Remember when Marvel Comics killed off one of their most beloved characters, Ms. Marvel? Sure you do, because it just happened a few days ago! Kamala Khan died in Amazing Spider-Man #26, and last week, Marvel released an entire issue to the event, Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel #1. Everything about Kamala’s death smacked of fridging, or killing off a female character just to create an emotional beat for a male character’s story. Plus, everyone knows that no one stays dead for long in comics, so what was the point?
However, it turns out that Kamala’s death—while still questionable, story-wise—may have been more strategic than we thought. It turns out that Marvel is turning Kamala into a mutant.
The new development, which was announced on Entertainment Weekly, will debut in the new title Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant. The story will focus on Kamala’s resurrection with Krakoan technology, after which Kamala will find out that she’s now a mutant, like the X-Men, instead of an Inhuman.
The move might seem like a cash grab on Marvel’s part, but here’s some fantastic news: the comic will be co-written by Iman Vellani, who plays Kamala in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Samir Pirzada, one of the writers for the Ms. Marvel series on Disney+.
Vellani shared her thoughts on the new comic with EW:
I want to make it very, very clear that we are not reconning her Inhuman origin. That’s a part of Kamala’s identity that Marvel editorial and myself would very much like to keep and protect. Our book will absolutely reflect all those core themes of identity that the Ms. Marvel comics have consistently explored—only now there’s a whole new label that Kamala has to learn to accept. It’s going to be pretty crazy.
In Marvel comics, Inhumans are a result of genetic experiments conducted by the alien Kree Empire thousands of years in the past. Mutants, meanwhile, are the next stage in human evolution.
It seems clear that Marvel is changing Kamala’s superhuman status to put her more in line with the MCU. In the series finale of Ms. Marvel on Disney+, Kamala finds out that her powers don’t come from the bangle she wears, as she first thought, but from within her own body. Her best friend Bruno tells her it’s a mutation. After the episode aired, Marvel confirmed that the MCU’s Kamala is a mutant.
Vellani and Pirzada helming the new Ms. Marvel title is great, but there’s even more good news: longtime Marvel artist and character designer Jamie McKelvie, who’s known for his work on Captain Marvel, The Young Avengers, and The Wicked + The Divine, is designing Kamala’s new costume.
We reserve the right to roll our eyes at Kamala’s death, but at least her inevitable resurrection sounds pretty cool.
(via Entertainment Weekly, featured image: Marvel Comics)
