as a superhero dates back to 1947, when India earned independence from the British and the Partition separated the country into Muslim- and Hindu-majority Pakistan and India, sparking one of the largest migrations in human history.
Marvel has always included true stories in its superhuman stories. While the Eternals (rather ham-handedly) touched on global crimes and Steve Rogers was transformed into Captain America to fight in World War II, Kamala Khan’s story takes that connection to the past down to a more personal level. Her grandmother lives in Karachi and, as Ms. Marvel indicated in episodes 4 and 5, was a young girl when her family escaped to Pakistan. (Every family has a Partition story, and none of them are nice, as Muneeba, Kamala’s mother, observes.) It turns out that Kamala’s superpowers are somewhat rooted in the Partition tale of her family. The episode has something that Marvel programming on Disney+ hasn’t had in a long, if ever, thanks to the historical perspective: a sense of realism.
According to Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker who oversaw the production of the season’s middle two episodes, the show’s portrayal of the Partition also puts something on television that Hollywood has rarely depicted. These led Kamala to Karachi and back in time to learn the history of her ancestors. Obaid-Chinoy, a self-described “history geek,” claims to have received messages this month from South Asian families describing discussions they had never had before seeing the show. Grandparents and great-grandparents have passed away, and dearest friends have unfinished business, according to Obaid-Chinoy.
“It came with a great responsibility to create Partition because so many lives were connected to it. When you think about bringing a superhero into that world, where there’s pain and trauma associated with it, you have to do it in a manner that brings dignity.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe drifts away from mankind in both the literal and symbolic dimensions as it grows larger, more cosmic, and multiversal. She is shown to be partially djinn during the first season of Ms. Marvel, and it is implied that she is also a mutant. However, Iman Vellani, the 19-year-old actor who plays Kamala, is largely responsible for making the character totally three-dimensional in a manner that few on-screen superheroes are. The fact that Kamala’s past is integrated into the show rather than added for gravitas is its greatest strength.
It was lauded as a first of its sort when the first Ms. Marvel comic, written by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona, was published in 2014. More specifically, it was the first monthly Marvel series to feature a Muslim woman as its hero. It was reportedly “the most important comic” released that year, according to Comics Alliance. Not because it was the first at anything, but rather because it was a good narrative told effectively, it went on to win a Hugo Award and become a bestseller. The first Muslim girl to star in a Marvel show on Disney+ is Vellani’s Kamala. Her show is now Marvel’s most well-liked television program, in part due to its intriguing and well-done plot. Again making history is Kamala Khan.
