It's not really the brown girls from Jersey City who save the world.
March 15, 2022 10:33 AM   Subscribe

The Ms. Marvel tv series trailer just appeared. The series will stream on Disney+ starting June 6, 2022.

Official site.

Ms. Marvel on MetaFilter previously.
posted by doctornemo (45 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Love it already.
posted by toastyk at 10:37 AM on March 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


I've already seen some complaints about the change in her powers, and I guess I'm not surprised, because comic fans don't like change very much, but...the argument is being made that her original stretchy powers are in some sense thematically appropriate, and as someone who loves the books, I'm not seeing it.
posted by Ipsifendus at 10:38 AM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I just saw this and got all excited. I'm tired of superhero movies, and I'm tired of Marvel...but Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel? I enjoyed the comics and I'm glad that she, like Spider-man Miles Morales, is going to get some screen time.
posted by Well I never at 10:38 AM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Well I love how her powers manifest. Cosmic!
posted by m@f at 10:39 AM on March 15, 2022


This looks amazing!
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:41 AM on March 15, 2022


I feel like out of all the things Marvel has done lately, they have to know that this is the thing they must absolutely nail. And so far, so good. IDK how I feel about the power change (and I really hope they aren't bracelet-based, because I hate that kinda thing), but everything that really matters most seems to be there. The casting is wonderful. That last shot got me choked up.

...I'm really holding out for an appearance of Pedantic Weekly, tho.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:03 AM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


OH HECK YEAH!

Maybe we get someone who loves being a superhero!
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:08 AM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Oh man this is going to make a certain sector of dipshit society so mad and I love it.
posted by axiom at 11:16 AM on March 15, 2022 [4 favorites]


I've already seen some complaints about the change in her powers, and I guess I'm not surprised, because comic fans don't like change very much

IDK how I feel about the power change


I think there's a few reasons for all this:

1) The MCU is bound to get a different stretchy person -- and his three fantastic friends -- in another movie getting of the ground relatively soon

2) Stretchy-person powers is tough to do well in special FX unless you're going the full CG-actor route. It looked correct in the Avengers video game, because there was no "real" actor to distort from

3) Without getting spoilery, those bands make her part of the metaplot along with Captain Marvel and Photon to be continued in Phase 4 and 5
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:16 AM on March 15, 2022 [10 favorites]


Yeah, stretch powers over a TV show has a lot of scope to go bad. If it were a cartoon that would be totally different (see One Piece for a great example of how awesome they can be for that) and I don't think the power set was integral to her as a character. It'll be fun to see what device they use to make comic Kamala more similar to MCU Kamala, because you know that'll happen.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:35 AM on March 15, 2022


Yeah, stretch powers over a TV show has a lot of scope to go bad.

I think the CW's "The Flash" handled Ralph Dibney's stretching powers pretty well, and I'm almost positive D+ has more money to throw at Ms Marvel than they did.
posted by hanov3r at 11:41 AM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


I've got some jokey Muslim feels on my Tumblr. (Very lighthearted! Very jokey! DO NOT REBLOG!)
posted by cendawanita at 11:41 AM on March 15, 2022 [6 favorites]


I read the comics this is based on when they first came out. Really really great run.
posted by backlikeclap at 11:43 AM on March 15, 2022


I have an irrational dislike for stretchy heroes and I love it when assholes get pissed off so I love this change!
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:46 AM on March 15, 2022 [6 favorites]


I think the CW's "The Flash" handled Ralph Dibney's stretching powers pretty well, and I'm almost positive D+ has more money to throw at Ms Marvel than they did.

Had to see for myself and... I think it's a good comedy superpower bit, idk if tonally the vibe the kid Ms Marvel show is doing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f2TR498Kmg
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:46 AM on March 15, 2022


I'll admit to having a high degree of salinity over her powers changing, especially if she just gets some magic bracelets. Boo :-(
I liked that her powers came from her. That she couldn't stop being who she was if she tried. I liked her as she was.

However, I do think there is a good point being made about other stretchy heroes to come, and if this show works as well as Hawkeye did for me, I'll get over it.
posted by BeReasonable at 11:50 AM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


Aw, man, I want to give her a big hug. And then also maybe hug her mom and dad. Yay brown girls from Jersey, go get it.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 12:16 PM on March 15, 2022


The change is fine. I was wondering how they'd work with her working with Captain Marvel and Photon, and doing stuff with the Nega-Bands (part of the original comics Mar-Vell's legacy) makes sense. (It's funny to imagine her meeting up with Shang-Chi and comparing cosmic bling.) I'm also getting a sort of vibe off of this that there may be some of the same energy that I'm getting from Turning Red.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:38 PM on March 15, 2022


I'm very excited for this. I'm not a big comic reader, but for some reason I picked up Ms Marvel at the beginning of its most recent iteration and just fell in love with what it represented and the story it was telling.
I have to say I was kinda interested in how they were going to do giant fist and long janky legs. that would have been fun; but superpowered muslim teenager from new jersey will be good enough for me if they pull it off.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:59 PM on March 15, 2022


Turning Red? Oh, you're talking about I Am Occasionally a Red Panda
posted by straight at 1:00 PM on March 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


My only niggling objection to her change in powers is that it means we're less likely to see Armor from X-Men in an MCU show or movies. It does irritate me that the powers seem to come from her "negabands"/bracelets, but hopefully by the end of season 1, they'll have awakened the power within her so she won't need them anymore.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 1:37 PM on March 15, 2022


Like the trailer, love the concept, very surprised not to see a cameo from one of the bankable heroes.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:42 PM on March 15, 2022


Kamala Khan was introduced at the nadir of Marvel's childish (or Stalinesque) attempt to sideline the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and other characters for which they'd lost the movie rights, going so far as to cancel Marvel's longest-running comic book, stripping them out of already-released video games, and even photoshopping them out of T-shirts based on classic comic book covers.

Marvel Comics tried to replace "mutants" with "inhumans" as the story engine for creating new characters with super powers (an odd choice given that the Inhumans appeared first and most often in Fantastic Four comics). If Kamala Khan had been introduced a decade earlier, she would almost certainly have been a mutant. Instead the explanation for her superpowers was that she was an Inhuman.

But the whole trying-to-make-Inhumans-happen thing flopped in the comics almost as badly as it did on TV and has since been almost entirely abandoned. So I think it's a good idea to rework the Ms. Marvel concept. Wouldn't you rather have her character associated with Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau than with these folks?
posted by straight at 2:04 PM on March 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


1) The MCU is bound to get a different stretchy person -- and his three fantastic friends -- in another movie getting of the ground relatively soon

I'm a Gen-Xer who learned to read via comics saying this: if that's the issue, they would 100% be better off giving Reed a different power set and keeping the stretchy-shapechanging with Kamala. Reed's distinctive hero thing is his brain. His powers are an afterthought by comparison. Kamala is already a bigger icon, too.

If it's the Nega-Bands, I'm totally down with that as a point of connection and maybe bestowing or awakening her powers. I'm just hoping we don't see her in a Green Lantern-style deal where she has no powers without them, because that's just tiresome. (Also, we just had a superhero who got a set of super-bracelets, so...?)

Anyway I fully reiterate that the powers are the lesser issue. The spirit of this comic seems like it's 100% there and that's what I can't wait to see.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:08 PM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm so excited. I hope they have her interaction with Lockjaw... it's so good and exemplified her character.


posted by goddess_eris at 2:26 PM on March 15, 2022


In the comics, Kamala's powers have been a little more Plastic Man than Mr. Fantastic, along with size-changing. Her fists get bigger and stronger rather than just stretched-out. But I can see wanting to make her more distinct from Wasp and Ant-Man. And body-stretching might be hard to keep from defaulting to body-horror and comedy where the stretchy person is the punchline.

I like the idea of a Marvel hero with Green Lantern type powers—it seems like an easy thing to make exciting, inventive, and fun now that CG is so good. But I agree that I'd much rather it be an innate power than something like Quantum Bands or Nega-Bands (the powers in the trailer are more like the Quantum Bands, but the energy signature looks more like Nega-Bands, and the Nega-Bands are more closely related to the Kree and Captain Marvel). One of the core concepts of Ms. Marvel is that, like Peter Parker, Kamala can't just put the power (and responsibility) aside or give it to somebody else.
posted by straight at 2:27 PM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I thought the stretchy powers worked in the book as a reflection of the push/pull of trying to be an "American" (for certain values of that phrase) while also being a Muslim girl in that toxic soup of post 9/11ness.

Having said that, don't care.... this looks great so far.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:28 PM on March 15, 2022


I am super psyched about this show. Read some of the comics and thought it was an inspired decision to feature a Muslim teen of color as a superhero. I'm liking everything about the trailer, including the little bits of comic book filigree (word balloons, cartoon devil horns over mean girl). Reminds me of similar touches in the Scott Pilgrim adaptation, which I also really liked. I'm down to watch this.

It used to be that Marvel had the movies, but DC had the TV shows. No more, Titanic True Believer! I've enjoyed pretty much every Marvel adaptation I've seen (that said, I didn't watch more than the first episode of Iron Fist), and they seem to be going from strength to strength. Looking forward to Phase 4? 5?, wherever we are in the saga. Thanks for posting!
posted by the sobsister at 2:44 PM on March 15, 2022


Some of the shots make it look like she might be elongating her body rather than just extending an energy exoskeleton. Also, a lady in the trailer asks, "Do you know what you are?" which might also hint at something more innate.
posted by straight at 2:47 PM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


I guess we won't get to see Kamala Khan shout "EMBIGGEN!" and get really tall.
posted by RakDaddy at 2:54 PM on March 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


Could be a mix--the wristbands could be a way of channeling innate power, a la Cyclops' visor.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:55 PM on March 15, 2022


I'm glad that Kamala isn't a mutant because it is too easy for mutants to get sucked into the X-Men world and while the whole Reign of X thing has been fun I'm glad that the bulk of Kamala's other superhero interactions are with Miles and her fellow Champions or with her hero Captain Marvel.

As a storytelling device having someone be a mutant gets boring quick. Replacing that with them secretly being an Inhuman and didn't know it is pretty much the same thing and isn't any better. There's probably a limit for how many non-repeatable science experiments can go wrong or how many power-granting artifacts can be found but DC seems to be fine creating new heroes without using either of those.
[check's this weeks/months/years DC releases and sees that at least 60% of them are Batman]
But my point still stands.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:18 PM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


Kamala Khan was literally the only good thing about the recent Marvel's Avengers game, and this show looks really fun, so well done everybody!
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:03 PM on March 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


her original stretchy powers are in some sense thematically appropriate

I do think they're thematically appropriate, personally. They are the very embodiment of being a gangly teenager who doesn't feel completely in control of their own body, and as drewbage1847 noted, a person who is not totally sure where she fits in to society (American or super-hero). Plus they are kind of goofy and fun in a way that perfectly suits Khan's character.

I can see how they'd have trouble with making them look cool on a TV show budget, though, so I'm willing to give them a pass on this. (I'm just hoping they don't wind up introducing Nova, that dude is so boring and he seems to be inescapable in the comics.)
posted by whir at 9:20 PM on March 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Reed's distinctive hero thing is his brain. His powers are an afterthought by comparison.

A rocket crashes in the desert, and four figures emerge from the smoking ruins.

Ben: Cosmic rays! I told you, Reed, we needed more shielding! Now I've turned into some... rocky... thing!

Johnny: Woooo! I burst into flames and can fly! Woooo!

Sue: And the girl nobody notices gets to turn invisible. Great. Little bit on the nose, there.

Reed: But we're alive and together, that's what's important.

Ben: ... And what happened to you? Feeling any different?

Reed shrugs.

Ben: No issues? No changes? Not feeling bad? Didn't become dumb or something? Same old Reed?

Reed: No, I... no, everything feels fine. I feel... smart? If that's possible, although I must say I was already quite intelligent so overall everything is good.

Ben: Good, good, that's good. So while Johnny's a matchstick, Sue's disappeared, and I look like a boulder, you... you're just the same, weak, pompous, overbearing egghead? So if one of my fists made of granite were to take a swing at that self-important mug of yours, you ain't gonna turn to rubber? You're definitely going to feel me punching you, right?


Love this trailer, can't wait for the show. I'm amazed that, time and again, fans worry about Marvel screwing something up, and they keep... not. Yes, they change things from the comics. But the comics changed things from the comics. Peter Parker wasn't Tony Stark's protege, and he never got chummy with Mysterio. Avengers started before SHIELD existed. It all works out. They do fan service right - Scarlet Witch in her original costume for Hallowe'en. Kate sketching the purple Hawkeye suit. Mocking Natasha's three-point landings. It's not perfect, and it never will be. But damn, as a kid who grew up in the 70s reading these things, this has been far more than I ever expected. Moon Knight! She-Hulk! Agatha Harkness! I was well out of comics by the time Miles Morales and Kamala Khan showed up, but it's been abso-freaking-lutely awesome discovering them and having them fit together with everything else I do know. So looking forward to this.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 4:09 AM on March 16, 2022 [6 favorites]


She still does Big Punchy Stretchy Hand at 1:25 you guys.

I'm not terribly concerned with the change to the nature of her powers. It's been a little bit since I read the comics, but wasn't there something in the comics about her powers being channeled through/from some ancestor/generational thing? Can someone help me out here?
posted by Fleebnork at 6:04 AM on March 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


This looks like so much fun, I’ve never read the comic but I’m really looking forward to it.
posted by mon_petit_ordinateur at 7:51 AM on March 16, 2022


They are the very embodiment of being a gangly teenager who doesn't feel completely in control of their own body, and as drewbage1847 noted, a person who is not totally sure where she fits in to society (American or super-hero). Plus they are kind of goofy and fun in a way that perfectly suits Khan's character.

Thank you! Upon thinking about it a little more carefully, and especially in light of this comment, I'm now seeing why the shift in the powers bothers people on a thematic level. And it's not like I haven't been a huge stickler for adhering to the perceived "canon" of ramshackle comicbook universes myself in the past (cough Snyderverse sucks cough). But I'm really excited to see Kamala Khan making it to the screen. She's by far the most recent character to have been given an adaptation, and one of the characters that I think represents Marvel's best path forward as a multi-stream, multi-media narrative project.

So I don't want them to screw the show up, but I also don't want it to suffer from audience expectations that they're almost certain to. Like, people who love the original comics don't want it to be bad, most obviously, and may fear that it's going to fail the story in some respect. But equally, there's a population of dudes out there who are definitely rooting for it fail, so they can gloat online about Woke Superheroes being commercial duds or some such nonsense.
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:46 AM on March 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


I volunteer to watch it to offset an angry dude. It'd be nice for my state to be known for someone other than Springsteen.
posted by kimberussell at 10:16 AM on March 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


(excited squeeing!)

This is one of the things getting me through this year. (And less than a year until the Danvers / Rambeau / Khan team-up!)
...
On the power set changes, a teaser from last November did telegraph that her powers were different - the reflection of her, apparently walking on air, in the windows of the background skyscraper.

"Wilson: At the very early stages, I [said] I did not want her to have stereotypical girl powers. Nothing’s going to sparkle; she’s not going to float. I wanted her to have something kinetic and physical that would look fun on the page. There was a lot of back and forth about what her power set should be, and we settled on making her a polymorph."

Sana Amanat quoted Wilson's discussion of this in the Marvel 616 episode "Higher Further Faster", directed by Gillian Jacobs. (Around minute 52, the episode discusses the creation of Kamala Khan.) "When we were trying to develop Ms. Marvel and her power set, Willow was really adamant that Ms. Marvel didn't have 'pretty powers'. She would say , 'Traditionally, a lot of our female characters either had sparkly powers or some mind control abilities.' So that was incredibly important to her, to kind of break the mold in that regard."

In the Behind the Mask special on Disney+, Amanda Shendruk presented it slightly differently: "Male characters were given the very physical powers, and female characters have these sort of point-and-pose powers. These powers where you just, you stand and look nice and you point, and you can do something with your mind."

So, I suspect there had to be a couple conversations on the show's creative teams balancing "What can we achieve on the budget we've got?" against "Can we portray her powers in ways breaking that 60's pose-and-point stereotype?"
....
And the tone of "Do I have to figure out my whole future before lunch, or...." really made me want a Kamala Khan/Kate Bishop buddy comedy.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 2:47 PM on March 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


A few years ago at Geek Girl Con, I went to a G Willow Wilson interview and naturally the idea of a live-action show or film came up. I put my hand up in the Q&A.

I asked, "Given that comic book characters don't need to age, you can have Kamala stay in high school as long as you want. But real-world actors age, and shows age with them. Have you thought about what Kamala's future looks like after high school? College, career, all that?"

And the first thing out of her mouth was "OH NO DON'T ASK ME THAT!"
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:31 PM on March 16, 2022 [4 favorites]


"Have you thought about what Kamala's future looks like after high school? College, career, all that?" - scaryblackdeath

Could be president; could be Cable.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 4:09 PM on March 16, 2022


Oh! And! She needs to yell "SKADOOSH!" at least once while punching a baddie or throwing a car or whatever. I hope the tracksuit bros show up to get their butts kicked.
posted by Fleebnork at 5:45 AM on March 17, 2022 [2 favorites]


I am so here for this.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:53 AM on March 18, 2022


Iman Vellani Reacts to the Ms Marvel Trailer
Just because I like seeing how happy the young actress seems.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 4:50 PM on March 18, 2022 [4 favorites]


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