Wednesday, June 08, 2022

Ms Marvel review – a glorious debut for the MCU’s first Muslim superhero

*****


Superpowered … Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, AKA Ms Marvel. 
Photograph: AP

Instant stardom awaits the new girl in the Marvel universe. She’s funny, charming and effortlessly bats off preconceptions in this joyful coming-of-age tale. Let the geek girls inherit the Earth!


Lucy Mangan
THE GUARDIAN
Wed 8 Jun 2022 

A superhero – and a star – is born in Ms Marvel (Disney+) , the latest small-screen foray into the MCU. The superhero is Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan, Marvel’s first Muslim headliner, whose solo comic book series made its debut in 2014. The miniseries tells her origin story, deviating somewhat from the source material and somehow humanising it further.

The star is Iman Vellani, in – incredibly, given her charisma, comic timing and dramatic chops in every scene – her first acting role. Her second will be in the next Marvel film outing, The Marvels (I hope you’re clear about us being in a Marvel universe for the duration of this piece), a sequel to Captain Marvel and focusing on the adventures of Carole Danvers/Captain Marvel and our Ms. Normally, you would fear for a young actor, but Vellani seems so born to the purple that you almost have to shrug and say, as an elder might to a nascent superhero in – oh, I don’t know, the MCU perhaps – that it is her destiny.

The series itself? Only two episodes have been released for review, but they are glorious. The plot so far is slight. At the moment it is as much a real-life coming of age as a superhero origin story. Sixteen-year-old Kamala is an artist, vlogger and diehard devotee of the Avengers generally, and Captain Marvel specifically. We meet her enthusiastically narrating her latest animated story about them.

Most of the first episode features her trying to persuade her parents to let her go to the Avengers comic convention a bus ride away, refine her Ms Marvel costume and placate the school principal when she is hauled into his office for her constant “doodling” and daydreaming. Although it will probably get swallowed up in the deeper joy and wider significance of seeing a Muslim character come to life, I just want to note how absolutely wonderful it is to see an accurate, loving and untrammelled depiction of passionate female fandom, so often derided or ignored while boy geeks get to inherit the world.

Eventually, and with the help of her best friend, Bruno, (Matt Lintz) – who is also, handily, a tech genius – Cinderella gets to the cosplay ball. When she adds an old family bangle to her costume at the last minute, she becomes invested with the ability to shoot energy beams that take on sort-of-solid form and allow her to step on to platforms she can make ahead of herself in the air, as an alternative to flight or superspeed.

The bangle allows her powers to be tied to Kamala’s Pakistani heritage and the trauma of Partition in particular. It belonged to her great-grandmother, one of the many who went missing during that time and who appears to be backchannelling towards Kamala through her powers.

There’s a nice twist by the end of the second episode that promises a satisfying development of this element, but it is the domestic scenes and familial relationships that are the greatest strength of the opening instalments. Kamala’s culture and religion are depicted unapologetically and unfussily, in big ways (we see her and her friend Nakia, played by Yasmeen Fletcher, at prayer in the mosque – and complaining about the state of the women’s side compared with the men’s) and small (Kamala was scared of the Djinn in the dark when young, not ghosts).

Some might see Kamala’s efforts to escape her family’s strictures as another unwanted/unwarranted portrayal of Islam’s repressive attitudes towards women, but I suspect that to most it will come across as Bisha K Ali, the series’ creator and head writer, surely intended – a simple acknowledgment that parents of all creeds and colours gonna parent and provide grist to any teen angst mill.

The Khans are an ordinary family – although mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) has a gift for deadpan sarcasm many might long to have in their own parental arsenal – that exist in the bickering, teasing, loving, forgiving round, not as a bolt-on in the service of some mad notion of 2022 “wokeness”, whatever some are doubtless already limbering up to claim.

The whole thing is full of charm (love the graffiti that animates as Kamala and her ever-active imagination walk past), wit, warmth, brio and truth. It’s just – yes, I’m afraid I’m going to – it’s just Marvel-ous.

Ms Marvel, review: Marvel's first Muslim superhero breaks barriers, if not the mould

Marianka Swain 
TELEGRAPH
Wed 8 Jun 2022

“It’s not really the brown girls from Jersey City who save the world.” So laments Kamala Khan, the Pakistani-American teenage lead of Marvel’s latest Disney+ series – until, of course, she too becomes a superhero. It’s one of many achingly self-referential lines in this likeable but overly meta paean to diverse fandom.

© Disney+ Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms Marvel - Disney+

Khan, aka Ms Marvel, was the first Muslim character to headline a Marvel comic book, though she’s made in a familiar mould. She’s an overlooked outsider who grapples with adolescent problems alongside battling evil – and figuring out who she really is. Think John Hughes with superpowers.

Where those comics, and this TV adaptation by British comedian Bisha K Ali, differ is that they are steeped in the Muslim immigrant experience. High school student Khan debates Bollywood movies, attends mosque and Eid celebrations (where she labels the different cliques, Mean Girls-style), and struggles to reconcile her parents’ expectations with her passion for caped crusaders.

Yet those latter two handily combine: when she adds her grandmother’s traditional bangles to her Captain Marvel costume, Khan is suddenly able to manipulate cosmic energy. It’s all connected to a trauma from her family’s past, during the Partition of India – a clever way of anchoring the MacGuffin to their specific, and affecting, heritage.

That’s a significant change from the source material, in which Khan could shape-shift and “embiggen” her body. Instead, she shoots out blueish-purple light that hardens into solid blocks, allowing her to create mini-platforms in mid-air to jump upon. Occasionally different body parts light up: she has to make a fast exit from class when her nose starts to glow.

The SFX is decent in these opening two episodes, and this version of her abilities offers promising versatility action-wise, plus it connects Khan to her similarly energy-harnessing idol. In fact, Captain Marvel (played on the big screen by Brie Larson) began life as Ms Marvel, and the pair will join forces in the 2023 blockbuster sequel The Marvels.
© Provided by The Telegraph (L-R): Mohan Kapur as Yusuf, Vellani as Kamala, Saagar Shaikh as Aamir, and Nimra Bucha as Najma - Disney+

I apologise – it’s impossible to avoid using the “M” word. And that’s the downside here. Since Khan is a superfan of the super-crew (just like Kate Bishop in Hawkeye), the entertainment juggernaut can use this as a six-episode commercial for other Marvel properties, while enticing a new generation of ticket-buyers via its young-audience-skewing hi-jinks.

Khan longs to attend AvengerCon, a fictional fan convention which, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently suggested, might actually become a reality. Spider-Man star Tom Holland even popped over to the AvengerCon set to worship at the altar of Marvel. Surely that’s the ultimate ouroboros? It also muddles the identity of a show which is, ironically, about believing in yourself.

Thankfully, luminous newcomer Vellani transcends this brand synergy. She makes Khan a warm, funny, awkward, brilliantly relatable heroine who faces bullies, slurps slushies and frets about college applications – and the future generally. It’s an endearing coming-of-age portrait, where change is both scary and thrilling.


This dreamer is inspired by legendary heroes and expresses herself through art, and the show follows suit with delightfully jaunty visual flourishes. Like Netflix’s Heartstopper, the live action is peppered with colourful animation – so sketches pop up on the sides of buildings, Khan’s crush, Kamran, is surrounded by little flames, and text messages appear in the stars on her bedroom ceiling. Imagination fuels her new powers too: she describes them as feeling like “an idea come to life.”

An eclectic soundtrack reflects this cultural fusion, bouncing from The Weeknd’s Blinding Light to Pakistani pop song Ko Ko Korina. However, there’s also some blunt commentary, particularly from Khan’s friend, Nakia, who monologues on her hijab-wearing and, fed up with their school syllabus, complains that history is “written by the oppressors.” It’s also frustrating that Islam is, on the whole, portrayed as repressive and in conflict with contemporary Western values – an oft-told and narrow story.

Still, after Ewan McGregor was forced to defend his Obi-Wan Kenobi castmate Moses Ingram from racist attacks last week – sadly an ongoing problem in Star Wars and many other fandoms – it’s heartening to see Marvel put its might behind this much-needed representation. Even if it’s a cynical move to keep expanding the MCU fandom, at least this charming series welcomes everyone in.


Ms Marvel is on Disney+ now


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