There are only fifteen days left until Moon Knight begins to drop on Disney+, bringing a very different hero into the MCU. And after that show ends, we’ll be in for another different kind of hero – make way for Ms. Marvel, starring Iman Vellani as fangirling Pakistani-American Kamala Khan, finally entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe after years of being a comic book (and video game) favourite. Like Spider-Man, she’s a particularly teenage character, juggling school, her home life, and her superhero dreams – and her Disney+ series looks to dial right into that teen-movie feeling. Watch the official trailer here.
Looks fun, right? It’s interesting to see Marvel playing with its visual style here, bringing Kamala’s daydreams into the look of the series itself. And just as Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop was a Hawkeye fangirl in that series, there’s joy in getting to see Kamala be so obsessed with Captain Marvel – complete with cosplay, fantasy visions, and an incredible Marvel hero / Beyoncé crossover t-shirt that we demand to own immediately. And just like the comics, this one seems to be largely centred around Kamala’s immediate neighborhood of Jersey City – though there is a bigger sense of scale in certain shots of the trailer.
Notably, there seems to be a shift in Ms. Marvel’s powers here – for one, it seems unlikely that Kamala will be an Inhuman activated by the Terrigen Mist, as she was on the page. As for her powerset, it seems to revolve around cosmic energy – manifesting purpley crystals that can be used as platforms, shields, and for other purposes. But, there are shots of her creating a huge fist for punching baddies, and she does seem to elongate as she leaps across the sky – so maybe some of her stretchy powers from the comics will continue here too. Check out the poster for the series here:
Ms. Marvel counts Bisha K. Ali as its head writer, with episodes directed by Bad Boys For Life duo Adil & Bilall, as well as Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Meera Menon. Ms. Marvel also stars Saagar Shaikh as Kamala’s older brother Amir, and Zenobia Shroff and Mohan Kapur as her mother and father. Matt Lintz plays her best friend Bruno. Along with the trailer, we now have a release date for the show – it’ll begin streaming from 8 June, dropping concurrently with Obi-Wan Kenobi which begins on 25 May. Beyond that, we’ll see Vellani reprise the role of Kamala Khan in Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, coming in February 2023 – where she’ll be rubbing shoulders with her idol, Carol Danvers. Now that should be a cosmic blast.