The trailer has dropped for the Disney Channel’s new animated film Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors, and not gonna lie, it looks delightful.
The film follows a group of misfit powered teenagers, Ms. Marvel (Kathreen Khavari), Squirrel Girl (Milana Vayntrub), Ghost-Spider (Dove Cameron), Quake (Chloe Bennet, voicing her Agents of SHIELD character), Patriot (Kamil McFadden), America Chavez (Cierra Ramirez), and Inferno (Tyler Posey) as they team up under the guidance of Captain Marvel (Kim Raver) to form a superhero squad of their own.
The film, written by Mairghread Scott (Guardians of the Galaxy animated series), follows August’s Marvel Rising: Initiation, a compilation of six animated shorts that follows Ghost-Spider/Gwen Stacey trying to clear her name after she’s falsely accused of killing her best friend. The shorts introduce us to Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl, who team up to take down Ghost-Spider before realizing that she’s been framed.
There’s so much to like here: a cast of diverse, predominantly female superheroes, charming animation, and aspirational themes. Plus, crime-fighting BFFs Kamala Khan and Doreen Green are totally adorable. Scott discussed her love of the super-powered best friends saying, “I just thought was really nice to have them be real friends. They fight and they argue and it’s not always perfect, but your friends who you really respect, I feel like that’s how it is.”
Squirrel Girl also gives tweens a superheroine with a realistic body type, in keeping with her depiction in the comics. That shouldn’t be so revolutionary, but we live in a world where animated women have wildly unrealistic body types. Doreen Green’s confidence and optimism make her a unique female character.
“She’s completely unapologetic,” Scott said of Squirrel Girl. “She’s got superpowers and they may not be the exact same superpowers as everyone else, but she doesn’t care. She makes them work for her.”
In an era of gritty, dark superheroes, there’s something radical about Squirrel Girl’s complete lack of chill over her powers. As Scott describes it, she has an “unbridled enthusiasm coupled with complete self-confidence. She’s not stupid. She knows that other people look down on her, but she tried really hard to say that, you know, to realize the value in something to bring to the table. She’s not going to let people make her hide her light under a bushel.”
Scott also discussed the desire for female-driven stories, saying “I think what it all comes down to is the hunger, Katniss Everdeen, Rey from ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Black Panther,’ Diana from ‘Wonder Woman’ — there’s a real hunger out there to see more female heroes and there’s a market for it. It just makes sense to start to try and offer things that appeal to that market.”
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors premieres on Disney Channel and Disney XD on Sunday, September 30th.
(via Collider, Indiewire, image: screengrab)
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