Ms. Marvel Will Be First Muslim Lead In Marvel Disney+ Series

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The upcoming Disney+ series Ms. Marvel will feature Marvel Studios’ first Muslim lead character. 

The company announced three new Disney+ original scripted series at Disney’s D23 Expo last week; Moon Knight, She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel. 

Ms. Marvel was a name first associated with Carol Danvers, who later took on the identity of Captain Marvel. The name was to passed on to Danvers’ teen protege Kamala Khan, a teenage Pakistani Muslim living in New Jersey, who will be the focus of the new series.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige spoke about plans for the character last year, explaining Ms. Marvel would likely be introduced once Captain Marvel had made her appearance.

Feige confirmed Khan’s arrival at D23 on Friday (August 23) and added the character would also appear in upcoming Marvel films.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, screenwriter and comedian Bisha K. Ali is set to write and act as showrunner for the series.

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The Ms. Marvel comic was written by G. Willow Wilson and focused on the Muslim American diaspora as the teenager went on her adventures within the larger Marvel universe.

The writer wanted to show the life of a typical Muslim American teenager who just so happens to get superpowers and worked to balance the two distinct lifestyles when constructing the character. The comic went on to win Best Graphic Story at the Hugo Awards in 2015.

Wilson spoke to Polygon about the move to live-action and admitted herself and the artists who worked on the comic had not really considered how the character would work on screen, as ‘it was not something [she] would ever have had the temerity to dream up’.

However, she described the character’s leap to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as ‘incredible’ and ‘completely wild’.

The writer commented:

It is so far beyond what either [editor Sana Amanat] or I ever envisioned going into this series six, going on seven, years ago, that I almost can’t process it.

I think there’re some characters who are very much set up for the big screen; they’re very naturally sort of cinematic. But with Ms. Marvel, we really weren’t interested in creating something that had very obvious film potential.

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Wilson continued:

I was really leaning — and I know Adrian [Alphona] and Takeshi [Miyazawa] and all of the artists as well — were really leaning into the comic book-ness of this character. She’s got very comic booky powers [sic].

God bless them trying to bring that to live action; I don’t know how that’s going to work out in a way that doesn’t look really creepy.

Ms. Marvel won’t arrive on Disney+ before late 2021 or early 2022 but I’m sure it will be worth the wait!

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Emily Brown

Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.