Kamala Khan, the teenager at the center of the new Disney+ show “Ms. Marvel”, isn’t your typical Marvel superhero. Sure, she battles bad guys. But she’s also a Muslim high school student living with her Pakistani-born parents in Jersey City — which makes “Ms. Marvel” the first show or film in the Marvel universe to feature a Muslim hero.
Head writer Bisha K. Ali says Khan’s character was informed by her own experiences growing up in England as the child of Pakistani-born parents, as well as the experiences of other second-generation writers.
While the show is written for a broad audience who love the Marvel cinematic universe, Ali says it also speaks, in part, to people “who rarely get to see themselves be the protagonists, who have suffered from a history of poor media representation in the West.”
Read this story for free
To continue reading, sign up for our newsletters and get unlimited access to WABE.org
We won't share your information with outside organizations Why am I seeing this?