After the premiere of Ms. Marvel, fans—especially anyone who’s still on the sidelines, trying to decide what to make of this show—are probably wondering one thing: How is Kamala Khan connected to Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel? Their “made-up names,” in addition to having a lot in common with, uh, Marvel Comics itself—not to mention a whole convoluted similarity to a certain DC Comics hero—are pretty similar. So … does that connection go beyond just that surface-level connection?
Well, as far as the show, Ms. Marvel starts with Kamala depicting what happened in the battle against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame for her YouTube channel (where she got her information from Scott Lang’s podcast), and in it, it is clear who her favorite Avenger is. She’s cosplaying as Carol at Avengers Con, she talks about Captain Marvel all the time, and even her parents know about Captain Marvel given her obsession. She’s basically me with Spider-Man.
The difference is that Kamala actually has super powers and will eventually meet her hero, so I guess she wins there. But their relationship, currently, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is tied to Kamala’s love of Carol as a hero and really nothing past that. Simply, Kamala Khan is a huge fan of Carol Danvers. And that’s pretty much it, for now. While we know that Kamala is going to end up showing up in The Marvels after her debut series, we still don’t know for sure how the two will connect with each other. For now, it is a fan and hero relationship.
How can their relationship grow?
What’s interesting about Carol and Kamala is that eventually, they will work together. They’re slated to team up in some way in the movie The Marvels, and in the comics, Kamala is also a fan of Captain Marvel, which is the reason she takes on the mantle of Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers’ former alias). So the fangirl things we see now are going to shift into Kamala having to work alongside her hero as a superhero. So whatever she’s feeling as she’s making her video or parading around New Jersey dressed like Captain Marvel and with her own powers is probably going to be tenfold when she is actually working with Carol.
Kamala is extremely relatable because she’s a fan who ends up being a hero. So all the characters she idolizes are the same ones we do. She is thrust into this world and becomes her own hero, but she still loves the Avengers, so it will be fascinating to see how that dynamic shifts as Kamala becomes a hero herself and gets to work with the Avengers and other characters she’s made YouTube videos about.
For now though, the relationship between Carol and Kamala is strictly fan/hero, but that is obviously going to change, especially with the mid-credits scene and everyone trying to figure out who Kamala is.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
